Schism

MOST Holy Father,

Schism is the gravest of sins, because it offends against charity. I could say, against love, but this word is vague and ambiguous, because it is also used to mean blind passion. We all know exactly the meaning of the word Charity, the third and most desirable of the theological virtues. It means the love of our Heavenly Father and of the One sent by Him, Our Saviour Jesus Christ; and of the Holy Ghost who, proceeding from the Father and the Son, fills the hearts of the faithful. Therefore also of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, through which the work of the Blessed Trinity is continued in time, down to our own day, and of the members of this Church who are our brethren and finally of our neighbour, whoever he may be, including even our enemies, for whom we wish nothing but good, and above all the greatest good of all – the faith through which they can attain life everlasting...

Charity – which is Love, guided and regulated by Faith and Hope – necessarily carries with it the hatred of Satan, the Prince of God’s enemies, and of the schisms and heresies which he has brought about in the past and still continues to provoke today. It must imply also a righteous hatred of the originators of heresies and schisms both ancient and modern, not indeed as far as their souls are concerned, but of their teaching and their evil intentions, of their actions directed against Christ. And finally, it must include an absolute hatred of all that is insulting to God and hinders the action of His grace: false religions and ideologies, books, parties, meetings calculated to interfere with the peace of the Church.

It is the love of the Light, with a commensurate hatred of Darkness, which results in that overflowing, apostolic love towards all men, which is prepared to undertake anything in order to snatch them from the hands of the Powers of Darkness and bring them back into union with the Mystical Body of Christ. It is in this sense that we are called, to use a term invented in his ardent love of Our Lord and of the most abandoned of heathens, by Father Charles of Jesus, to be “ Universal Brothers ”.

SCHISM AS A THREEFOLD INVERSION OF LOVE

Alas, Most Holy Father, you have shown, over these past ten years, such an inversion of love, that we are forced to charge you with schism, however paradoxical this may appear when applied to the person of the Pope who would be expected – in accordance with the inscription on the dome of Saint Peter’s, to be the bond of charity: Inde oritur unitas sacerdotii. But alas, what should be the very source of unity now gives rise to division, chaos springs from the Stronghold of Charity, and love has become so disordered that it embraces only what is evil and is changed to coldness or even hatred towards that which has remained good !

Schism with regard to individuals

You seem always to be seeking the company of those who are “ at a distance ”, and singling them out for signs of your love and respect, in preference to those of your own Faith. If only this were done with the apostolic intention of bringing them back into the fold, as you sometimes say ! But in fact this anomalous preference that you show towards them serves only to encourage them to remain where they are, in the false security resulting from your apparent approval.

Conversely, you manifest coldness and enmity towards the most affectionate and the most devoted of your children. It would seem that they are merely a source of irritation for you and that you expect nothing from them. We have reached the stage where it is easier to gain your favour if one first turns into an enemy of the Church, or at least mounts an attack upon the Papacy.

Schism with regard to the Church, her rites and tradition

This paradoxical love manifests itself not only with regard to individuals, but also with regard to all that constitutes the beauty and colour of the Church’s everyday existence, her institutions and her liturgy, her Tradition in fact. You admire the language, ceremonial, and traditions of other religions. And the farther from us and the more strange, the more offensive even to our Christian sensibility, they are, the better you like them. Conversely, you pursue with a destructive hatred all that pertains to the ancient Catholic tradition, to the Roman Church, the Roman liturgy and all the hallowed liturgies of the Western Church. And you will not desist until our customs and discipline have, together with our liturgy, been entirely replaced by those which are found in schismatic and heretical bodies. You hypnotise the Church into feeling ill at ease in her own skin and wishing to invest herself with some of those she despised in the past.

Schism with regard to God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Such a transfer of his affections from his own kind to his enemies, such a veritable denial of charity on the part of the Roman Pontiff which leads him to destroy the traditional rites and institutions of his own Church in order to replace them with ones that are alien to her, must be founded on – or else eventually lead to – a separation from God. A paradoxical inversion of love on such a scale, obstinate and lasting, and completely unyielding, could not take place without involving also the First Causes, the Personifications of Good and Evil, whence flows all the good and evil in this world here below.

You show yourself so indifferent towards the interests and the rights of God, so disdainful of the Will of God, so hostile towards what is beyond doubt the work of God, that it makes my blood run cold. The furtherance of God’s cause among men and the welfare of the Church mean nothing to you, while you show a passionate, excited interest – which is even reflected on your face and gives it sometimes a youthful appearance – for the Kingdom of Satan, his pomps and his works.

Most Holy Father, I tremble with confusion and distress as I write such accusations. But I will pursue my task to its bitter end. You have, through many public acts, some with world-wide repercussions, set a hateful example to the members of your own Church of how not to love, many of them too weak not to follow in your wake. Yet no one can serve two masters, no one can contain in his heart two contradictory, mutually exclusive kinds of love. And for the past ten years you have been doing all in your power, through words and actions, to help in the building of that Other City, of which St Augustine wrote, contrasting it with the Heavenly City: “ Two kinds of love have built two cities: the love of God to the contempt of self, and the love of self to the contempt of God. ” (The City of God 14.28)

I shall leave to the chapter entitled Scandal my evidence that a love which is turned away from one’s own brothers is a manifestation of love of self. Here I am concerned with showing that the love which you show “ the others ” has given rise within the Church to those terrible things, hatred and division, in other words, to Schism. The examples I will give are taken from a mass of others which I made no attempt to record. I had no intention of tracking down your every move, of spying upon you, and the idea of compiling a list of evidence against my own Father did not come to me till recently. What I have at hand is ample and indeed far too painful for me to wish to lengthen the list.