All that remains is faith

During a troubling few decades near the end of the Middle Ages, Christ’s vicar on earth discovered that he had two heads.  A crisis to be sure, called the Great Schism.  It began in 1378 in Rome, when the majority of the College of Cardinals, regretting their recent election of a reforming pope, fled back to Avignon—where the papal bureaucracy had until recently been located—and quickly cancelled their unfortunate choice, putting in his place a more amenable candidate.  But the established bishop in Rome refused to bow to such an unprecedented break in tradition, carrying on as if he were the one and only representative of Christ on earth.  As did his new Avignonese counterpart.  Both elections were ostensibly legitimate, each undertaken by the same duly-appointed body of electors following the same ceremonial protocols.  Yet it was impossible that both could simultaneously be the one true bishop of Rome, just as it was inconceivable that the one true God could have two bickering representatives on earth.  In 1409, unsatisfied with the existing state of anguish and confusion, a church council dethroned both claimants and appointed another, though neither of the previously appointed popes agreed to step down.  And so the two-headed beast found itself with a third.

Three heads were precisely two too many.  This meant that two of the mortal men who claimed to be the one true pope could not really be the vicar of Christ, though outwardly it was hard to distinguish which the remaining one was.  They all acted and spoke much as the others did.  They all wore similar regalia.  They all claimed the same authority, including the authority to appoint cardinals, settle administrative quarrels and doctrinal disputes, and adjudicate who was the true head of the church.  It is entirely possible that each truly believed that he was uniquely the voice of God on earth.

Unfortunately, the rest of Catholicism could not be so confident.  The fate of many millions of souls hung in the balance.  An invalid pope could not authentically consecrate bishops or priests.  Improperly-ordained priests could not perform valid sacraments.  And without the holy sacraments, no one could be sure of gaining heaven.  After all, the bread still looked exactly like bread in a correctly-performed mass, though it was in reality the saving flesh of Christ.  And now the odds were two to one that your sacraments were not valid.

Of course God knew the identity of His rightful representative.  But the voice that spoke for Him belonged to one of the very candidates whose legitimacy was in question.  What to do?  Pray of course—though heartfelt prayer was not in itself sufficient for saving grace, as all orthodox Catholics agreed.  But pray regardless.  And hope that your pope was the right one, though of course this might condemn to hell your equally pious brethren who faithfully adhered to one of the false vicars.  Faith was commendable of course, but were there no other options?

Reason had come of age in the recently-established universities, though was probably of little help in this case.  A faithful Catholic logician could be reasonably confident that two of the claimants were necessarily wrong and therefore treacherous to salvation.  But logic could not determine which, since each claimant argued from similar but incompatible premises.  Still, it remained a reliable certainty that not all of them could be right, no matter what any of the claimants said about themselves.  No more than one could be right an any one time.  To this general reasoning, all reasonable Catholics would have agreed.  But there was a lurking logical hazard that perhaps none cared to consider.  While it was quite certain that all three could not simultaneously be the one true pope, it did not follow that one of those claimants would necessarily be the one.  Though not all could be right, it was entirely conceivable that all could be wrong.  Two were certainly wrong, but that did not entail that the third was necessarily right.  Just because your perceived opponent is wrong does not mean that you must therefore be right.  Perhaps the university logicians did not spend much time on this possibility, whatever their private opinions might have been.  They all agreed to the same broad premises (though not precisely identical ones) that required there to be only one true vicar on earth.

And so reason was then (and perhaps remains) of little help to the faithful.  Reason is very good at finding uncertainty, thereby encouraging doubt.  But doubt is not what religion is about.  Faith is above reason, and for good reason.  So the medieval professors continued to teach their logic in the universities, yet kept it away from the really important stuff.

They too held on to faith—faith that in any particular moment, there really is only one true vicar of Christ on earth, and that one of those claiming to be the true pope really is that vicar, thus the singular voice of God on earth.  And though this may have been somewhat shaky logic, they had faith that God was actively guarding His true church and would make good what human reasoning could not.  And so He did.  The crisis of the Great Schism ended in 1417 with the successful removal of all three claimants by the Council of Constance and the election of a new pope, who took the name Martin V.  The identity of the true pope was thereafter largely uncontested—at least in public view.  Roman Catholics could from then on be confident that the pope they saw was the true pope, because no alternative claimants remained to raise doubts.  After all, one of them had to be right, and damn the logicians if they couldn’t see that.