The scandal of Christian division

As we approach the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul this weekend, Pope Francis today addressed the question, “is Christ divided?” This is the same question that St. Paul responded to in his exhortation to the community of Corinth. He emphatically decried the division he witnessed in the Christian community there by pointing out followers of Paul or Cephas or Apollos were separating themselves from Christ and the Christian community. Pope Francis recalled this response and stated, “[W]e must recognize sincerely, although with suffering, that our communities continue to experience divisions, which are a scandal. There is no other word for it: the divisions between Christians are a scandal.”

When we talk about the sin of scandal in the Church we are referring to any action or behavior that is divisive or casts a shadow on the Church that would cause others to avoid or leave the Church. I use the term sin because we know the source of divisiveness; that is the one who seeks to destroy all unity in the Church, the unity which comes only from the Holy Spirit. So we are clearly dealing with serious matter here. This is why St. Paul and our Holy Father call for unity in the Church with such passion. Unity is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Divisiveness, the failure of unity, is the fruit of sin and the father of sin.

The fact that so many Christian denominations have fractured from the Church and remain unconnected is certainly an issue that Pope Francis is addressing. He is not, however, piling scandal upon scandal by expressing any condemnation of these separated communities. He rather reaches out to them to find those many points of shared Christian understanding and faith that brings about unity. In his reference to Paul’s reaching out to the Corinthians, the Pope stated, “In spite of the suffering of divisions, which unfortunately persist to this day, we welcome Paul's words as an invitation to rejoice sincerely in the grace conceded by God to other Christians. We have experienced the same baptism; the same Holy Spirit has bestowed grace upon us, so let us rejoice!”

And this, I believe, is the “takeaway” for us of our Holy Father’s message. He closed with noting that the search for unity “requires humility, reflection and continual conversion.” This conversion is the continual conversion of our own heart that we should always be seeking. Within our own parish community we have as many different spiritual dispositions as we do members. This is our nature as unique creations of our Lord and he obviously would have it no other way. Could it be, as Paul has expressed, that Christ wishes these differences to be used and embraced by our community to make a stronger, more effective unity through which he can express himself to the world?

Let us then rejoice in our differences, always sharing our faith with one another with humility, reflection and continual conversion, always welcoming the Holy Spirit.