The growing schism in Catholicism mirrors the schism in society in general.

(1)

https://apnews.com/feb3193a715d44cb852f853b907b65e0

(2)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...aking-revenge/

Protestant denominations have been going through the same struggles.

Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...518-story.html

The Catholic Church won't change its teachings. There may be dissenters, but the church as a whole will never accept homosexuality as anything other than disordered/sin.

The Church is filled with sinners and even more so with people who don't agree with or follow its other teachings. So of course they should come to church, but the Church won't start believing homosexuality is OK any more than it will start believing fornication, masturbation, murder, suicide is OK.

While I think this is true, you seem to have either misread or completely did not read the articles.

Why do you say that? As my post relates to schism, there will be the Church and then there will be those in schism with the Church. There have been numerous schism's throughout history and i would expect that most of them mirror society as a whole as Christians live in society with everyone else. It would be much more interesting if this schism in the Church was happening at a time when secular society was much more conservative.

Yes, but you seem to have a picture of what that schism looks like, and it appears to be completely different from the schism that actually exists as expressed by the articles.

So I said that because I really think that either (1) you didn't even read the articles or (2) you did not understand what you read.

My thoughts are a view from 30,000 feet, but of your two choices i guess it's (2). What do you find so interesting about the articles?

The traditional schisms are formed via splits between the top and the bottom of the hierarchy and cleave from there. In this case, the top and bottom of the hierarchy are much more closely aligned, and the schism is being created from the middle of the structure.

That you somehow wanted to make this about the Catholic church not changing when the most game-changing of popes is changing the game is what made it sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

I believe the Catholic Church will eventually accept active homosexuality in its members so long as they tend toward monogamy and otherwise follow the teachings of the Church.

the Church is already changing to be more inclusive:
The Pope Francis Statement That Changed the Church on LGBT Issues
a parallel example: the Hare Krishnas view sex as illicit unless for procreation. yet its founder Srila Prabhupada, in response to a gay devotee saying they had great difficulty being celibate, is reputed to have said: "Then just find a nice boy, stay with him and practice Krsna consciousness."

in an increasingly liberal world, faith leaders will be more tolerant of deviation on the margins so long as the fundamentals of the religion are maintained. in Christianity a fundamental message is "Jesus died for your sins" not "homosex is Wrong" imo.

The few Catholic masses I attended in Manhattan in the last two or three years had openly gay couples. Not many and to be honest most kept to themselves.

But church policy is undoubtedly quietly shifting. It wasn’t that long ago people had to march and protest to let gay people attend mass. Now we’re talking about the possibility of civil unions being accepted by the Pope.

The current pope is (from my viewpoint) pretty much an intellectual giant compared to some world leaders which makes the news daily. Advocating science, understanding and civility isn't yet uncommon, but it is getting rarer.

Do you think these schisms are motivated mostly by belief, or are there other motivations in play?

There's a very strong nationalistic stream moving through a lot of places right now. In the US, there's a correlation with white Evangelicals, but it's far from obvious that the underlying motivation is "[religious] belief." I think the conflation of conservative Republicanism and conservative Christianity makes it difficult to parse it cleanly, but since we see the schism in other places where the religiosity is lower I think it's reasonable to say that it's not particularly religious at its core.

We could also try to look at the interplay of claimed beliefs, but that's messy because the overlap of conservative Christianity and Catholicism is higher than most people realize. This is where the conflation of politics and religion gets difficult. The Christians will assent to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and read the parable that comes after it, but will often cite political ("practical") reasons as to why it may not apply in some particular situation (like with immigration policy).