What happened?
Pope Francis has raised the prospect of schism, telling reporters that it is a constant possibility in the Church.
Answering a journalist’s question during an inflight press confernce, the Pope observed that there were many historical examples of schism, from the early Church onward. “A schism is always an elitist separation stemming from an ideology detached from doctrine,” he said.
The Pope said that he was not afraid of schism, but he prays that none occurs.
What commentators said
A Guardian editorial said there is “no mistaking the depth of the split within the world’s largest and most important Christian church”. Some of the divisions were over politics, but the alliance between political and theological conservatives had “frayed”, as “conservative clergy, with very few exceptions, see the real enemy as secularism rather than Islam”.
