One of the deepest problems I have with the radical anti-conciliarism which seems so prevelant on Catholic Social Media is that it seems unable to accept a profoundly Catholic truth: the Church can pass through humiliation, confusion, scandal and suffering without ceasing to be the Church.

Some appear to believe the true Church must always look externally pristine, triumphant and untouched by crisis. But that has never been Catholic history.

The Arian crisis saw bishops collapse into confusion. The Western Schism left Catholics unsure who the true pope even was. Renaissance Rome was morally corrupt. Entire nations fell into heresy. Yet the Church endured through all of it.

Why?

Because the Church’s indefectibility does not mean every churchman will speak perfectly, govern prudently or avoid scandal. It means Christ does not abandon His Church.

The Mystical Body follows the pattern of Christ Himself. And Christ did not redeem the world through worldly triumph, but through betrayal, humiliation and the Cross.

At times, some forms of “trad” polemic seem to reject this entirely. The visible Church appears wounded, therefore it must be false. The hierarchy appears confused, therefore the Church must have defected. But that is not Catholic ecclesiology. It is effectively a refusal to believe that the Church can suffer.

The saints never reasoned this way.

St Athanasius endured exile during the Arian crisis without declaring the Church a counterfeit sect. St Catherine of Siena confronted corruption in Rome while remaining fiercely devoted to the See of Peter.

The Church is holy because Christ is holy. Not because every age is free from darkness.

The Cross is not proof Christ has abandoned His Church.

Very often, it is where His fidelity is revealed most clearly.