AHC: Collapse of the Catholic Church post Third Crusade

Great Western Schism goes worse, and no one abdicates, thus fracturing the Catholic Church into three, maybe more, and soon National Churches are founded across the west that change to fit the needs and wants of each, all the while claiming to be the legitimate pontiff
 
The Lollards are more popular, the Cathars have a revival...the printing press is invented earlier...
 
If we are using the 3rd Crusade as a PoD then we could have a revived Byzantium causing Orthodox to chip away at the edges of Latin Christendom while the Western schism disrupted the Latin church in the west.
 
A collapse, as a disappearance of orthodox Latin Christianity seems really implausible (and coming out of nowhere).

Even a greater schism (that is obviously a political, not a religious issue) would lead to a divided Catholicism, not its collapse : depsite a political collapse for Byzantium, Greek Christianity didn't collapsed.

It's simply too well rooted into the population : at their best the heresies quoted by Velasco didn't reached 2 to 5% of the population in some aeras, generally far less. The exemple of Protestantism could be admittedly contradictory, but a more expanded alt-Reformation is going to replace de facto Catholicism, not making it collapse.
 
I read the term "the Catholic Church" to mean the single western church. If the western schism last then there will be no "the Catholic Church" because there will be two competing churches.
 
I read the term "the Catholic Church" to mean the single western church. If the western schism last then there will be no "the Catholic Church" because there will be two competing churches.

That's a bit far fetched sounding, honestly. Did Christianity collapsed because Latin and Greek Christianity divided themseles eventually?
 
No, I think he means just two "catholic" churches if you will.

It wouldn't be a collapse but a division, that if demonstrate a structual weakness doesn't mean the whole stuff breaked down (aka not only political structure, but teachings, cultural references, rites, etc.).
Even with two or three rivaling catholic churches, the fact that there is a rivality implies that they are all functioning along catholic lines.

An actual collapse would be no Catholic church at all, de facto and if possible de jure, beheaded Latin rites local churches (if they survive) that if they could gather themselves eventually, would have known a sudden break down of their former structure.
 
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