I’m still thinking about the recent schism with the Society of St Pius X (SSPX). Their followers like the saying, “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus” – outside the church there is no salvation. The fathers of Vatican II were better Latin scholars. They knew that “extra” can also mean “without”.
That’s why they described the church in Lumen Gentium as being like a great central source of light and truth.
Other churches and religions are “outside” it but are in a sort of orbit around it. They can receive a share of light and graces from it, depending on their relationship to revealed truth. But without the church at the centre of everything, there could be no salvation for anyone.
Last Sunday’s gospel analogy of a swamped boat is a good one. The SSPX and its followers suffer from a real fear that the barque of Peter – like a huge ocean liner – is foundering.
Some think it has sprung major leaks. Others think the captain is taking bad advice from a mutinous crew. Some are not happy about changes to the cabin classes, the revised standard operating procedures, and the updated selections at the buffet.
They believe that the only way to save themselves is to abandon ship and pile into the nearest lifeboat. The trouble is that the barque of Peter doesn’t have any lifeboats. It was launched on the promise that it was unsinkable.
So if the passengers want a lifeboat, they have to build it themselves out of bits and pieces of the real thing – whatever they can find or “borrow” on board.
Archbishop Fisher: Church’s doors remain open after SSPX schism
Any group that’s gone into schism has built itself a little boat and launched it off the back of the barque of Peter. But the shipwright who built the barque ensured that any small craft launched off it would be held safe by a tow rope.
This means that they won’t completely sink as long as they are attached even distantly to the big ship. Over time, some of the smaller boats realised that they were getting swamped and running out of food.
Some chose to pull on the tow rope so that their passengers could climb back aboard the barque of Peter. Others chose to cut the tow rope, and down they go. Their passengers must literally sink or swim. Some swim to the other small boats but discover that these are also on the verge of sinking. Some swim back to the barque of Peter and get hauled aboard. And some don’t make it at all.
The SSPX is just one of a flotilla of little craft being towed along without complaint by the barque of Peter. Their passengers, blue with cold and green with seasickness, shout to each other about how much better off they are now. And the passengers on the barque of Peter call out to the little boats, asking them if they’d like to come back aboard.
After all, it’s a lot safer being on an unsinkable big ship than in a DIY lifeboat built by people who weren’t sure what they were doing. Does this mean all is well on board the big ship? Of course not. There really are mutinous crew members, some of them quite senior.
There are lazy and dangerous passengers. But there are also good crew and passengers, some of them exemplary. The little SSPX boat is just like all the others. It’s built out of random pieces of the real barque of Peter, cobbled together by amateurs.
The passengers think that because they brought a copy of the old standard operating procedures with them, they have inherited the barque of Peter’s promises of unsinkability.
They haven’t. They will stay afloat only as long as they are attached by that merciful tow rope that they pretend is not there. And I might not feel very safe on a boat filled with people who were primarily interested in saving their own skin in stolen property.
None of the little boats out there has the promise of a captain who will not err when he makes serious navigational decisions. None of them has the promise of being unsinkable. Only the barque of Peter has that promise. The church is not fragile. It is a great deal stronger than you think.
Yes, it’s looking a bit hammered in places. But church reform is like painting a ship – as soon as you think you’ve finished, you have to start again.
I get terribly seasick, both in analogy and in real life. But I think I am safest where I am.
