Top adviser to Pope John Paul II warns of a cabal undermining Church with backing from within

Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a dire warning about the current trajectory in the Catholic Church. Professor 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 professor from Belgium, now 86, speaks of the “crisis” in the Church, saying, “it is futile to close our eyes: the Church is challenged in its very foundations.”

Credited with inspiring Pope John Paul’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae with his own book on abortion, Msgr. Schooyans is warning of what he says is an organized group in the Church that operates with “backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church.”

The Synod on the Family revealed, he says, the determination of, “a group of pastors and theologians” that “do not hesitate to undermine the Church’s doctrinal cohesion.” This group, he added, “functions in the manner of a powerful, international, well-heeled, organized and disciplined party.”