Pope Francis' doctrinal shifts risk splitting the church

• The Pope has introduced "a new model of Catholicism, which involves doctrinal regionalization," notes Father Professor Kobylinski.
• According to the cleric, this may lead to a schism in the Church.
• Father Professor Kobylinski highlights that "the greatest challenge of the coming decades will be maintaining unity so that the Catholic Church does not splinter into various conservative or liberal factions."

As Father Professor Kobylinski points out, Pope Francis has introduced "a new model of Catholicism, which involves doctrinal regionalization." This means departing from fixed, universal, and immutable principles and norms. In their place, the individual conscience judgment of each faithful in the Church is emphasized, said the head of the Department of Ethics at UKSW. He added that one consequence of this doctrinal revolution is allowing divorced and remarried individuals to receive holy communion, which was previously impossible.

Another example is the "Fiducia supplicans" declaration from 2023, which allows the blessing of homosexual unions in the Catholic Church. Father Professor Kobylinski noted that on one hand, the pope is decentralizing doctrine, while on the other, he is strengthening his authority, illustrated by the decision to allocate housing in the Vatican to Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

Father Professor Kobylinski also pointed out that the pope has led to doctrinal decentralization on one hand and, on the other, "a deeper centralization and strengthening of papal authority," citing the personal decision of the pope regarding housing allocation in the Vatican for the former personal secretary of Benedict XVI, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

When asked about how much Francis had the right to independently change the doctrine of the Catholic Church, a doctrine he was essentially supposed to be the primary guardian of, Father Professor Kobylinski said that this is "a question we will be asking ourselves for the next decades, and perhaps even centuries, because there are many doubts about whether Pope Francis has overused papal authority."

He added that we will also be asking about the long-term consequences of his revolutionary changes, as in a sense, we have bade farewell to the old version of Catholicism, said the cleric.

The cleric stressed that there is an ongoing discussion in the Church about the position of the pope. In Latin, there is an expression, "Ecclesia semper reformanda" (The Church always undergoing reform), which means that over the centuries, necessary reforms have been introduced while defending the immutability of the deposit of faith, that is, the truths of faith and morals handed down by Jesus Christ and the apostles. In connection with this, a fundamental question must be asked: How to reconcile tradition with modernity? How to distinguish what should not change from what requires change? And this is what we will argue about in the coming years as we assess Pope Francis's pontificate, said Father Professor Kobylinski.

He added that one of the manifestations of the pope's revolution is also his cardinal appointments. He did not seek a balance between conservative and liberal Catholicism but appointed only those clergy who agreed with his understanding of faith and morals. In connection with this, it seems likely that the college formed in this way will choose a successor to Francis, who will be a continuator of his revolution - assessed the expert.

Father Professor Kobylinski admitted that "there is a risk of a real schism in the Catholic Church, hence the greatest challenge of the coming decades will be maintaining unity so that it does not split into various conservative or liberal factions, as is the case in other denominations."

Currently, the Catholic Church has adopted the principle of unity in diversity, meaning we maintain common power structures but agree to doctrinal diversity, which is a kind of Anglicanization of Catholicism. As a result, the number of those faithful who do not accept the doctrinal revolution may increase, leaving the structures of the Catholic Church and forming new ecclesial communities, declared the cleric, adding that "time will tell."