The Catholic Church is facing a "crisis" with an organised group backed by "some of the highest authorities in the Church" challenging its "very foundations."
The warning was aired by Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI. His statements are contained in a paper published on LifeSiteNews.
Schooyans, a member of several Pontifical Academies and Councils, writes that "the Synod on the Family has revealed a profound malaise in the Church."
The retired 86-year-old professor from Belgium speaks of the "crisis" in the Church, saying, "it is futile to close our eyes: the Church is challenged in its very foundations."
He says the Synod on the Family has discovered "a group of pastors and theologians" that "do not hesitate to undermine the Church's doctrinal cohesion." This group, he adds, "functions in the manner of a powerful, international, well-heeled, organised and disciplined party."
The senior church prelate says members of this group have strong connections to the media and frequently show their faces in public. They operate with backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church, he reveals, without mentioning names.
Schooyans says the main target of these Church activists is Christian morality, which they argue has "values" incompatible with today's world.
These activists want a "decentralisation" of the Church, which would imperil its unity, he warns.
Schooyans calls these Church activists "causuists," referring to persons who use clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions, and who "cultivate the art of confusing the faithful."
He says these causuists are sowing confusions in the Church on the issues of "remarried" divorced persons, "models" for the family, the role of women, birth control, surrogate motherhood, homosexuality, and euthanasia.
The Church "has not been given by the Lord a mission to modify" the truths taught by Christ about all these matters, Schooyans points out. "The Church is the guardian of this treasure."
"In pushing to facilitate 'remarriage,' the neo-casuists are giving their backing to all those political players who are undermining respect for life and the family," Schooyans writes.
