SCHISM

To consider sedevacantism without considering the seriousness of schism would be like studying a rattlesnake without considering how deadly it can be.

Schism:

Formal separation from the unity of the Church, a separation from communion with the Church; separation from the head of the Church or from the jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff. The movement of any person or group of persons of the Church who refuse to recognize the central authority of the Church; and denial of the authority of the pope of Rome.⁵⁸

Here are some quotations about the seriousness of schism: “Anyone becomes a schismatic who, though desiring to remain a Christian, rebels against legitimate authority.” ⁵⁹  Saint Cyprian said:

Know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop and that if anyone is not with the bishop he is not in the Church...what rascal, what traitor, what madman would be so misled by the spirit of discord as to believe that it is permitted to rend, or who would dare rend the Divine unity, the garment of the Lord, the Church of Jesus Christ?⁶⁰

St. Jerome says..:

...there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church.

But as St. Jerome remarks, practically and historically, heresy and schism nearly always go hand in hand; schism leads almost invariably to denial of the papal primacy.⁶¹  From the Catechism of the Council of Trent, a quote of St. Jerome:

I as united in communion with your Holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter, I know that on that rock is built the Church.  Whoever will eat the Lamb outside this house is profane:  whoever is not in the ark of Noah shall perish in the flood.⁶²

To communicate in sacris with schismatics, e.g., to receive the sacraments at the hands of their ministers, to assist at Divine Offices in their temples, is strictly forbidden to the faithful.⁶³

And from St. Catherine of Siena:

That is what has made you pillars lighter than straw-flowers which shed no perfume, but stench that makes the whole world reek!⁶⁴

Candid reader, do you not profess to be a member of Christ’s flock? Yes, you answer. Do you take your spiritual food from Peter and his successor, and do you hear the voice of Peter, or have you wandered into the fold of strangers who spurn Peter’s voice? Ponder well this momentous question. For as Peter is authorized to feed the lambs of Christ’s flock, the lambs should hear Peter’s voice.⁶⁵

However, not every disobedience is a schism; in order to possess this character it must include, besides the transgression of the commands of superiors, denial of their divine right to command.⁶⁶

To this point we have looked at schism in a sane or at least semi-sane world. What is schismatic in a world where tradition is condemned? Where councils support heresy? Where the pope will not condemn heresy and condemns those who continue to uphold tradition? Where better can we find a good example to answer the above questions than to examine the life and times of St. Athanasius?

St. Athanasius stood up against the Arian heresy which was a heresy that stated that Jesus was not God. “For almost all of the astonishing 45 years of his episcopate, it was Athanasius against the world and for the Faith.” ⁶⁷  The Council of Arles in 353, except one bishop, including even the two papal legates, condemned Athanasius.⁶⁸  At the Council of Milan, 355, “All present but the three staunch bishops and the two papal legates signed the condemnation of Athanasius.”⁶⁹  Athanasius was not condemned because he was a heretic, but rather because he stood against everyone else including the councils of the times. He was condemned because of the disunity he was causing in the Church and because of false charges brought against him by his enemies. The popes, though, stood beside Athanasius until Pope Liberius was sent into exile by the emperor:

Liberius began to sink under the hardships of his exile,... that he yielded to the snare laid for him, to the great scandal of the Church. He subscribed the condemnation of St. Athanasius, and a confession or creed, which had been framed by the Arians at Sirmium, though their heresy was not expressed in it.⁷⁰

Pope Liberius upon his cross at Sirmium, used and scorned by his enemies, pitied and abandoned by his friends, alone, fearfully alone, “a worm and no man,” strong bulls of Bashan all around him, bones like water, heart like wax, laid in the dust of death. Did he cry, with the Psalmist and with his Lord: “Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help”?

Undoubtedly he did —in spirit, if not in spoken word. For he did not sign the Second Formulary of Sirmium. At the final step, at the eleventh hour, the Arians were balked. As was to happen again to their like on several similar occasions later in the history of the Papacy, they simply could not understand how and why and by Whom they had been frustrated. For a whole year they held Liberius at Sirmium, doubtless confident that any day the final break would come. It never did.

Christendom paused. The prayers of the suffering pope, of Athanasius the hunted fugitive and his loyal monks in the desert and among the tombs of Egypt, of the simple faithful rose silently to Heaven.

Slowly, at first wholly imperceptibly, the tide began to turn —but in strange ways, that no man could have predicted.⁷¹ The emperor died, relieving the political pressure and Pope Liberius, who had been released went, to work with St. Athanasius to re-establish the faith and to reconcile the schismatics. One bishop by the name of Lucifer would not have anything to do with the reconciled schismatics or any of the faithful that would have anything to do with the reconciled schismatics. Which established a schism of its own.⁷²

Our look at St. Athanasius gave us a very interesting view of schism. Here was a man who was in opposition to most of the hierarchy of the Church, at one time, even to the point of being condemned by the Church, but yet, as we saw, he was the strength of the Church.

By what right did he come back to his see after being condemned by a council? By what right did he continue to function as a bishop after the pope had joined in the condemnation of him? The basic answer lies in the fact that St. Athanasius knew who was in control (and it was not the pope). St. Athanasius knew the pope was controlled by the emperor and wasn’t free to rule as he saw fit. So the laws, passed by them, which stood against tradition held no real weight. As a result St. Athanasius’ duty was to do that which he knew the pope would want him to do if the pope were free to instruct him. A word to fit this type of situation is epikeia.
     
Epikeia as defined by the Concise Catholic Dictionary is:

An interpretation of a law whereby it is considered not to bind in a particular case because of some special circumstances; an interpretation of the law in a particular instance against the letter of the law but in keeping with its spirit; an interpretation of the mind of the lawmaker which reasons that he, knowing the conditions, would not wish his law to bind in this particular case.

Scary territory, this land of epikeia. It is so easy for one’s pride to cloud one’s thoughts. But in the case of St. Athanasius he knew what tradition had taught. He knew better than any of the hierarchy the reasoning against the Arian heresy.

It is very important to note that Saint Athanasius did not condemn all those opposed to him and true doctrine. Although he did oppose and repel all formal Arians in his diocese, he didn’t set up a parallel Church. He knew that God, in His own good time, would straighten out the Church and that it was his duty to uphold the one true Church. He simply practiced his faith as it was given to him by the teachings of his apostolic predecessors, the upholders of tradition.

St. Athanasius must have appeared to be a schismatic in his time to a good percentage of the people of his day. In reality he was not a schismatic because he not only recognized the pope and the papacy, but he constantly applied to Rome for solutions, for he knew that in God’s good time the solution would come from Rome. Meanwhile St. Athanasius continued to practice his faith as tradition had given it to him.

The use of epikeia in a situation is like being “between the devil and the deep blue sea” as the saying goes. If St. Athanasius would have gone along with the norm and stood against the traditional teaching of the Church he would have been an “all right fellow” in the eyes of his world. But in the eyes of God he, no doubt, would have been severely judged if he had gone along with the world and against the traditional teachings of the Church.

So we see today that in standing against the modernists who are in control of the Church one may be required to look like a schismatic in order to practice the one true Faith. The line is very thin and hard to define. The hard-core sedevacantists are way over the line even though they may not be able to see it. The hard-core sedevacantists reject the Church in the same manner that Lucifer (bishop) did during the time of Athanasius. They reject the pope and everyone but themselves. They reject the papacy by claiming it is vacant while misquoting infallibility and ignoring the visibility of the Church, and they lean on the teachings of Gallicanism to obtain bishoprics whose roots come from Old Catholic bishops and their seminaries. Indeed, may we all pray for the pope.