Pope Francis' reforms risk church schism, warns ethicist

• The Pope has introduced a "new model of Catholicism," involving doctrinal regionalisation, Father Professor Kobylinski highlights.
• According to the clergyman, this could lead to a schism within the Church.
• Father Professor Kobylinski points out that "the greatest challenge of the coming decades will be maintaining unity to prevent the Catholic Church from splitting into various conservative or liberal factions."

Father Professor Kobyliński indicates that Pope Francis has introduced a "new model of Catholicism," which involves doctrinal regionalisation. This signifies a departure from fixed, universal, and immutable principles and norms. These are being replaced by the individual conscience judgment of the Church's faithful, stated the head of the Department of Ethics at UKSW, adding: One of the consequences of this doctrinal revolution is the allowance for divorced individuals living in new relationships to receive Holy Communion, which was previously impossible.

Another example is the 2023 declaration "Fiducia supplicans," which allows for the blessing of homosexual unions in the Catholic Church. Father Professor Kobylinski noted that the Pope is decentralising doctrine on one hand, while strengthening his authority on the other, as illustrated by the decision to allocate an apartment in the Vatican to Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

Father Professor Kobyliński also pointed out that the Pope has led to doctrinal decentralisation on one side and deeper centralisation and strengthening of papal authority on the other, providing the example of the Pope's personal decision regarding an apartment allocation in the Vatican for the former personal secretary of Benedict XVI, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

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

We will also ask about the long-term consequences of the revolutionary changes he has made because, in a sense, we have said goodbye to the old version of Catholicism, the clergyman said.

The clergyman emphasised that there is ongoing discussion in the Church about the Pope's role. There is a Latin expression "Ecclesia semper reformanda" (the Church is always to be reformed), meaning that necessary reforms have been introduced over the centuries while defending the unchangeability of the deposit of faith, i.e., the truths of faith and morality passed down by Jesus Christ and the apostles. Thus, a fundamental question must be addressed: How to reconcile tradition with modernity? How to distinguish what should not be subject to change from what requires change? This will be the subject of debates in the coming years, assessing the pontificate of Francis, Father Professor Kobylinski said.

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 only appointed clergymen who agreed with his understanding of the truths of faith and morality. Therefore, all indications are that a college shaped in this way will elect a successor to Francis who will be a continuation of his revolution, the expert assessed.

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 to prevent it from splitting into various conservative or liberal factions, as in other denominations."

As of today, the Catholic Church has adopted the principle of unity in diversity, maintaining common structures of authority while agreeing to doctrinal diversity, which is a kind of Anglicanisation of Catholicism. Consequently, the number of faithful who do not accept the doctrinal revolution may increase, leading them to leave the structures of the Catholic Church and form new church communities, the clergyman declared, adding that "time will tell."