Don’t Worry, Things Have Always Been Terrible

I hear that when you meet as a church there are divisions among you.  // 1 Corinthians 11:17

Let’s talk about what I like to call the “good old days heresy.”* We see strife in the world, and scandal and infighting within the Church and between the faithful, and we might think: Oh, things are so terrible now. If only I had lived in the good old days when there was unity and harmony in the Church.

But really, there has always been scandal and infighting in the Church. Things have always been terrible.  

In today’s First Reading, Saint Paul admonishes the Corinthians: “I do not praise the fact that your meetings are doing more harm than good. First of all, I hear that when you meet as a church there are divisions among you” (1 Corinthians 11:17-18). He also mentions “factions among you” (1 Corinthians 11:19). 

Saint Paul could have made the same criticisms during the lifetimes of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, the Saints we honor today. The fierce persecutions of the third century created many holy martyrs, but also many apostates. Some thought the lapsi or “fallen” had committed an unpardonable sin and could never be received back into the Church, even if they repented. There were divisions. There were factions. Pope Cornelius and Bishop Cyprian convened a synod and won support for a plan which allowed for a return to Holy Communion for repentant lapsi after a period of public penance, which would address the scandal of their public apostasy.

Saint Paul would certainly have plenty about which to admonish us today. I find the sameness of it all over the centuries to be strangely comforting. 

First, because it’s just not true that there was some idyllic former time that I missed out on. There have been great blessings and tragic hardships in every age. God thinks the present ones are the right ones for me to navigate.

Second, because the fact that there have always been factions has meant there have always been Christians like Saint Paul and Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian working to understand and educate and heal divisions. That’s what God is asking of us in our time.

Third, because we know how this story ends. The Church survives its failings, and ours.

* The “good old days heresy” is not, of course, an actual heresy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines, "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same” (source).