THE LIMITATIONS OF PAPAL AUTHORITY TO CHANGE SACRED TRADITION From the Writings of Roman Catholic Popes, Councils, Saints, and Theologians TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network E-mail: traditio@traditio.com, Web: www.traditio.com Copyright 1994-2021 CSM. Reproduction prohibited without authorization. Last Revised: 10/01/21 ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430) GREAT WESTERN DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH "By teaching that superiors should not refuse to be reprehended by inferiors, St. Peter gave posterity an example more rare and holier than that of St. Paul as he taught that in the defense of truth and with charity, inferiors may have the audacity to resist superiors without fear." (Epistula 19 ad Hieronymum) ST. VINCENT OF LERINS (CA. 400-CA. 450) CONFESSOR OF THE CHURCH "What then should a Catholic do if some part of the Church were to separate itself from communion with the universal Faith? What other choice can he make but to prefer to the gangrenous and corrupted member the whole of the body that is sound. And if some new contagion were to try to poison no longer a small part of the Church, but all of the Church at the same time, then he will take the greatest care to attach himself to antiquity which, obviously, can no longer be seduced by any lying novelty." (Commonitorium) POPE ST. GREGORY I, "THE GREAT" (590-604) The Canon remained unchanged from Apostolic times to the present day, with the exception of one short clause inserted by St. Gregory the Great. The phrase Pope Gregory added was "diesque nostros in tua pace disponas" [may you order our days in Thy peace] to the Hanc Igitur of the Canon. The Romans were outraged at this act and threatened to kill the pope because he had dared to touch the Sacred Liturgy. The Mass was affirmed to be complete and unchangeable. Since that time no pope has dared to change the Ordo of the Traditional Latin Mass, until in 1962 Pope John XXIII added "beati Ioseph, eiusdem Virginis Sponsi" [of blessed Joseph, Spouse of the same Virgin] to the Communicantes of the Canon. POPE ST. AGATHO (678-681) Papal Coronation Oath, to be taken by all Roman pontiffs, showing that no Roman pontiff has the authority to contradict the Deposit of Faith, or to change or innovate upon what has been handed by to him by Sacred Tradition and his predecessors: "I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein; "To the contrary: with glowing affection as her truly faithful student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort; "To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, should such appear; "To guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the Divine ordinances of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support, being subject to the severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all that I shall confess; "I swear to God Almighty and the Savior Jesus Christ that I will keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors and whatever the first councils and my predecessors have defined and declared. "I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline and the rite of the Church. I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I. "If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on the dreadful Day of Divine Justice. "Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest excommunication anyone -- be it ourselves or be it another -- who would dare to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic Tradition and the purity of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian Religion, or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with those who undertake such a blasphemous venture." (Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, Patrologia Latina 1005, S. 54) The Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, one of the oldest collections of papal texts, privileges, and decrees, written down by Pope St. Agatho with texts that contain centuries of tradition, includes this Papal Coronation Oath, probably already a couple of centuries old, by which every pope since then has sworn as a requirement of acceding to the papal office until John Paul II failed to do so. To this day, this text remains in the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, that singular collection of rites pertaining to the papacy. No pope has ever contradicted this text in 1500 years, as it is the doctrine of the Church that no pope has the power to change Tradition. The oath makes it clear that a magisterium that contradicts former magisterium is not magisterium, for the pope is sworn to put himself outside the Church if even he contradicts what he has received from his predecessors. The ancient papal oath, therefore, foresees the possibility that even a pope may become a heretic or schismatic by violating either dogma or the rites of the Church handed down by Tradition. ST. CYPRIAN, BISHOP & MARTYR (ca. 200-258) "To adhere to a false Bishop of Rome is to be out of communion with the Church. --St. Cyprian SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA (787) "Those therefore who after the manner of wicked heretics dare to set aside ecclesiastical traditions, and to invent any kind of novelty, or to reject any of those things entrusted to the Church, or who wrongfully and outrageously devise the destruction of any of those traditions enshrined in the Catholic Church, are to be punished thus: if they are bishops, we order them to be deposed...." POPE INNOCENT III (CA. 1160-1216) "The pope should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God. Still the less can the Roman Pontiff glory, because he can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy, because he who does not believe is already judged. In such a case it should be said of him: 'If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under foot by men.'" (Sermo 4) HUGGUCIO OF PISA (OB. 1210) Huggucio of Pisa He wrote a Summa Decretorum on the Decretum of Gratian, the most extensive and perhaps the most authoritative commentary of that time on canon law. "A pope who indeed a fornicator in public and has a concubine in public [ecce publico fornicator publico habet concubinem] can indeed be deposed because to scandalize the Church is in itself heresy." Huggucio brings to light one of many problems in the history of the papacy: a conflict between two ancient ecclesiastical principles: "Prima sedes a nemine iudicatur" [the First See is judged by no one] and "Papa hereticus ipso facto depositus est [an heretical pope is by that very fact deposed]. Example: It was common knowledge that Alexander VI's election in 1492 was the result of the grave sin of simony. To put it simply, Alexander bought the papacy with pieces of silver. Therefore, there was a move afoot, led by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, to summon a Council and have the simonical pope deposed, an action supported by the Catholic King of France, Charles VIII. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, O.P. (1225-1274) THE "ANGELIC" DOCTOR AND PRINCIPAL THEOLOGIAN OF THE CHURCH "Hold firmly that your faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church." "There being an imminent danger for the Faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects. Thus, St. Paul, who was a subject of St. Peter, questioned him publicly on account of an imminent danger of scandal in a matter of Faith. And, as the Glossa of St. Augustine puts it (Ad Galatas 2.14), 'St. Peter himself gave the example to those who govern so that if sometime they stray from the right way, they will not reject a correction as unworthy even if it comes from their subjects.... The reprehension was just and useful, and the reason for it was not light: there was a danger for the preservation of Gospel truth.... The way it took place was appropriate, since it was public and manifest. For this reason, St. Paul writes: 'I spoke to Cephas,' that is, Peter, 'before everyone,' since the simulation practiced by St. Peter was fraught with danger to everyone. (Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, Q. 33, A. 4) "Some say that fraternal correction does not extend to the prelates either because man should not raise his voice against heaven, or because the prelates are easily scandalized if corrected by their subjects. However, this does not happen, since when they sin, the prelates do not represent heaven, and, therefore, must be corrected. And those who correct them charitably do not raise their voices against them, but in their favor, since the admonishment is for their own sake.... For this reason, according to other [authors], the precept of fraternal correction extends also to the prelates, so that they may be corrected by their subjects." (IV Sententiarum, D. 19, Q. 2, A. 2) "The vice of falsehood (falsitas) is perpetrated by anyone who offers worship to God on behalf of the Church in a manner contrary to that which is established by the Church with divine authority, and to which the Church is accustomed”. (Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 93, A. 1) [such a vice, as well as sacrilege, is perpetrated by any pope who would simulate the invalid Novus Ordo of 1969 and who would allow others to do so, contravening Sacred Tradition and the dogmata of the Council of Trent] ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA (1347-1380) DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH "Most Holy Father,... because He [Christ] has given you authority and because you have accepted it, you ought to use your virtue and power. If you do not wish to use it, it might be better for you to resign what you have accepted; it would give more honor to God and health to your soul.... If you do not do this, you will be censured by God. If I were you, I would fear that Divine Judgment might descend on me. (Letter to Pope Gregory XI) "Alas, Most Holy Father! At times obedience to you leads to eternal damnation. (Letter to Pope Gregory IX, 1376.) JUAN CARDINAL DE TORQUEMADA [IOANNES DE TURRECREMATA], O.P. (1388-1468) (UNCLE OF THE GRAND INQUISITOR) OFFICIALLY DESIGNATED THEOLOGIAN OF THE COUNCIL OF BASEL/FLORENCE GIVEN BY POPE EUGENE IV THE TITLE OF "DEFENDER OF THE FAITH" "Although it clearly follows from the circumstances that the Pope can err at times, and command things which must not be done, that we are not to be simply obedient to him in all things, that does not show that he must not be obeyed by all when his commands are good. To know in what cases he is to be obeyed and in what not,... it is said in the Acts of the Apostles: 'One ought to obey God rather than man'; therefore, were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands, to be passed over (despiciendus)...." (Summa de Ecclesia [1489], founded upon the doctrine formulated and defined by the Council of Florence and defined by Pope Eugenius IV and Pope Pius IV) "By disobedience, the Pope can separate himself from Christ despite the fact that he is head of the Church, for above all, the unity of the Church is dependent upon its relationship with Christ. The Pope can separate himself from Christ either by disobeying the law of Christ, or by commanding something that is against the divine or natural law. by doing so, the Pope separates himself from the body of the Church because this body is itself linked to Christ by obedience. In this way, the Pope would, without doubt, fall into schism.... "He would do that if he did not observe that which the Universal Church observes in basing herself on the Tradition of the Apostles, or if he did not observe that which has been ordained for the whole world by the universal councils or by the authority of the Apostolic See. Especially is this true with regard to the divine liturgy, as, for example, if he did not wish personally to follow the universal customs and rites of the Church. This same holds true for other aspects of the liturgy in a very general fashion, as would be the case of one unwilling to celebrate with priestly vestments, or in consecrated places, or with candles, or if he refused to make the sign of the cross as other priests do, or other similar things which, in a general way, relate to perpetual usage in conformity with the Canons. "By thus separating himself apart, and with obstinacy, from the observance of the universal customs and rites of the Church, the Pope could fall into schism. The conclusion is sound and the premises are not in doubt, since just as the Pope can fall into heresy, so also he can disobey and transgress with obstinacy that which has been established for the common order of the Church. Thus it is that [Pope] Innocent [III] states (De Consuetudine) that it is necessary to obey a Pope in all things as long as he does not himself go against the universal customs of the Church, but should he go against the universal customs of the church, he ought not to be obeyed...." (Summa de Ecclesia [1489]) ST. ANTONINUS, O.P. (1389-1459) BISHOP AND THEOLOGIAN "In the case in which the pope would become a heretic, he would find himself, by that fact alone and without any other sentence, separated from the Church. A head separated from a body cannot, as long as it remains separated, be head of the same body from which it was cut off. "A pope who would be separated from the Church by heresy, therefore, would by that very fact itself cease to be head of the Church. He could not be a heretic and remain pope, because, since he is outside of the Church, he cannot possess the keys of the Church." (Summa Theologica) GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA (1452-1498) DOMINICAN PREACHER (CAUSE FOR CANONIZATION PENDING) The Lord, moved to anger by this intolerable corruption, has, for some time past, allowed the Church to be without a pastor. For I bear witness in the name of God that this Alexander VI is in no way Pope and cannot be.... This I declare in the first place and affirm it with all certitude, that the man is not a Christian; he does not even believe any longer that there is a God; he goes beyond the final limits of infidelity and impiety." (Letter to the Emperor) SYLVESTRO MAZZOLINI (PRIERIAS), O.P. (1460-1523) THEOLOGIAN "What should be done when the pope, because of his bad customs, destroys the Church...? What if the pope wanted, without reason, to abrogate positive law...? He would certainly sin; he should neither be permitted to act in such a fashion nor should he be obeyed in what was evil; but he should be resisted with a courteous reprehension. (De Iuridica et Irrefragabili Veritate Romanae Ecclesiae Romanique Pontificis, secs. 4 and 15) GIACOMO TOMMASO DE VIO GAETANI [CAJETAN], O.P. (1469-1534) THEOLOGIAN AND CARDINAL Cardinal Cajetan points out that the famous axiom "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia" [Where the Pope is, there is also the Church] holds true only when the Pope acts and behaves as the Pope, because Peter "is subject to the duties of the Office"; otherwise, "neither is the Church in him, nor is he in the Church." (Apud St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 39, Art. 1, ad 6) This statement accords with that of St. Ignatius of Antioch (ob. ca. 107), one of the Apostolic Fathers: "Where Christ is, there is the Church" (Epistula ad Smyrnaeos, 8). One must resist to his face a Pope who publicly destroys the Church. (De Comparata Auctoritate Papae et Concilio, cap. XXVII apud Victoria) FRANCISCO DE VICTORIA, O.P. (1480?-1546) THEOLOGIAN "Consequently, if he [the pope] wished to give away the whole treasure of the Church or the Patrimony of St. Peter to his relatives, if he wanted to destroy the Church or the like, he should not be permitted to act in that fashion, but one would be obliged to resist him. The reason for this is that he does not possess power in order to destroy; therefore, if there is evidence that he is doing it, it is lawful to resist him. The result of all this is that if the pope destroys the Church by his orders and acts, he can be resisted and the execution of his mandates prevented. "Second proof of the thesis. By Natural Law it is lawful to repel violence with violence. Now then, with such orders and idspensations the pope exerts violence, since he acts against the Law, as we have proven. Therefore, it is lawful to resist him." (Dialogus de Potestate Papae [1517], para. 4) POPE ADRIAN VI (1522-1523) "If by the Roman Church you mean its head or pontiff, it is beyond question that he can error even in matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own judgment or decretal. In truth, many Roman pontiffs were heretics. The last of them was Pope John XXII (1316- 1334)." (Quaest. in IV Sententiam). "After his death [Pope] Honorius was anathematized by the Eastern Church. We must remember that he was accused of heresy, a crime which legitimizes the resistance of inferiors to superiors, together with the rejection of their pernicious doctrines. (Allocution III, Lect. In Conc. VIII, act. VII) (For further information about Pope Honorius, see below.) ST. ROBERT BELLARMINE, S.J. (1542-1621) CARDINAL AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH "Papa hereticus ipso facto depositus est" [An heretical pope is by that very fact deposed]. "In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is required.... Therefore, as it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man's person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls or troubled the state (turbanti rempublicam) and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will." (De Romano Pontifice, Lib. II, Cap. 29) "For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is 'ipso facto' deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus 3:10), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate, that is, before any excommunication or judicial sentence. St. Jerome comments on the same place, saying that other sinners, through a judgment of excommunication are excluded from the Church; heretics, however, leave by themselves and are cut from the body of Christ, but a Pope who remains the Pope cannot be shunned. How will we shun our Head? How will we recede from a member to whom we are joined? Now in regard to reason this is indeed very certain. A non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope, as Cajetan affirms in the same book, and the reason is that he cannot be the head of that which he is not a member, and he is not a member of the Church who is not a Christian. But a manifest heretic is not a Christian, as St. Cyprian and many other Fathers clearly teach. Therefore, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope. When men see that someone is a heretic by his external works, they judge him to be a heretic pure and simple and condemn him as a heretic.... Est ergo quinta opinio vera, papam haereticum manifestum per se desinere esse papam et caput, sicut per se desinit esse christianus et membrum corporis Ecclesiae; quare ab, Ecclesia posse eum judicari et puniri. Haec est sententia omnium veterum Patrum, qui docent, haereticos manifestos mox amittere omnem jurisdictionem. Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction, and namely St. Cyprian, who speaks on Novatian, who was a Pope in schism with Cornelius: "He cannot hold the episcopacy; although he was a bishop first, he fell from the body of his fellow bishops and from the unity of the Church. There he means that Novatian, even if he were a true and legitimate Pope, still would have fallen from the pontificate by himself, if he separated himself from the Church." The same is the opinion of the learned men of our age, as John Driedo teaches: those who are cast out as excommunicates, or leave on their own and oppose the Church, are separated from it, namely, heretics and schismatics. He adds in the same work, that no spiritual power remains in them, who have departed from the Church, over those who are in the Church. Melchior Cano teaches the same thing, when he says that heretics are not part of the Church, nor members, and he adds in the last Chapter, 12th argument, that someone cannot even be informed in thought, that he should be head and Pope, who is not a member nor a part, and he teaches the same thing in eloquent words, that secret heretics are still in the Church and are parts and members, and that a secretly heretical Pope is still Pope. Others teach the same, whom we cite in Book I of De Ecclesia. Fundamentum hujus sententiae est quoniam haereticus manifestos nullo modo est membrum Ecclesiae, idest, neque animo neque corpore, sive neque unione interna, neque externa. The foundation of this argument is that the manifest heretic is not in any way a member of the Church, that is, neither spiritually nor corporally, which signifies that he is not such by internal union nor by external union." For even wicked Catholics are united and are members, in spirit through faith and in body through the confession of faith, and the participation of the visible Sacraments. Secret heretics are united and are members, but only by an external union: just as on the other hand, good catechumens are in the Church only by an internal union, but not an external one, but manifest heretics by no union, as has been proved." (De Romano Pontifice, Lib. II, Cap. 30) According to St. Robert Bellarmine, then, papal infallibility is a charism of divine assistance accorded by God to the Pope because of his possessing the magisterium, or the office of primacy. Bellarmine concludes that in the event that an individual Pontiff should delinquently lose the papacy, he would necessarily lose not only the papal office but also the divine charism of infallibility. In short, the divine assistance is attached not to the person of the Pope per se, but to the office that is filled by this person. Therefore, an individual Pontiff enjoys this assistance of the Holy Spirit as long as he also enjoys the possession of the magisterial office. Should this office be forfeited, his prerogative of infallibility would also lapse. Thus, Bellarmine foresaw the possibility of an individual Pontiff lapsing into manifest heresy. The First Vatican Council incorporated Bellarmine's own formula in qualifying papal infallibility. In his treatise De Romano Pontifice, Bellarmine limits infallibility to those pronouncements made by the Sovereign Pontiff "cum ex cathedra loquitur." Thus, the charism of infallibility is a free gift given the Pontiff not for his personal sanctification, but to assure the welfare of others by means of his preserving and explaining the Deposit of Faith. The First Vatican Council amended the original title of its draft from De Romani Pontificis Infallibilitate (Concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff) to De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio (Concerning the Infallible Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff). By stressing the infallible magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, this latter title clarified not only the source and purpose of the divine charism of infallibility, but its resultant loss should an individual Pope regretfully lapse from the magisterial office. In this respect, the Constitution merely defined what in fact had already become the common opinion, as most capably explained by Bellarmine. NINETEENTH (DOGMATIC) OECUMENICAL COUNCIL, TRENT (1545-1563) "Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbatos ecclesiae catholicae ritus in solemni sacramentorum administratione adhiberi consuetos aut contemni, aut sine peccato a ministris pro libito omitti, aut in novus alio per quemcumque ecclesiarum pastorem mutari posse: anathema sit." - -Session VII, Canon 13 [If whosoever says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the Sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at their pleasure, or may be changed by whatsoever pastor [a term that includes the Supreme Pastor, the Pope] of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.] FRANCISCO SUAREZ, S.J. (1548-1617) CALLED BY POPE PAUL V DOCTOR EXIMIUS ET PIUS (MOST EXALTED AND PIOUS) CONSIDERED THE GREATEST THEOLOGIAN OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS "Et hoc secundo modo posset Papa esse schismaticus, si nollet tenere cum toto Ecclesiae corpore unionem et coniunctionem quam debet, ut si tentat et totem Ecclesiam excommunicare, aut si vellet omnes Ecclesiasticas caeremonias apostolica traditione firmatas evertere. (De Charitate, Disputatio XII de Schismate, sectio 1) ["And in this second way the Pope could be schismatic, if he were unwilling to be in normal union with the whole body of the Church, as would occur if he attempted to excommunicate the whole Church, or, as both Cajetan and Torquemada observe, if he wished to overturn the rites of the Church based on Apostolic Tradition."] "If [the pope] gives an order contrary to right customs, he should not be obeyed; if he attempts to do something manifestly opposed to justice and the common good, it will be lawful to resist him; if he attacks by force, by force he can be repelled, with a moderation appropriate to a just defense." (De Fide, Disp. X, Sec. VI, N. 16) POPE PAUL IV (1559-1566) "If ever it should appear that any bishop, even one acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch, or Primate, or a Cardinal of the Roman Church, or a legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, whether prior to his promotion to cardinal, or prior to his election as Roman Pontiff, has beforehand deviated from the Catholic faith or fallen into any heresy, We enact, we decree, we determine, we define: Such promotion or election in and of itself, even with the agreement and unanimous consent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, legally invalid, and void. "It shall not be possible for such a promotion or election to be deemed valid or to be valid, neither through reception of office, consecration, subsequent administration, or possession, not even through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff himself, together with the veneration and obedience accorded him by all. Such promotion or election shall not through any lapse of time in the foregoing situation be considered even partially legitimate in any way.... Each and all of the words, as acts, laws, appointments of those so promoted or elected -- and indeed, whatsoever flows therefrom -- shall be lacking in force, and shall grant no stability and legal power to anyone whatsoever. "Those so promoted or elected, by that very fact and without the need to make any further declaration, shall be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office, and power.... Therefore, it is permitted to no one to impair this page of Our approval, renewal, sanction, statute, wills of repeal, of degrees, or to go contrary to it by a rash daring deed. If anyone, moreover, will have presumed to attempt this, he will incur the wrath of Almighty God an of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul." (Cum ex apostolatus officio, February 16, 1559, sec. 9, apud "Fontes Iuris Canonici," 1971) Two popes, Innocent III and Paul IV, both vigorous defenders of papal authority, together with many theologians, admitted the principle that a pope, in his personal capacity, can defect from the Faith or become a heretic; that when the fact of defection becomes manifest, such a pope automatically (ipso facto) loses his office and authority; and that such a pope should be resisted. What is even more significant is that in his Cum ex apostolatus officio, Paul IV even perceives the possibility of a Protestant being elected to the throne of Peter. He says that in such a case, the pope's acts would be automatically void, and he would not be the pope, even if he had been accepted and obeyed as true Pope by the whole Church. This papal document shows the mind of the Church on this matter. In such a case, Paul IV is calling upon Catholics to resist such a "pope" with all their might. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES (1567-1622) "Now when [the Pope] is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See." (A Catholic Controversy, 1596) JOHN OF ST. THOMAS (1589-1644) THEOLOGIAN, A SUCCESSOR OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS "I - Can a pope be deposed? Answer. Yes, because Catholics are obliged to separate themselves from heretics, after the heretics have been warned (Titus 3:10). Also, an heretical pope puts the whole Church in a state of legitimate self- defense. But the pope must be warned first, as officially as possible, in case he would retract. Also his heresy must be public, and declared as officially as possible, to prevent wholesale confusion among Catholics, by their being bound to follow. "II - By whom must he be officially declared a heretic? Answer. Not by the cardinals, because although they may elect a pope, they cannot depose one, because it is the Universal Church that is threatened by an heretical pope, and so the most universal possible authority of the Church can alone depose him, namely a Church council composed of a quorum of all the Church's cardinals and bishops. These would be convoked not authoritatively (which the pope alone can do), but among themselves. "III - By what authority would a Church Council depose the Pope? [John of St. Thomas here adopts the solution laid out by another famous Dominican theologian, Giacomo Tommaso de Vio Cardinal Gaetani (Cajetan) (1469-1534). The Church's deposition of the pope would fall not upon the pope as pope, but upon the bond between the man and his papacy. John of St Thomas confirms this conclusion from the Church's Canon Law, which states in several places that God alone can depose the pope, but the Church can pass judgment on his heresy.] On the one hand not even a Church council has authority over the pope. On the other hand, the Church is obliged to avoid heretics and to protect the sheep. Therefore, just as in a conclave, the cardinals are the ministers of Christ to bind this man to the papacy, but Christ alone gives him his papal authority, so the Church council would be the ministers of Christ to unbind this heretic from the papacy by their solemn declaration, but Christ alone, by his divine authority over the pope, would authoritatively depose him. In other words, the Church council would be deposing the pope not authoritatively from above, but only ministerially from below." ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, C.S.S.R. (1696-1787) BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH "If ever a pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he would at once fall from the pontificate. If, however, God were to permit a pope to become a notoriously and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the apostolic chair would be vacant." (Verita della Fede, Pt. III, Ch. VIII.9-10) JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN (1801-1890) "It is not a little remarkable that, though historically speaking the fourth century is the age of the doctors, illustrated as it is, by the Saints Athanasius, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine (and all those saints bishops also, except one, nevertheless in that very day the divine tradition committed to the infallible Church was proclaimed and maintained far more by the faithful than by the episcopate.... "I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of Our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the Ecclesia docta ("the taught Church" -- the faithful) than by the Ecclesia docens ("the teaching Church" -- the Magisterium); that the body of the Episcopate was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism.... "On the one hand, then, I say that there was a temporary suspension of the functions of the Ecclesia docens. The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. There was weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion ... extending itself into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church. (The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833) "...Though dogmatic statements are found from time to time in a Pope's Apostolic Letters, etc., yet they are not accounted to be exercises of his infallibility if they are said only obiter -- by the way, and without direct intention to define. A striking instance of this sine qua non condition is afforded by Nicholas I [858-867], who, in a letter to the Bulgarians, spoke as if baptism were valid, when administered simply in the Lord's Name, without direct mention of the Three Persons, but he is not teaching and speaking ex cathedra, because no question on this matter was in any sense the occasion of his writing. The question, asked of him was concerning the minister of baptism, -- viz., whether a Jew or Pagan could validly baptize; in answering in the affirmative, he added obiter, as a private doctor, says Bellarmine, "that the baptism was valid, whether administered in the name of the three Persons or in the name of Christ only" (De Romano Pontifice, Lib. IV, Cap. 12). (Infallibility and Conscience) DOM PROSPER LOUIS PASCAL GUERANGER (1805-1875) THEOLOGIAN "When the shepherd turns into a wolf, it behooves the flock to defend itself in the first place. Doctrine normally flows from the bishops down to the faithful people, and subjects should not judge their chiefs. But, in the treasure of revelation, there are certain points that every Christian necessarily knows and must obligatorily defend." (L'anne liturgique - Le temps de la septuagesime, 1932) FR. HENRY IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER (1837-1907) THEOLOGIAN AND SUPERIOR OF THE BIRMINGHAM ORATORY SUCCESSOR AND STUDENT OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN "It has always been maintained by Catholic theologians that for heresy the Church may judge the Pope, because, as most maintain, by heresy he ceases to be Pope. There is no variance on this head amongst theologians that I know of, except that some, with Turrecremata and Bellarmine, hold tha by heresy he ipso facto ceases to be Pope: whilst others, with Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, maintain that he would not formally [as opposed to materially] cease to be Pope until he was formally deposed. "The privilege of infallible teaching belongs only to an undoubted Pope; and on the claims of a doubtful, disputed Pope the Church has the right of judging. No single example can be produced of a Pope whose orthodoxy and succession ws undoubted upon whom the Church pretended to sit in judgment.... During a contested Papacy the state of things approximates to that of an interregnum. The exercise of active infallability is suspended." (Catholic Controversy, 6th ed., Burns & Oates, pp. 30-31) FRANCIS XAVIER WERNZ, S.J. (1842-1914) SUPERIOR GENERAL OF THE JESUITS & RECTOR OF THE PONTIFICAL GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY AT ROME AND FRANCOIS D'ASISE VIDAL Y BARRAQUER (1868-1943) CARDINAL "Finally, one cannot consider as schismatics those who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they would hold his person suspect or, because of widespread rumors, doubtfully elected (as happened after the election of Urban VI), or who would resist him as a civil authority and not as pastor of the Church." (Wernz-Vidal, Ius Canonicum [Rome: Gregorian University, 1937], Vol. VII, p.398 "Through notorious and openly divulged heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into heresy, by that very fact (ipso facto) is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction even before any declaratory judgment by the Church.... A Pope who falls into public heresy would cease ipso facto to be a member of the Church; therefore, he would also cease to be head of the Church.... A doubtful Pope is no Pope." (Wernz-Vidal, Ius Canonicum [Rome: Gregorian University, 1943] LOUIS CARDINAL BILLOT, S.J. (1846-1931) THEOLOGIAN AND CANONIST "Whoever dwells outside the Church is ipso facto rendered unfit for all ordinary jurisdiction, i.e., episcopal jurisdiction, because a person with ordinary jurisdiction possesses the dignity of being the head. No one can be the head of even a particular Church if he is not a member of the Church.... Such a person's acts are not valid from the moment that [such a person as Patriarch] Nestorius began to proclaim the heresy. Although a bishop who is a secret heretic still enjoys authority within the Church, an heretical bishop loses his jurisdiction from the time at which he begins to preach heresy publicly. Because of the harm that he could do to the faith of his subjects, a heretic automatically loses his ordinary jurisdiction. --Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi POPE PIUS IX (1846-1878) "I am only the pope. What power have I to touch the Canon?" In response to requests that he add the name of St. Joseph to the Canon of the Mass. "If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him." Letter to Bishop Brizen "The opinion according to which the pope, in virtue of his infallibility, is an unlimited and absolute Sovereign, supposes a totally erroneous conception of the dogma of papal infallibility. Thus, as the [First Vatican Council] declared in clear and explicit terms, and as the nature of things itself shows, this infallibility is confined to that which is proper to the supreme pontifical Magisterium, which in truth coincides with the limits of the infallible Magisterium of the Church generally, which is limited by the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, as by the definitions already pronounced by the Magisterium of the Church. ("A Collective Declaration of the German Bishops," confirmed by Pope Pius IX) TWENTIETH OECUMENICAL (DOGMATIC) COUNCIL, VATICAN I (1869-1870) "Neque enim Petri successoribus Spiritus sanctus promissus est, ut eo revelante novam doctrinam patefacerent, sed ut eo assistente traditam per apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent. (Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi [Pastor Aeternus], cap. 4, "De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio") [For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.] "The question was also raised by a Cardinal, 'What is to be done with the Pope if he becomes a heretic?' It was answered that there has never been such a case; the Council of Bishops could depose him for heresy, for from the moment he becomes a heretic he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be Pope, being deposed by God Himself. "If the Pope, for instance, were to say that the belief in God is false, you would not be obliged to believe him, or if he were to deny the rest of the creed, 'I believe in Christ,' etc. The supposition is injurious to the Holy Father in the very idea, but serves to show you the fullness with which the subject has been considered and the ample thought given to every possibility. If he denies any dogma of the Church held by every true believer, he is no more Pope than either you or I; and so in this respect the dogma of infallibility amounts to nothing as an article of temporal government or cover for heresy." [Address at the First Vatican Council by Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the infallibility of the Pope as defined at the Council.] In drafting the definition of the Dogma of Infallibility in 1869, the periti of Vatican Council I actually discovered that more than forty popes had preached personal doctrinal errors in preceding centuries, though not in an infallible context. The Council Fathers, having re-affirmed what the Church had always taught that it was necessary for salvation to be in union with the Bishop of Rome and that he who rejected his authority could not hope to be saved, went on to reason that therefore the Pope could not err or lead his flock astray, for in that case the faithful might, on certain occasions, find themselves in the position of having to follow him into his error. As no one is ever bound to an evil act, this would be an absurdity. At this point the Council had to define also the limits of infallibility, and lay down the precise conditions that must be satisfied for a pronouncement to be ex cathedra. Clearly the Council was aware that obedience to the Pope -- only relatively infallible -- could not under all circumstances be identified with obedience to God, Who alone is the Source of all Truth and Holiness. Not only was the Infallibility of the Pope defined at the Vatican Council, but also the limits and extent of this Infallibility. To put it another way, the Council laid down also the fact that outside these limits the Pope remained capable of erring and was not entitled to command blind obedience. FR. ADRIAN FORTESCUE (1874-1923) BRITAIN'S GREAT LITURGICAL HISTORIAN (1874-1923) "The Pope has no authority from Christ in temporal matters, in questions of politics.... His authority is ecclesiastical authority; it goes no further than that of the Church herself. But even in religious matters, the Pope is bound, very considerably, by the divine constitution of the Church. There are any number of things that the pope cannot do in religion. He cannot modify, nor touch in any way, one single point of the revelation Christ gave to the Church; his business is only to guard this against attack and false interpretation. We believe that God will guide him that his decisions of this nature will be nothing more than a defense or unfolding of what Christ revealed. "The pope can neither make nor unmake a sacrament; he cannot affect the essence of any sacrament in any way. He cannot touch the Bible; he can neither take away a text from the inspired Scriptures nor add one to them. He has no fresh inspiration nor revelation. "His business is to believe the revelation of Christ, as all Catholics believe it, and to defend it against heresy.... The Pope is not, in the absolute sense, head of the Church; the head of the Church is Jesus Christ our Lord.... The Pope is the vicar of that head, and therefore visible head of the Church on earth, having authority delegate from Christ over the Church on earth only.... If the Pope is a monarch, he is a very constitutional monarch indeed, bound on all sides by the constitution of the Church, as this has been given to her by Christ." (The Early Papacy to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451, pp. 27-28) POPE LEO XIII (1878-1903) Pope Leo XIII, who had named St. Joseph as the Patron of the Universal Church and had written an encyclical letter about him, refused permission for the addition of the saint's name to the Canon of the Mass, citing the tradition of the Church that the Canon was to remain unchanged. POPE ST. PIUS X (1903-1914) "One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the Deposit of Faith delivered to the Saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words, and the gainsaying of knowledged falsely so-called.... We may no longer keep silent [against the Modernists], lest we should seem to fail in our essential duty." (Encyclical Letter "Pascendi Dominici Gregis," September 8, 1907, Sec. 1) These words of the great anti-Modernist pope-saint, one of the only two popes canonized in the last 700 years, indicate that it is possible for a pope to fail in his essential duty of safeguarding the purity of the Faith. THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA (1913) "It has been a common teaching of theologians that a validly elected pope can fall into heresy and so vacate the See of Peter by automatic tacit resignation." (Vol. VII, p. 261) "Were a Pope to become a public heretic, where he clearly opposed what has been defined as de fide Catholicism, many theologians hold that no formal sentence of disposition would be required, as by becoming a public heretic the Pope would ipso facto cease to be pope." "The Pope himself, if notoriously guilty of heresy, would cease to be Pope because he would cease to be a member of the Church." CODE OF CANON LAW (1917) "Ob tacitam renuntiationem ab ipso iure admissam quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine ulla declaratione, si clerus... (4) a fide catholica publice defecerit." --Codex Iuris Canonici, Canon 188 ["Because of tacit resignation accepted by the law itself, any office is vacant ipso facto and without any declaratoin, if a cleryman... (4) should publicly have defected from the Catholic faith."] POPE PIUS XII (1939-1958) "The sacred pastors are not the inventors and composers of the Gospel, but merely the authorized guardians and preachers divinely established. Wherefore, we ourselves, and all bishops with us, can and must repat the words of Jesus Christ: "My teaching is not my own, but his who sent me" (John 7:16).... "Therefore, we are not teachers of a doctrine born of the human mind, but we are in conscience bound to embrace and follow the doctrine which Christ Our Lord taught and which He solemnly commanded His Apostles and their successors to teach (Matthew 28:19-20)." (Encyclical Letter "Ad Sinarum Gentem," October 7, 1954) This great pope of our century speaks of the limitations of his office, acknowledging that even the pope has no power to innovate upon the Faith, but only to pass down the Apostolic teaching. UDALRICUS BESTE THEOLOGIAN "Not a few canonists teach that, outside of death and abdication, the pontifical dignity can also be lost by falling into certain insanity, which is legally equivalent to death, as well as through manifest and notorious heresy. In the latter case, a pope would automatically fall from his power, and this indeed without the issuance of any sentence, for the first See [the Apostolic See] is judged by no one.... The reason is that, by falling into heresy, the pope ceases to be a member of the church. He who is not a member of a society, obviously, cannot be its head. (Introductio in Codicem, 1946, Canon 221) ===================================================================== POPES WHO ARGUABLY FELL INTO MATERIAL (PERSONAL) HERESY POPE ST. MARCELLINUS (296-304) Marcellinus, during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian in 303-304, offered incense to the idols of the pagan gods. Therefore, he apostatized, left the Catholic Faith, and left the Church. Catholic theology teaches that it is possible for this to happen with a pope as with any other man, as a pope is a man and has freewill to accept or reject the Catholic Faith. The Catholic faithful were so scandalized by the pope's apostasy that they accosted him and reproached him severely. Under pressure from the Catholic faith, Marcellinus publicly recanted his error and deposed himself. He declared himself unworthy of Christian burial and excommunicated all who might presume to bury him. His body lay above ground for 35 days decomposing. POPE LIBERIUS (352-355) By his own admission (Letter "Studens Paci"), Liberius signed an heretical semi-Arian profession of faith at Sirmium in 357, during the period of the Arian heresy in the Church. He also excommunicated St. Athanasius, who was courageously defending the orthodox Catholic faith. Liberius also signed, in December 359, when he was under pressure at the hands of the Emperor, who was holding him prisoner at Byzantium, a semi- Arian formula that had already been accepted by all the (heretic) Eastern bishops, 160 in number, meeting at Seleucia, and by 400 (heretic) Western bishops, at Rimini -- by all of them except St. Hilary, St. Athanasius, and a tiny handful of others, whom Liberius went so far as to condemn and excommunicate. These facts are attested to by St. Athanasius (History of the Arians, sec. 41; Apologia against the Arians, sec. 89), St. Hilary of Potiers (Historical Fragments, Ad Constantium), and St. Jerome (Chronicle), who wrote: "Liberius, conquered by the tedium of exile, WITH HERETICAL PERVERSITY, signed [the profession of semi-Arian faith] and entered into Rome as a conqueror." Neither St. Athanasius nor St. Hilary had any problem resisting the heretical politics of Pope Liberius. POPE ZOSIMUS (417-418) Pope Zosimus, in the presence of the Roman clergy, recognized as orthodox the heretical statements of Pelagius, which had been condemned by Pope Innocent I and the two Councils of Carthage. Pelagianism, which denied the doctrine of Original Sin and man's need for grace, was a virulent heresy of the time, against which St. Augustine wrote numerous tracts (The Remission of Sins and the Baptism of Children, The Spirit and the Letter, Letter to Hilary, Nature and Grace, Perfect Justice, The Acts of Pelagius, The Grace of Christ, and Original Sin). The pope condemned those who held the orthodox Catholic faith as calumniators (Letter "Postquam nobis," November 21, 417; Letter "Magnum pondus") and demanded a formal retraction from the orthodox African bishops, St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Aurelius of Carthage. In response, St. Augustine and St. Aurelian took a solemn oath with God as witness (obtestatio), affirming that the prior Catholic doctrine prevailed over the judgment of the pope, which was upheld by a plenary council of all Africa assembled. Confronted with resistance to his part in perpetuating heresy, Pope Zosimus finally recanted and renewed the excommunication of the heretic Pelagius. It was around this time that St. Augustine uttered the famous words (or something close to them): Roma locuta est; causa finita est, in a Sermon CXXXI of September 417. Pope Zosimus was waffling on his precedessor's, Pope St. Innocent I's, anathema against the heretic Pelagius. St. Augustine meant by his statement since Rome had already spoken on the matter (a reference to Pope St. Innocent I's anathema against Pelagius), the case ought not to be reopened, even by Pope Zosimus, who ought to give his assent to the solemn judgment of his predecessor. St. Augustine made his statement, then, at a time when a pope was in the process of lending aid and comfort to heretics, when he should have been holding fast to what his predecessor had decreed. The great Saint was not saying that every decision of Rome must be blindly obeyed; otherwise, he would have supported the reigning pope. He was warning people, the Pope included, that Rome had already spoken on this matter and that it would be gravely wrong for anyone (even, presumably, a pope) to attempt to reverse a solid and sound judgment on a matter of Catholic doctrine. POPE ANASTASIUS II (496-498) This pope appears held in Hell in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Canto XI, lines 8-9): ...Anastasio papa guardo, lo qual trasse Fotin dela via dritta. [...I hold Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew from the straight path.] In mediaeval tradition, this pope was held to have been persuaded by Photinus, a deacon of Thessalonica, to deny the divine birth of Christ. Although later scholarship has cast doubt on the correctness of this tradition, the point is that it was a widely held opinion of the Church that a pope was a heretic, so widely held, in fact, that this pope appears as a heretic in one of the most read and influential texts of the Middle Ages, written by a Franciscan Tertiary and praised by several subsequent popes as showing consonance with the Apostolic Tradition. POPE VIGILIUS (537-555) Vigilius became to all appearances a supporter of heresy when, in 553, he refused to uphold firmly the Church's teaching that Christ had two Wills, against "Monothelism." He did not condemn either this or the older Monophysite heresy. The Roman deacon Pelagius attacked Vigilius on this account and charged him with heresy, for which he was excommunicated by Vigilius. It was Pelagius, however, who succeeded him as pope, only to fall into similar habits of temporizing and diplomatic duplicity as his predecessor! The Emperor Justianian had called a kangaroo council to rescind the condemnation of the heresy of monophysitism, a heresy that denied the two natures, human and divine, of Christ. Pope Vigilius, who wished to return to Rome from exile, in a decree, or Iudicatum, recanted his former orthodox Catholic position, condemned the orthodox decree of the Council of Chalcedon (451), and excommunicated the bishop-authors of that decree (the so- called Three Chapters of Theodoret). As a result of this action, he was excommunicated for heresy by an African Council and forced to annul the Iudicatum, although he continued to support it privately in correspondence with the emperor. The Fifth Oecumenical Council at Constantinople (553) excommunicated Pope Vigilius, and the next year he recanted again, saying that he had been deceived by the devil. Having thus succumbed to public and personal heresy, Pope Virgilus died before he reached Rome. His heresy had a great repercussion on the Church of the time. In the West, it even caused a schism in northern Italy. POPE BONIFACE IV (608-615) Pope Boniface manifested strong tendencies toward the Nestorian heresy, which denied the correct doctrine of the two natures of Christ and denied that the Blessed Virgin Mary was the Mother of God. This heresy was condemned by the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) and persists in parts of the East to this day. St. Columbanus wrote to the pope vehemently reprimanding him for his heretical tendencies (Epistula V), called upon the pope to prove his orthodoxy and to call a council to clarify the doctrinal confusions that the pope had created. POPE HONORIUS I (625-638) Honorius is, among all the popes in any way guilty of heresy, both the best known and the most culpable. The phrase he used when justifying his compromise with the heretics has a surprisingly up-to-date ring about it, for all that it was spoken in 634: "We must be careful not to rekindle ancient quarrels." On the strength of this argument, he allowed error to spread freely, with the result that truth and orthodoxy were effectively banished. Pope Honorius wrote a letter approving the heresy of the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, monothelitism, which held against the doctrine of the human and divine natures of Christ that there was only a single will in Christ. This heresy was strongly opposed by St. Sophronius, later Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Maximus the Confessor, and various popes. St. Sophronius called a council to combat the heresy, at which the constant teaching of the Church on the two natures, human and divine, in Christ was demonstrated. Pope Honorius in reply reproved the orthodox Catholic patriarch and enlisted the help of the heretical emperor Heralitus. The heresy of monothelitism, to which Pope Honorius personally held, was condemned by Pope Severinus (640-640), Pope John IV (640-642) in 642, Pope Theodore I (642-649), who excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople for defending the error, Pope St. Martin I 9649-655), who died a martyr for defending the orthodox Catholic doctrine, and Pope Eugenius I (654-657). Finally, the Third Oecumenical Council of Constantinople (680- 681) condemned the heresy of monothelitism and condemned and excommunicated Pope Honorius (after his death) as a heretic, as did Pope St. Leo II, who followed the Council, in these words: "Having found that [Honorius's letters] are in complete disagreement with the Apostolic dogmata and the definitions of the Holy Councils, and of all the approved Fathers; and that, on the contrary, they lead to the false doctrines of the heretics, we absolutely reject and condemn them as being poisonous to souls. "We also state that Honorius, formerly pope of the elder Rome, had been also rejected from God's Holy Catholic Church and is being anathematized, on account of the writings that he sent to Sergius, where he adopted his ideas in everything, and reaffirmed his impious principles. He is shown to be incapable of enlightening this Apostolic Church by the doctrine of Apostolic Tradition, in that he allowed its immaculate faith to be blemished by a sacrilegious betrayal." All the great Oecumenical Councils since then have endorsed this verdict. Even while proclaiming the dogma of Papal Infallibility, the Church upheld the anathema cast many centuries ago upon one of her Pontiffs on account of heresy. Moreover, Pope Honorius admonished the bishops of Spain to be benevolent toward the errors of the Jewish religion, which had been condemned by the Council of Toledo (633), presided over by St. Isidore of Seville. St. Braulio of Saragossa publicly reproved the pope, charging that he could not believe that "the astuteness of the serpent had been able to leave traces of his passing over the stone of the Apostolic See." THE CHURCH WAS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR THAT POPE HONORIUS WAS CONDEMNED AND EXCOMMUNICATED BY THE CHURCH AS A HERETIC, WHO WROTE HERESY IN HIS OFFICIAL PAPAL LETTERS. #1. Honorius was condemned by the Third Oecumenical Council of Constantinople specifically as a heretic who had taught heresy, not just because he was just negligent and failed to teach the true Faith when it was in danger of subversion. The Council's findings were as follows: We find that these documents [including those of Honorius] are quite foreign to the Apostolic dogmata, to the declarations of the Holy Councils, and to all the accepted Fathers, and that they follow the false teachings of the heretics. We expel and anathematize from the Holy Church of God Honorius, who was some time pope of Old Rome, because of what we found written by him to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines.... To Honorius, the heretic, anathema!... [The devil] has actively employed them [including Honorius]... We slew them [including Honorius] with anathema, as lapsed from the faith and as sinners, in the morning outside the camp of the tabernacle of God. #2. Pope Leo confirmed the documents of this Council with a sentence that actually confirms that Honorius Moreover, [we anathematize] also Honorius, who ruled this Apostolic Church, not by the doctrine of Apostolic Tradition; rather, he tried by profane treason to overthrow the immaculate Faith of the Roman Church. [Necnon et Honorium (anathematizamus), qui hanc Apostolicam ecclesiam, non Apostolicæ Traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est.” (Mansi, Tomus XI. p. 731] #3. The Council of Trullo was held just a few years after Constantinople III. It stated that Honorius had been condemned specifically because he taught heresy: This council taught that we should openly profess our faith that in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, our true God, there are two natural wills, or volitions, and two natural operations; and condemned by a just sentence those who adulterated the true doctrine and taught the people that in the one Lord Jesus Christ there is but one will and one operation: to wit, Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Honorius of Rome, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter. The Oecumenical Council II Nicea also recorded that Honorius held the heresy along with the other heretics: We have also anathematised the idle tales of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius; and the doctrine of one will held by Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, and Pyrrhus, or rather, we have anathematized their own evil will. POPE FORMOSUS (891-896) Pope Stephen VI (VII) (896-897) had the body of Pope Formosus (891- 896), his second-to-last predecessor, although not charged with heresy, exhumed, vested in papal vestments, seated on a throne, formally placed on trial before the Roman Synod (sometimes called the Cadaver Synod) for having invalidly usurped the papal throne. When he was found guilty, Formosus was then stripped of his papal vestments, and the three fingers of his right hand -- the fingers with which he conferred blessings -- were cut off and cast away contemptuously. Formosus' body was then thrown into the Tiber River. Stephen deposed the dead pope, annulled all his decrees, and pronounced all the ordinations conferred by him invalid. Although several of Stephen's successors rehabilitated Formosus, Pope Sergius III (904- 911) upheld Stephen's actions. Boniface VI (896), Stephen's immediate predecessor, was an excommunicated priest. Formosus had himself been excommunicated in 872. POPE BENEDICT IX (1032-1044, 1045, 1047-8) Benedict IX was deposed, excommunicated, and banished from Rome on account of simony by a Lateran synod. He abdicated from the papal throne in 1049 in exchange for the income of the annual St. Peter's Pence collection. Because of Benedict IX's deposition, there were at one time three popes: Sylvester III, Gregory VI, and Benedict IX. Because of Benedict IX's deposition, there were at one time three popes: Sylvester III, Gregory VI, and Benedict IX. He was the first pope to abdicate. POPE PASCHAL II (1099-1118) In 1111 Pope Paschal II succumbed to the secular power and demanded that all bishops and abbots resign so that the secular power could make its own appointments (lay investiture). To a man, including St. Bruno of Segni, the bishops and abbots refused to obey the pope. Paschal was declared suspect of heresy. In 1112 Guido of Burgundy, Archbishop of Vienne and the future Pope Callistus II, with St. Hugh of Grenoble and St. Godfrey of Amiens, also acted against the pope at a provincial synod. In 1116, like St. Peter, the pope in public repented bitterly of the error that he had made in undermining the authority of the Church and acting against the common good of the Church. POPE JOHN XXII (1316-1334) In three sermons from 1331 until 1333 preached and wrote against the common opinion of theologians, preaching instead that the souls of the just do not enjoy the Beatific Vision immediately after death, nor are the wicked at once eternally damned, but that all await the final judgment of God at the Last Day. The pope was denounced as a heretic and demanded to be brought before a council for trial and condemnation. Yet he persisted in teaching this error, even throwing into the papal dungeon one who accused him of heresy. Eventually, however, the pope appointed a commission of theologians to examine the question, which easily showed him that his teaching was contrary to the almost universal opinion of theologians. On the day before his death, December 3, 1334, he issued the Bull Ne Super His in the presence of the College of Cardinals, formally and solemnly revoking his opinion. On January 29, 1936, his successor, Pope Benedict XII, published this document, along with his own Constitution, Benedictus Deus, which declared authoritatively and perpetually concerning the matter. John XXII, upon his deathbed, solemnly recanted every opinion, every teaching contrary to the Catholic Faith, alluding to his heretical sermon given on the Feast of All Saints in 1331, "determinationi Ecclesiae ac successorum nostrorum" [submitting all that he may have said or written on the subject to the judgement of the Church and of his successors]. Such instances do not leave any room for doubt but that it is possible for a Pope to be guilty of heresy, except in the exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterium, which, alone, is intrinsically infallible. "Papal teaching authority was not thought of as being independent of the other teaching authorities in the Church. Scholastic theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas recognized that the Pope could introduce new formulas of faith, but Thomas thought of this in the context of papal councils like the Lateran councils, and saw papal authority to determine the faith as being exercised as the head of such a council, not in opposition to it or independence from it. It became Dominican tradition that individual popes could not could not error when acting with the counsel of the Church. This Dominican teaching would be reiterated to good effect in the debates at the First Vatican Council. "A crucial influence in the development of the idea that the Pope himself might be free from error came from the Franciscan debates about poverty. Successive popes had ruled in favour of the Franciscan rejection of property. When Pope John XXII repudiated that teaching and denied that Christ was a pauper, Franciscan theologians appealed against his judgement to the infallibility of other, earlier popes. They argued that the Church, in the person of those popes, had repeatedly accepted the Franciscan view of poverty as an evangelical form of life. John XXII, therefore, was in error in rejecting this infallible teaching -- and since true popes do not err, this proved that he was no longer a true pope. Papal infaillibility was here being invoked not to EXALT the Pope's authority, but to limit it, by ensuring that a pope did not arbitrarily reverse earlier Christian teaching. -- Eamon Duffy, "Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes (Yale University Press, c. 1997, p. 131 ANTIPOPES Anacletus II (1130-1138) Anacletus succeeded by simony in obtaining in advance the majority of the cardinals' support in the next papal election. Immediately after the death of Pope Honorius II (1124-1130), the uncompromised cardinals, a minority of about one-third, met in secret conclave before notifying the other cardinals and elected Pope Innocent II (1130-1143). The majority of cardinals rejected the validity of what had been done by the minority and met in conclave later the same day to elect Anacletus. Anacletus was proclaimed pope and recognized by the hierarchies of the world. He continued to reign at Rome for eight years until his death, recognized by the Roman clergy to the end. It was through the influence of St. Bernard (who at the time held no public office in the Church, but was only an abbot of a very new monastic order) that Pope Innocent II was recognized. St. Bernard recognized the canonical defects of the election, chiefly clandestinity and the small number of cardinals involved, but he did not hesitate to rely on moral arguments and to leave it to the canonists to find a way to justify the claim (epikeia). Thus, St. Bernard did not hesitate to reject the validity of a pope who was elected by the majority of cardinals, occupied the See of Rome, and was recognized by the whole world. In addition, St. Bernard, with the zeal of the Prophet Elias, opposed unworthy bishops and made many enemies on this account. After Anacletus's death and a short-lived attempt by the same majority cardinals to elect another (anti)pope, Innocent II finally took possession of Rome. The Second General Council of the Lateran, called in 1139, nullified all Anacletus's official acts and deposed the prelates whom he had appointed. Clement VII (1378-1394) In 1376 Gregory XI (1370-1378) was the last of the popes who established their see at Avignon, France. After having been vehemently upbraided by St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), he re-established his see in Rome. Upon his death in 1378, the cardinals duly elected an Italian, Urban VI (1378-1389). Dissatisfaction on the part of the French members of the Sacred College of Cardinals and disagreement concerning the validity of the choice led to a second conclave and the election of another pope, a Frenchman, as Clement VII, who immediately took up his see in Avignon. As both Urban VI and Clement VII claimed to be legitimate popes, the Western Church divided into two camps, each supporting one or the other, in what is known as the "Great Western Schism." "There was really no schism, for the majority of the people desired unity under one head and intended no revolt against papal authority. Everywhere the faithful faced the anxious problem: where is the true pope? Even saints and theologians were divided on the question.... Unfortunately, led by politics and human desires, the papal claimants launched excommunications against each other." --The New Catholic Dictionary (1929) Even saints disagreed on who the true pope was. St. Vincent Ferrer, together with most of the people of both France and Spain, supported what was later proven to be an antipope. All of the cardinals of the Church and most of the theologians recognized an anti-Pope, who ruled from Rome. The "schism" was not ended until 39 years later, when the General Council of Constance (1414-1418) elected an undisputed pope, Martin V (1417-1431). However, after Benedict XIII defied the Council of Constance and failed to resign his claim as pope, he and a few of his followers proclaimed that they alone held the true succession from St. Peter. They have held court in the Basque country up to this day. Because of this, the Great Western Schism has not fully come to an end.