...that they may be one as we are one

Approximately 450 years after King Henry VIII split from Rome, the Vatican has paved the way for allowing disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church. As a convert to the Catholic faith, I'm delighted to hear this news.

According to Wikipedia, there are 38,000 Christian denominations. I find that absolutely astounding. I can't even begin to fathom 38,000 non-negotiable ways to disagree with other Christians, can you?

Read the words of St. Francis de Sales.

Is Jesus Christ divided? No, surely, for he is the God of peace, not of dissension, as St. Paul taught throughout the Church. It cannot then be true that the Church should be in dissension or division of belief and opinion, for God would no longer be its Author or Spouse, and, like a kingdom divided against itself, it would be brought to desolation. As soon as God takes a people to himself, as he has done the Church, he gives it unity of heart and of path: the Church is but one body, of which all the faithful are members, compacted and united together by all its joints; there is but one spirit animating this body: God is in his holy place: who maketh men of one manner to dwell in a house (Ps. Lxvii:7); therefore the true Church of God must be united, fastened and joined together ion one same doctrine and belief.

St. Francis says it quite clearly: God is not the source of division within his universal church. When the Church was established by God, he gave it "unity of heart and of path". Each time we break away from the Body of Christ, we defy him.

Don't believe me? Then believe our Lord:

My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 17:20-23