The Ever Dividing catholic Church of Christ

I used the under case catholic in the title to emphasize that I am not, in fact, going to be limiting my post to the Roman Catholic Church, but rather the catholic Church in the sense that there is a Universal Christian Church.

Our discussion in class about the ever expanding interpretive rings that are added to a religion as it develops brought to light a very interesting example of what has/is happening in the World-wide Christian Church today.

There are a plethora of examples, but I will just share a few to further illustrate my point.

The Anglican/Episcopal Church is having problems with the adjustment made in America on the issue of homosexuality. Following the first ordination of an openly gay minister in the United States, tensions have been building to the point of almost certain split between the Anglican Church in North America and the World wide Anglican Church. (site) This potential split is a result of exactly the same problem of piling to much onto the truck, except instead of the splinter group getting a new truck to start over, they may be kicked out of the truck with all of their "new" beliefs.

Another, slightly more historic, church split worth looking at is the "Great Schism" which divided the Western Roman Catholic Church from the Eastern Orthodox Church. While there were power politics involved in this split, the primary theological rational was the Catholic's addition of what is known as the filioque clause (which added "and the Son" following the statement that the Holy Spirit... proceeds from the father and the Son.). This is another example of how the addition of more commentary slowly chips off sections of the conservative base of a religion (eventually leading to splits).


These two examples, and our discussion in class lead me to one conclusions. That the Vatican's persistence on bringing together all of the World's religions through compromising actions and beliefs will result in another major split in Catholicism.