I'll answer my own post: Avery Cardinal Dulles.
Yea or nay?
Uh.... Christ Himself?
Well, yeah....except that if you follow Roger Haight's line of reasoning, he's dead.
Leaving aside the creed crushers, and to clarify my thinking a bit (it could use some), I'm not looking for a Church Division Resolution Tsar. More like someone who can articulate the problem and get the ears of the influential.
Think of it this way, using popular opinionizers: If I say "Weigel," a Reporter correspondent will empty his sinuses into his bowl of corn flakes. If he says McBrien, my coffee goes airborne. Is there someone non-divine who allows good faith folks on both sides to enjoy their breakfasts unaspirated?
I don't think we're even at the recognition stage of the problem yet. At the rate we are going, it won't happen until after formal schism occurs.
Gerard:
And thanks for the reminder that we all should definitely pray John 17 with all our might.
It's not going to happen because the other side doesn't have a leader.
The Catholic side does, we call him the Pope. The wishing/thinking/pretending to be Catholic side doesn't really.
You also assume good intentions on both sides. At least, you assume that both define the Catholic Faith in the same way.
For my part, I'm figuring that there is a certain segment that is pushing the progressive camp into campaigning for some uberthing to replace what we've understood as the Church for the last..forever. The heavy-duty Spirit of Vatican II types really do believe that they are going to overcome the backwards past and usher in an era of light and beauty on earth.
How do you negotiate, give them Australia? Let them have authority over Berkely, Georgetown, and any place that still buys those worship and praise hymn books, or whatever they call them?
Personally, if you wered going to set up such a position, I think it should be headed by Bishop Williamson of the SSPX. I mean, there's a guy that isn't exactly a favorite of either side.
The problem isn't division in the Church: the problem is that the other side is bad. We don't trust them because they're not trustworthy. The only way this will be resolved is when bishops are either converted or grow some oysters. Preferably both.
DT:
Well, except for the fact the Popes have been disinclined to get involved in resolving factionalism, I'm with you.
Jeff:
I don't think you can write off all of them that way. The professional bureaucratic schismatics in the chanceries and universities who have been waging war for the past two generations--some of whom are mitred, true--OK. For the bolshie warriors, there is only conversion. But the entire lot is not driven by bad faith.
Even with better bishops, there's still going to need to be some careful handling to keep from repeating mistakes of the type that created several hundred new Orthodox churches in the 1920s.
Anyway, my thinking needs sharpening--more later.
Well, except for the fact the Popes have been disinclined to get involved in resolving factionalism, I'm with you.
The Cathars, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Old Catholics would be surprised to hear that one.
True, Dale, not everyone on the dark side is driven by bad faith. Some will probably get to heaven before I do. But they are driven by bad theology, bad morality, bad principles, and bad ideas. As for trust, well, those who are in good faith can be trusted to do the bad things they say they are going to do. So they still must be converted or defeated.
Wow, Jeff -- you just summed up the situation in the Episcopal Church beautifully.
I may have to use your quote to explain why a break with it was necessary.
At least as Anglicans, there's a good argument that ECUSA itself is schismatic, so that by leaving it and aligning with somewhere else on the globe, we're mending a schism, not creating one. [I think of the days of the Arian controversy as instructive here -- I may lobby for a new name of "St. Athanasius" for the parish. 
]
Some days, it's easier to change bishops than to change your bishop.
Which makes me think that you Catholics have a rather austere discipline. If your AmChurch bishop is bad, where can you go?
peace,
DT:
You're talking about open breaks, and we're not quite there yet. Moreover, the last one on your list dates from 1870.
I should have added "recently." With that, I think my point stands.
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