The Unity of the Church and 'Zero Marks' – WM Review on Kokx News
We discussed the unity of the Church and our response to Fr Thomas Crean OP with Stephen Kokx from Kokx News.
We discussed the unity of the Church and our response to Fr Thomas Crean OP with Stephen Kokx from Kokx News.
(WM Round-Up) – On Tuesday 10 March 2026, I appeared on Kokx News’s podcast with Stephen Kokx.
The conversation focused on the unity of the Church, and the first chapter of my long article ‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church. Zero Marks is the second part of my response to Fr Thomas Crean OP’s article “The Perpetual Visibility of the Catholic Church Under the Pope.”
Towards the start, I said:
What we’re going to discuss here is going to seem very strange to a lot of people. That’s because so many of us have grown up in the post-conciliar era, and so we are like fish who don’t know what water is. This disunity has been the external fact of living as a Catholic for decades.
Another point, which is related: People are happy to talk about the idea of a ‘counter-church’ or ‘the Ape of the Church.’ But they talk as if they are subconsciously convinced that, if such a thing ever appeared, they would realise it. They would not be deceived by it; they would reject it, and they’ll be on the right side.
Because they have not recognised such a thing, or decided that it has already happened, it can’t possibly have happened yet.
There is an unconscious complacency here. I do not think that accusation can levelled back on us. We all think that we’re right, obviously. But those on ‘this side’ if we can call it that, who are doing the work to prove the point. We are thinking carefully about these questions, and we’re not the ones begging the question.
What we see is that people have drawn their red lines, as we discussed last time with Frank Sheed and others. They say: ‘The real Church could never do this.’ But what they have actually inherited—what all of us inherited, if we grew up in that milieu—is a set of red lines that have already been shifted, a set of goalposts that have already shifted.
One of those is this topic: the unity of the Church. That is why hardly anyone believes in it anymore. These goalposts, these red lines were moved before many of us were even born. Yet the point is absolutely vital.
We would all say that the true Church cannot have women priests, or that the true Church cannot abolish all the sacraments. But it is also true that the Church cannot lack any of her necessary properties, of which unity is foundational.
We need to take this seriously. The issue is not answered by whataboutism: ‘What about apostolicity of government?’ or ‘What about disunity among your own groups?’ and so on.
We want to avoid that kind of thing, really. We want to stay carefully working through these points. Because once we have understood them, and agreed upon them, only then is it worth talking about where the Church is. Until then, we are simply talking at cross-purposes.
Topics included:
What is unity?
Unity of Faith as the most important aspect
How the note of unity may be obscured – or the property absent
The Conciliar/Synodal Church and unity
More surveys revealing the disunity of the Conciliar/Synodal Church
The 2014 Univision ‘Global Survey of Roman Catholics’
The disunity of faith and its source
Conclusions on the property of unity
This interview was a follow up to a previous conversation on the first part, ‘Radically insufficient’ – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church’s visibility, Part I’. Here is the first interview:
You can find the relevant articles here:
‘Radically insufficient’ – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church’s visibility, Part I
‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church (Reply to Fr Thomas Crean)
‘No longer the same Church, if...’ – Frank Sheed’s red lines have all been crossed
Polish theologian predicted Conciliar/Synodal Church and ‘puppet’ hierarchy in 1916
Thank you to Stephen for having me on again. I hope readers of The WM Review enjoy it – and give Kokx News a follow too.
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My field is Computer Science, but I specialized in logic while earning my Philosophy degree. Since analytic philosophers taught, I'm also nearly obsessed with word meanings. Other Catholic traditionalists use phrases like "Novus Ordo Church" and "synodal Church" when those expressions are vague, ambiguous, or both.
Consider "Novus Ordo Church." Does it stand for a group of people in the Catholic Church, a part of Christ's Mystical Body? Or is it a distinct organization? "Novus Ordo church" could refer to a church where priests celebrate both Novus Ordo and some traditional Masses because a diocesan bishop orders that the parish's priests celebrate the TLM.
More than 90% of the Church's bishops became Arians during the Arian crisis. Does that mean the Catholic Church lost the unity of faith? If that unity is part of the Catholic Church's essence, and she lost it, then she ceased to exist because the loss destroyed her. But Matthew 16:18-19 suggests that it can't happen.
I sure appreciate all the work you are doing, Mr. Wright. May our Lord bless you, grant you a fruitful Lent, and may our Lady keep you in her care.