“Pass me the ball! —said the player—. I’m free!” Seconds remain until the game ends. The player receives the ball, stares fixedly at the basket, prepares to jump, grips the ball tightly, jumps with all his strength, and shoots with great precision. The eyes of the entire fanbase remain glued to the trajectory of the ball heading directly to score. The ball hits the rim, bounces against the square frame, comes back, with half its circumference inside the basket. Everything in silence, everything slow, everything motionless, but the eyes fixed on the ball. The soundless quiet is broken by a single sound: the referee’s whistle. What was going to be a celebration suddenly turns into a bitter uncertainty. The referee raises his arm and says the score is invalid. The fanbase erupts in shouts of disgust, aggressive questioning, cries of pain because no one understands what happened. The team that was moments away from winning the game runs around the referee demanding an immediate explanation for this utterly implausible call. The referee only says: “The final score has been annulled by superior decision”. The team director confronted the referee, demonstrating the validity of the score by having met every requirement according to the rules. The response from the questioned one leaves everyone speechless and perplexed by the level of astonishment caused. The reply was direct: “It was valid before, but right now the game’s criterion has changed”.
This allegorical story is an apt example of what is understood throughout the Christian world on the much-discussed topic of ecclesial communion. A matter of transcendence causing divisions, some necessary and others senseless, but undeniable in its effects within the discussions that occur in different contexts and situations at the ecclesial level.
Being in Communion
Our Lord Jesus Christ categorically commanded us the obligation to be in communion. This we can evidence in different sections of the Sacred Scriptures, such as John 15:15; Romans 12:10; Galatians 5:13. Communion is an essential characteristic of the Holy Mother Church; without communion, it is impossible for this divinely created institution to exist. Let us see the Major Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X in its numeral 157: “The true Church is ONE because her children, of any time and place, are united among themselves in one same faith, one same worship, one same law, and in the participation of the same sacraments under one same visible head, the Roman Pontiff”. The explanation is presented with clear conceptual clarity, where we are taught about union, connection, the pieces that form communion. Let us fix our attention on the note that distinguishes the Catholic Church from any other strange establishment; it is ONE; in that uniqueness, there must be concrete, immovable, reasonable, and perennial requirements that constitute ecclesial communion.
The Fathers of the Church had a strong struggle to consolidate not only the concept, but the limits of this truth of faith. Saint Augustine teaches the following in his Sermon 96: “The whole Church, the whole body, all its members, each according to the proper function assigned to it, must follow Christ. Let the whole Church follow Him, then. One: This dove, this spouse rescued and endowed with the blood of the Spouse”. From his wise words emerges the figure of communion as the unity of each part of the Church in its respective labor or function in Christ Jesus. An immeasurable amount of Christian blood has been shed as an act of supreme love for God to confirm and strengthen the communion of the Church. Let us just take the example of saints martyred by the Greek and Russian schismatics, who seem to keep the same or similar teachings as the Catholic Church (something profoundly false and erroneous), where they forced these valiant defenders of the faith to join their Church or be vilely murdered. Saint Josaphat is a living example of this.
Through communion among the faithful, between those who teach and those who are taught, the transmission of the faith is achieved as Our Lord Jesus Christ disposed it to be through His Church. This note of the Church ensures not only a solid structure, evidently of a divine institution, but also guarantees the obligatory doctrine to believe in all times.
Corrupting and Exploiting
This spectacularly valuable note of the Holy Church has been distorted, monopolized, and placed at the convenience of the hierarchy linked to the interests of the revolutionary world. This, like a myriad of other treasures of our faith, must apply the maxim corruptio optimi, pessima; the corruption of the best is the worst. Technically, it has not been corrupted as such, but rather it has been relativized to a criterion fully adjusted to the reigning revolutionary ideals of all general conduct within the ecclesial structure. Depending on the diocese, obtaining the little seal of being in communion is at the discretion of the Ordinary of the place, linked not to a brief and simple criterion with objective requirements, but to the agenda or doctrinal plan spread throughout the diocesan territory.
To put this in even simpler words: if the diocese goes hand in hand with the synodal agenda smelling of sulfur, to be in supposed communion, it will consist of accepting this whole amalgamated body of infiltrated guidelines and premises coming from a neopagan world. If the diocesan Ordinary allows everything, everything, absolutely everything, except the bimillennial Tradition of the Church, to obtain the approval of the competent authority, one will have to step with the muddied foot, in part (or in whole), on what constitutes the heart of our faith. If the ideology professed by the Prelate is one already previously condemned on repeated occasions by the perennial Magisterium of the Mystical Body of Christ, surely going with an accusing finger before the aforementioned to in turn request the aforementioned little permission to be on good terms with the hierarchy, we already know very well what the reaction will be. To sum it up in case it wasn’t clear: to the tune of the music imposed by the hierarchy, everyone must dance.
The world upside down. Deciding who is on good terms with the Church and who is not is left to the disposition at a stroke of the pen away from a single person vitiated with thoughts, ideas, doctrines distant from the Deposit of Faith, or in the hands of a small commission usually composed of a gang of people as akin to the truth professed by Christ as the Sanhedrin was in its time. They have turned this note of the Church into a kind of weapon, mechanism of coercion, way of twisting arms and psychological control over the pious faithful who wish to do something natural for a Catholic, which is to be in visible communion with the competent authority.
There are by no means few cases when the diocesan president responds —when the miracle happens that he deigns to respond— that to obtain the permission, approval, goodwill, or seal of approval, they will have to adjust (using a euphemism frequently employed by them themselves) to the Creed invented in the place resorted to. Just like in any company, the primary values vary between different organizations; the identical occurrence happens in the structures where the faith of always should be reaffirmed through an objective immovable criterion.
It seems, based on notorious facts and repeated behavior, that the metric for measuring communion or who yes and who no should be given permissions and concessions is a coquettish little game of who-gets-closer-to-the-bishop. This measure is very curious for being totally subjective and convenient for whoever has the authority. These points of communion are scored by how many times one meets with the Ordinary of the place, how many smiles are exchanged, the number of gifts given, the frequency of taking photos together, the amount on a check, among other funny ways to be crowned as the greatest winner of ecclesial communion. Paraphrasing what was said jokingly by Dr. Taylor Marshall, interviewing Mr. Kennedy Hall, the most special way to build the maximum level of internal communion is through the bear hug during the sign of peace in the Novus Ordo Missae. Of course it is! The apotheosis of communion with the hierarchy: Being able to give the big hug strong and long to the diocesan regent!
To glimpse things better, in the year 2022, Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago removed the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest from a sanctuary (built by them themselves and in the name of the priestly group) for not having accepted the conditions demanded by the prelate. Conditions that even directly violate the statutes of the aforementioned institute. The valiant Transalpine Redemptorists were severely marginalized a few months ago for saying things as they are and remaining faithful to the Tradition of the Church. The bishop of the diocese where they have their general chapter has initiated investigations, issued sanctions, and declared war against these humble priests. In both situations, we do not see these associations proclaiming and promoting atrocities that attack the faith of two thousand years, nor is a break with the objective elements to be considered part of the Church contemplated. Frankly and without ambiguity, they were not in tune with what is considered good in their respective place.
Avoiding the Game
Who understands this game that has been imposed? Frankly, no one because it is relative from place to place. The key is to guard the Deposit of Faith as the Sacred Scriptures well order. There lies the first and principal duty. What happens if the authority, which should be the pioneer in this task, imposes or dictates conditions that violate the integrity of the faith? Simple answer: move forward and remain firm. At the bottom of this changing game of evolutionarily redefining ecclesial communion, what is intended emerges: it is about forcing the current Revolution in the faithful. The point of this acting is to oblige, in exchange for rancid crumbs, the acceptance of the precepts of the official narrative.
Deifying hierarchical approval does not consist of a virtuous act, but in raising the flag of capitulation. The pearl of the Gospel is exchanged for the bishop’s hug; the applause of the diocesan council is preferred over the sweet words of Christ in His Revelation; being accompanied in the midst of confusion and error is preferred over being apparently alone, but with the comforting guidance of truth.
Msgr. Schneider, in his prayer for the triumph of the Catholic faith, making direct reference to several saints, says the following: “Grant us the grace to be determined to suffer a thousand deaths for a single article of the Creed”. In this prayer, we ask God to grant us all the necessary graces to resist authoritarian coercion that conditions visible ecclesial communion. It is necessary to avoid this crude game at all costs. The communion of faith, the communion of the sacraments, hierarchical communion; in these unique elements consists ecclesial communion, nothing more. This is not a prize to be awarded by the bishop to his friends in ideas; it is a supernatural reality that manifests our union with the Most Holy Trinity.