CREATING A DIFFERENT CHURCH? WILL IT BACKFIRE AND HAS IT ALREADY?

When Martin Luther was still an acting Augustinian Priest, he had no dream or intent of creating a new Church, just a different type of Catholic Church, Modestly reformed. His proposed reforms were minor at the beginning and fully sustainable if not for one thing. What he was proposing began a cascade effect that led him and then his followers to break communion not only with the pope, but with apostolic succession and the sacramental life of the Church. They were so bold as to say that there are only two sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion. The major problem, though, is that for Holy Communion to be validly consecrated you need apostolic succession and valid Holy Orders, which Luther’s followers negated. 

Fast forward to the reforming pope, Pope Francis and the Holy Father creating a different Church. To a certain extent some of his pastoral initiatives are sustainable, but others, like blessing same sex and other illicit sexual unions will have a cascade effect, either intended or unintended, leading to a break with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

It could happen in two ways. The next pope cancels the pastoral initiatives of Pope Francis, like Pope Francis has canceled so much of Benedict XVI and John Paul II’s papacies. But in this case, those yearning for a different Church will create it without the pope and the cascade effect will be similar to what Martin Luther began. There will be all kinds of new neo-Protestant denominations coming from Pope Francis’ initial reforms and not resembling in any way the Catholic Church as she is on December 21, 2023.

Or, the next Pope will take Pope Francis’ pastoral initiatives to their logical conclusion and there will be a major break with the Pope in another Great Schism, but Apostolic Succession and the truths of the Catholic Church’s moral teachings and Sacramental life will be preserved but in Schism like the Eastern Orthodox Churches. These new groupings may well be national as is the Eastern Orthodox Schism. 

No telling what the Catholic Church under a Pope that takes Pope Francis’ initiatives to their logical conclusion will look like, but it will be headed by the Bishop of Rome, whoever he, she, it, they, them is. 

And just as the Eastern Orthodox Church say that Rome is in schism, not them, so too will the new Schism have those who don’t accept the Bishop of Rome as the Head of the Universal Church will say about that different Church the Bishop of Rome heads. History repeats itself.