Two popes at once

Gregory XI dies in March 1378, a year after returning to Rome. The conclave that follows elects Urban VI, an Italian, under enormous pressure from the Roman crowd demanding an Italian pope. Urban is elected. Then his behavior becomes erratic — abusive, unstable, possibly mentally ill. The cardinals who elected him declare the election invalid, claiming they acted under duress, and elect a French cardinal who takes the name Clement VII and returns to Avignon.

Now there are two popes.

Both are validly elected by the same cardinals. Both claim the legitimate succession from Peter. Both excommunicate the other and his supporters. The church is divided not by theology but by politics — by the question of which man sits in Peter's chair.

For thirty-nine years the Western church operates in schism. Christian kings and territories take sides along political lines: France, Scotland, and Aragon support Avignon. England, the Holy Roman Empire, and most of Italy support Rome. Bishops are ordained by both lines. Universities and monasteries split.

The situation worsens in 1409 when the Council of Pisa tries to resolve the schism by deposing both popes and electing a third. Neither existing pope accepts the deposition. For a few years there are three popes simultaneously.

The Council of Constance (1414–1418) finally resolves the crisis by deposing all three claimants and electing Martin V as the single pope.

For forty years the church had demonstrated that its institutional unity was not guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. The damage to papal credibility is severe and permanent.

The Great Western Schism demonstrated that the institution claiming to be the foundation of Christian unity could itself be the source of Christian division — that the papacy, which justified its authority partly by its role in preserving unity, could produce three simultaneous claimants to its own throne.

This is not a reason to reject institutional church. It is a reason to locate the church's unity somewhere more reliable than institutional coherence.

Is Christ divided? Paul asks. The answer is no — whatever happens to the institution, whatever chaos the human structures produce, the one who is the church's actual head is not split or compromised or politically maneuvered.

The unity of the church is Christ's gift to it, not the achievement of its institutions.

Where have you been placing your confidence in institutional forms that cannot bear the weight? And where does the actual unity come from?