Catholic Apologetics Online

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152. Did not the Great Western Schism disprove the unity of the Catholic Church?

No. What is known as the "Great Western Schism" lasted from 1378 till 1417. It was not strictly a schism at all. During that period besides the lawful Pope, there were two others who unlawfully proclaimed themselves Popes, each having a following convinced that his claims were riVht By 1417…

No. What is known as the "Great Western Schism" lasted from 1378 till 1417. It was not strictly a schism at all. During that period besides the lawful Pope, there were two others who unlawfully proclaimed themselves Popes, each having a following convinced that his claims were riVht By 1417 things were straightened out, and one lawful Pope was acknowledged by all. The unity of the Church as a Church was no more affected by this than the unity of the Kingdom of England was affected by the fact that at various times there were Pretenders to the Throne with followers convinced of their rightful claims.

Topic: "Unity of the Church" in Vol 4.

155. The Great Western Schism must have permanently injured the Church.

It did not. It was but a transitory historical episode; and as I have said was not really a schism at all. The confusion was ended by the Council of Constance in 1417 when the lawful Pope Gregory XII resigned, the two Pretenders were declared not lawful Popes at all,…

It did not. It was but a transitory historical episode; and as I have said was not really a schism at all. The confusion was ended by the Council of Constance in 1417 when the lawful Pope Gregory XII resigned, the two Pretenders were declared not lawful Popes at all, and Pope Martin V was elected and acknowledged by everybody as the one true Pope. Over five hundred years have elapsed since then without any recurrence of such confusion.

Topic: "Unity of the Church" in Vol 4.

133. Why must the Pope always be an Italian?

There is no law in the Catholic Church to that effect. Before the Greek schism in the 11th century and the Protestant reformation in the 16th century there were many non-Italian Popes. Since the break-up of the unity of Christendom the Popes have all been Italians by force of various…

There is no law in the Catholic Church to that effect. Before the Greek schism in the 11th century and the Protestant reformation in the 16th century there were many non-Italian Popes. Since the break-up of the unity of Christendom the Popes have all been Italians by force of various circumstances which it would take too long to explain in detail here. But the nationality of the Pope is not of vital importance to the Church.

Topic: "Papal supremacy" in Vol 4.

156. An Anglican Bishop tells me that the Christian Church is rent by schism and is divided even now.

That is impossible. There can be no real schism in the Church. There can only be schism from the Church. Christ, who warned us that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, took good care that His Church would ever retain its essential unity. Take an analogy from the relationships…

That is impossible. There can be no real schism in the Church. There can only be schism from the Church. Christ, who warned us that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, took good care that His Church would ever retain its essential unity. Take an analogy from the relationships between England and the United States. The Pilgrim Fathers went to America and founded an English colony there. But eventually the colonists repudiated the authority of the British Throne, declared their independence, and became a new nation, the United States of America, ceasing to be part of the British Empire. Your Anglican Bishop belongs to a Church which in a somewhat similar way ceased to belong to the Catholic Church to which it previously belonged. Pope Gregory the Great sent missionaries to England to establish the Church—the only Church those missionaries knew, the Catholic Church—in that country. Nearly a thousand years later Henry VIII, with the British Parliament, repudiated the authority of the Pope which all Englishmen had till then acknowledged and which all Catholics in France, Germany, Spain and other countries continued to acknowledge. Henry's new Church of England was no more part of the Church previously acknowledged than the United States of America, after the Declaration of Independence, was part of the British nation.

Topic: "Unity of the Church" in Vol 4.

433. In my opinion the Catholic Church, with her infallible dogmas is the greatest deterrent civilization has had to contend with.

That judgment is not in accordance with historical facts. It was the Catholic Church which lifted the Western world from pagan barbarism to Christian civilization. She is the mother of architecture, music, painting and sculpture; of ethics, philosophy and education. Her monks founded schools throughout Europe, preserving the literature of…

That judgment is not in accordance with historical facts. It was the Catholic Church which lifted the Western world from pagan barbarism to Christian civilization. She is the mother of architecture, music, painting and sculpture; of ethics, philosophy and education. Her monks founded schools throughout Europe, preserving the literature of the past and inspiring the literature of the future. She established the great universities oil Europe, including Oxford and Cambridge. Professor Whitehead, a non-Catholic, says that the Middle Ages were "pre-eminently an epoch of orderly thought, rationalist through and through, forming one long training of the intellect of Western Europe in the sense of order." Your verdict ignores the evidence, evidence contained in countless documents in all the libraries of the world.

Topic: "Faith and reason" in Vol 4.

515. You attribute that to our system of secular education.

Secular education has undoubtedly been a major factor in producing religionless Australians. Let me quote for you two very prominent men, one in England and the other in America, both of them non-Catholics. In a broadcast address from the B.B.C., shortly before his death, Archbishop Temple of Canterbury said: "Modern…

Secular education has undoubtedly been a major factor in producing religionless Australians. Let me quote for you two very prominent men, one in England and the other in America, both of them non-Catholics. In a broadcast address from the B.B.C., shortly before his death, Archbishop Temple of Canterbury said: "Modern English culture regards faith in God as a dispensable indulgence. This reaches its climax in our educational system. We have supposed that it is possible to provide education which is religiously neutral, to which religion can then be added in greater or less measure. But, in fact, an education which is not religious is atheistic; there is no middle way. If you give to children an account of the world from which God is left out, you are teaching them to understand the world without reference to God." According to Archbishop Temple, therefore, the fruit of secular education is a generation of godless atheists in the end. Let us now turn to Walter Lippman, the noted American author. Not long ago, in an address at Philadelphia, he spoke as follows: "Modern man, as turned out by our secular schools and as he is shaped by the prevailing popular culture, is a being who lives not according to reason but only to get more and more satisfaction. The secular man, who obeys his impulses, knows no reason that transcends his wishes, and has as his chief article of faith an ideal of secular progress, is now dominant in the world. Men cannot remain civilized when they have rejected the culture of their civilization; when they no longer discipline themselves and their children in the tradition which comes to them from the Prophets and the Saints, and the Teachers and the Philosophers, and the Discoverers, who raised Western Man out of barbarism." The fruits of secular education, which Archbishop Temple has perceived in England, and Walter Lippman in America, are clearly evident, to all who have eyes to see in Australia and in America.

Topic: "Religion and education" in Vol 4.

700. Surely this political power, productive of conflict as it was, involved the Catholic Church as an institution.

It did. The Catholic Church has never repudiated responsibility for j her influence, even political, in the formation and preservation of Chris--j | tendom. But her political administration was not productive of conflict. L If conflicts developed, they were due to resistances, now here, now there, ft on the part…

It did. The Catholic Church has never repudiated responsibility for j her influence, even political, in the formation and preservation of Chris--j | tendom. But her political administration was not productive of conflict. L If conflicts developed, they were due to resistances, now here, now there, ft on the part of those who would have resisted restraints no matter by whom I, they were imposed. On the whole, however, the political authority of the E medieval Popes was productive of much more good than could be offset by troubles caused by malcontents. S I| The Russian Orthodox philosopher, Vladimir Solovyev, in his book, 1, "Russia and the Universal Church," holds it as one of the glories of the Roman Church as opposed to his own, that she did not refuse the burden I of social and political duties. "The Western Church," he wrote, "faithful to the apostolic mission, has not been afraid to plunge into the mire of history. After having been for centuries the only element of moral order and intellectual culture among the barbarous peoples of Europe, it under- I took the task not only of the spiritual education of these peoples of inde- 1 pendent spirit and uncivilized instincts, but also their material government. In devoting itself to this arduous task, the Papacy thought not so much of the cleanliness of its own appearance as of the urgent needs of mankind." Volumes could be, and have been written on this subject; but I have said enough to show that it is not so simple a matter as many people suppose. Meantime, whilst the Catholic Church is quite prepared to accept responsibility as an institution for the exercise of political power by medieval Popes, no abuses that may have resulted indirectly from it can be used as an argument against the truth of the Catholic Church, or her moral integrity as such.

Topic: "Catholic Church and political ambitions" in Vol 4.

777. Why, although the Pope did not protest against the bombing of towns and cities in any other countries, did he protest against the bombing of Rome? Was Rome any different from other cities?

As supreme head of the Catholic Church the Pope had to be above all sectional interests. There were Catholics in all the belligerent countries in World War II. Nor could the Pope allow himself to be dragged into the condemnation of particular outrages which interested politicians wanted condemned to suit…

As supreme head of the Catholic Church the Pope had to be above all sectional interests. There were Catholics in all the belligerent countries in World War II. Nor could the Pope allow himself to be dragged into the condemnation of particular outrages which interested politicians wanted condemned to suit themselves. Those interested politicians did not really believe in the right of the Pope to praise or condemn anybody from the moral point of view. They would attach no weight whatever to any condemnation which affected their own conduct. They were merely ready to complain when the Pope did not say or do what they thought he should say or do. But the Pope was not really silent. Again and again he condemned attacks on non-military objectives, and the destruction of civilian populations, regardless of which nation was guilty of such conduct. On June 2, 1940, when Germany was having things all her own way and was indiscriminately bombing English cities, the Pope protested strongly against the forgetfulness by belligerents of duties to humanity, and against the extermination of non-combatants. Any particular incident violating laws of humanity fell under that condemnation and of many others similar to it. As for the particular protest against the bombing of Rome, there were good reasons for that from the purely religious point of view. Anyone who knows anything of history knows that Rome is the Mother of Western Christendom. England itself, as well as the rest of Christendom, owed its Christian Faith to Rome. Just as Jerusalem itself, where Our Lord died, has international religious significance for all Christians, so Rome whence the Christian religion was spread throughout the Western World has international religious significance for all Christians. Everyone deplored, and rightly so, the destruction of ancient and venerable Cathedrals and Churches in Europe. But there was yet more, and altogether special reasons, to deplore the destruction of the most ancient and venerable Christian edifices in Rome itself.

Topic: "Catholicism anti-democatic" in Vol 4.

1340. There seems to have been divisions and schisms from the very beginning, and many of the causes of the present Protestant divisions and sects were present at the time of St. Paul.

The cause of present divisions was, of course, present in earlier divisions, the mistaken thinking and the pride and self-sufficiency of men. But whilst the cause has been the same, the excuses alleged by those who p.n different ages have separated themselves from the Catholic Church have tiot been the…

The cause of present divisions was, of course, present in earlier divisions, the mistaken thinking and the pride and self-sufficiency of men. But whilst the cause has been the same, the excuses alleged by those who p.n different ages have separated themselves from the Catholic Church have tiot been the same; nor have earlier separations from the Catholic Church :eally influenced later ones. For most of the earlier ones had flourished if independent sects for a time, and had then died completely away before :he Protestant reformers abandoned the Catholic Church in the 16th century. There is a continuity of dispositions in men which accounts for different schisms in different ages. But there is no continuity from schism to schism.

Topic: "Divided Christendom" in Vol 4.

Results 1 to 9 of 9.

"The hardest thing to find in the world today is an argument. Because so few are thinking, naturally there are found but few to argue. Prejudice there is in abundance and sentiment too, for these things are born of enthusiasms without the pain of labour. Thinking, on the contrary, is a difficult task; it is the hardest work a man can do - that is perhaps why so few indulge in it."
- Mgsr Fulton Sheen in Preface to Vol 3 (1942)

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