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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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I would even like the Catholic Church to split into different denominations so that the one with the best spirit and art can triumph.

We did that. It's called the Protestant Reformation. How do you like your megachurches?

There's also the splinter 'Catholic' denominations like the Old Catholics or the Women Priests (a couple at least separate ones of these) or the liberal parishes still formally within the Church or the very traditionalist ones which split off around Vatican II and eventually went either full-bore liberal themselves or totally nuts (I'm distinguishing these from the traditionalist ones who remained in communion).

(I'm with Cardinal Arinze on this kind of thing).

A separate denomination means separate theology and separate doctrines, so you can't call it "the" Catholic Church if it splits. You're looking for something more like the Anglican Communion where it's all separate national churches who can go their own way if they feel like it but are in loose bonds of association.

It also depends how you measure "spiritual change" and "fruits"; 'we now accept and ordain gay trans lady bishops in polyamorous relationships who refer to God as 'she' amongst one set of the deities of your choice or none and are also Muslim Buddhist Wiccan rabbis' may be deemed the greatest, most advanced, spiritual fruit by one set of measurements and completely the opposite by a different set of measurements.

How do you like your megachurches?

This is not the typical Protestant experience. I've heard Protestants in person unkindly mocking megachurches.

Back when I was young and went to church twice a week with my family we went to small local churches. Like every churchgoer did.

Oh, indeed, but if OP was wanting breaking up into separate denominations to compete on attractive art and something, then they have to accept that some of that competition results in the likes of megachurches, which copied the poor parts of secular pop culture and decided this was the future of church.

I can't throw stones when it comes to terrible architecture and crimes against liturgy, because we have our fill of concrete warehouses post-Vatican II as churches, not to mention one horrible example of wreckovation from my own town where an inoffensive 19th century Gothic Revival parish church was pulled to pieces in the name of accessibility or some stupidity, and now the interior is a mess and the marble etc. that past generations proudly contributed towards, for the sake of beauty, has been ripped out and would have been dumped or otherwise disposed of, had not a local group managed to repurpose some of it for a grotto on a main road.

There's also the other example, where cherrypicking from liturgies and architecture and vestments and icons of Orthodox traditions has been co-opted by liberal churches; they have the beautiful visuals but they also burnish their LGBT+ credentials. One has one's own opinion on how fruitful this is, and indeed it may well be, but it's not producing anything of its own, it's copying the past because it's aesthetically appealing.

I think a church/denomination needs more than merely aesthetic appeal.

There are plenty of groups which don’t have normal jurisdiction from Rome but in practice accept its doctrinal authority, ranging from the (not)Polish national Catholic Church to the Sspx. It was well into the twentieth century by the time the pope appointed the majority of the world’s bishops.

Is unity important? Yes. Is it evidently possible to prevent governance by lunacy without it? Also yes.

I don’t see why you couldn’t have a situation like in Orthodox Christianity where national churches are granted a degree of autonomy in local matters and cultural practices while being obligated to uphold the things that the orthodox churches have declared dogma or required practices.

where national churches are granted a degree of autonomy in local matters

In the Catholic Church, this effectively exists at the sub-national level in Bishops. The autonomy of Bishops pertaining to the matters of their own (arch)diocese is quite broad.