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.
Archbishop John B. Purcell, quoted in Rev. James J. McGovern, Life and Life Work of Pope Leo XIII [Chicago, 1903, p. 241.
https://twitter.com/FulminataXII/status/1237749943990980608/photo/1
https://twitter.com/FulminataXII/status/1236439886602866689/photo/2
https://twitter.com/FulminataXII/status/1236392993151729672/photo/1
It is NOT just his mere opinion. It is the teaching of the Church Fathers and an expression of Sacred Tradition.
In the words of St. Robert Bellarmine, "this is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers."
The issue still needs to be flushed out, just not in a time where we might actually have a heretic pope. Wish someone would have really taken-up this issue and pressed all sides theologically when we had Leo XXIII or Pius X.
Pope Innocent III
“The Roman Pontiff has no superior but God. Who, therefore, should a pope ‘lose his savour’, could cast him out or trample him under foot — since of the pope it is said ‘gather thy case (causa) 439 into thy fold’ [fold of the toga over the breast]? Truly, he should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honour and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God. I say less, 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 savour, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under-foot by men.”
Pope Pius XII
Nor must one imagine that the Body of the Church, just because it bears the name of Christ, is made up during the days of its earthly pilgrimage only of members conspicuous for their holiness, or that it consists only of those whom God has predestined to eternal happiness. It is owing to the Savior's infinite mercy that place is allowed in His Mystical Body here below for those whom, of old, He did not exclude from the banquet.[20] For not every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy. Men may lose charity and divine grace through sin, thus becoming incapable of supernatural merit, and yet not be deprived of all life if they hold fast to faith and Christian hope, and if, illumined from above, they are spurred on by the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit to salutary fear and are moved to prayer and penance for their sins.
Lemme guess, "it's just his opinion" ... well that's just YOUR opinion. and a Pope's opinion > hockeCEO's opinion.
The last line is interesting
and so in this respect the dogma of infallibility amounts to nothing as an article of temporal government or cover for heresy
He seems to be saying that you can't use 'papal infallibility' as a cover for heresy bc of the auto-deposition.
I think everyone agrees that is most likely the case, but the issue is that we have no precedence or explicit directives for this in the magisterium. Archbishop Schneider makes this point very well in his recent writing on this subject.
The practicalities and current situation have a major impact on this too. All the theologians who wrote on this very likely were not envisioning the scale of the current crisis. With this in mind, what does constitutes "the Council of Bishops?" Is it all the Bishops of the world sitting in council, with a majority of them finding him a heretic? That just isn't happening with the current make up of the episcopal college. Is it just a majority of the Bishops meeting? Can any group of Bishops do this? If that's the case, it opens the door for absolute chaos. These are the type of things which would have to be answered and defined magisterially before this option could be pursued.
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 Pope deposes himself. The Council of Bishops, its composition and whatnot, is not relevant to the deposing of a Pope as a legit Pope cannot be judged by his inferiors. Only an auto-deposed Pope (who is no longer Pope) can be judged bc he is not the Pope anymore. The CoB would only be relevant as far as public relations/knowledge is concerned so its composition, location etc. do not really matter.
+AS, God bless him, unfortunately uses strawman argumentation in his article. And it does not really address the main arguments, namel, the munus/ministerium debate, and the nature of heresy, suapte natura, separating a person from the Church.
it opens the door for absolute chaos
Better than a heretic Pope
Yes, the Pope deposes himself under this view, but that still has to be recognized. It's just for the media. If we just say, "if the Pope is a heretic, he is no longer Pope" this leaves us with major problems.
The one that I think best illustrates this is the Mass prayers. Traditional Catholics agree that Pope Francis is evidently heretical. What then should priests do when they offer the Mass? If they prayer for him as Pope, and he's deposed himself by his heresy, then they are offering the Mass in union with an antipope, and are schismatics. The only options left for them are to name Benedict XVI (which I will ask you something about below) or name no one. Now they are either sedevacantists or conclavists (if I remember from other threads, it seems you are a beneplenist, or at least sympathetic to that view, so I know you wouldn't see that as conclavism, but I think it is the case).
My biggest problem with this idea is that the exact same argument about Pope Francis having deposed himself can be applied to Benedict XVI and John Paul II. Both of them engaged in public acts of idolatry and apostasy too (the Assisi meetings, and others). If we are going to say that Francis has been deposed, then they both were too, so we can't just say that Benedict is the real Pope. Also, Benedict is recognizing Francis in his Masses, so is he also recognizing an antipope?
All these questions are precisely why you the CoB is necessary to this process. Yes, de facto the Pope may have deposed himself, but nothing changes practically until that is officially recognized by that Cob. So this brings me back to my question of what constitutes the CoB, or do you think this question can remain up to subjective interpretation?
Edit: Obviously, this is up in the air, and neither of us get to solemnly decide this. I hope you can see I'm engaging in this in good faith out of genuine interest.
My biggest problem with this idea is that the exact same argument about Pope Francis having deposed himself can be applied to Benedict XVI and John Paul II. Both of them engaged in public acts of idolatry and apostasy too (the Assisi meetings, and others). If we are going to say that Francis has been deposed, then they both were too, so we can't just say that Benedict is the real Pope. Also, Benedict is recognizing Francis in his Masses, so is he also recognizing an antipope?
I've thought about this quite a bit. I think distinctions can be made bt JP2 and PF. JP2 has not made any statements explicitly denying the first commandment as PF did. Yes, he did allow sacrilege to occur but did not himself worship a false god. I think a distinction can be made bt ALLOWING false worship and actually DOING false worship although it is a thin one.
https://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j216sd_Marcellinus_04_26.html
Although the example of Pope Marcellinus seems to teach away from DOING false worship as being auto-deposing. I think the key with Marcellinus, JP2 is that they lacked pertinacity which is the form of heresy, while the error in judgment would be the matter. Without the form, there is no form+matter composite, thus, no heresy.
PF has more than shown his pertinacity. He explicitly in words violated the 1st commandment, allowed pmama worship in the Vatican, and in QA he fawned over how wonderful paganism and nature were. Not to mention his blatant and public refusal to answer the dubia for like 2-3 years now and all the other acts of heresy which really aren't that ambiguous anymore.
CoB may be necessary in a practical/prudential sense, but is unnecessary in the question of auto-deposition. Bc it is practical and prudential, I wouldn't personally know what the best way to go about it is. This is new territory and I'm just a fake-ivory-tower armchair theologian. The scant prophetic evidence seems to indicate that this is going to go towards a major schism. PF will demand something that can't be conceded to (invalid mass? pmama worship? incontinent priesthood? submission to the UN?) and the Church will split between Catholics and Bergoglians.
“I had another vision of the great tribulation. It seems to me that a concession was demanded from the clergy which could not be granted. I saw many older priests, especially one, who wept bitterly. A few younger ones were also weeping. But others, and the lukewarm among them, readily did what was demanded. It was as if people were splitting into two camps…”
I can see this outcome too. The other unfortunate thing is, as you say, we sort of have to try to make sense of this new territory and make sure we don't overstep our bounds.
I have to disagree with you on JPII though. He was textbook in his pertinacity. Marcellinus was borderline forced into one act of apostasy. On the other hand, there was nothing coercive behind JPII's actions, and they are many. JPII held two Assisi meetings (of he said something along the lines of "the spirit of Assisi is the spirit of vatican II), he prayed in a protestant assembly and jewish synagogue, kissed the quran, received ashes in a hindu service, and got really close to worshipping at Ganhi's grave (and said "christians can learn to be christians from him"). That's just the things I'm remembering off the top of my head. Comparatively, Francis has had fewer specific instances, and even the most scandalous things he's said (like the Abu Dhabi document) can be found in JPII (who talked a decent amount about how we were moving toward a world religion of peace). I'd say all of this amounts to both of them having very explicitly violated the first commandment, so they should be treated the same. Regardless of other things that JPII (or even Francis) have done that are good, none of those things really matter when you take into account all the bad. I think we can fall into a recency bias regarding Francis and forget that all the post council Popes have been opposed to Christ the King in some major way.
But did JP2 actually subjectively NOT believe in the 1st commandment as opposed to act against it? To allow sacrilege could be interpreted as "JP2 does not believe in the 1st commandment and does not have supernatural faith" but it could also be interpreted as "JP2 just really wants to be accepted by everyone" or "JP2 is just being nice" or "JP2 is trying 'outreach' in order to bring other faiths into the Catholic Church." And maybe he really believed he was endearing himself to the world pagans without losing his faith in God. But AFAIK he has never objectively expressed any lack of faith in the 1st commandment in his words. His actions may just betray a needy Pope wanting to be accepted by everyone.
PF on the other hand has explicitly shown his objective lack of the supernatural grace of faith. He says that he does not believe in the 1st commandment. His words give extra meaning to his sacrilegious actions.
He said that h*ll does not exist. He said that Jesus is not God. This goes way beyond allowing sacrilege bc you're needy and want to be accepted.
I see what you're saying. I think I would have to say though that the Scalfari interviews seem to be what you're going on for PF having no supernatural faith, but those aren't the same thing as him saying these things on a microphone at the angelus talk. I think it's obviously telling that PF doesn't outright deny what Scalfari quotes him as saying, but again we don't have these things in PF's own words.
Motives are unknowable to us for both. I think you could just as well say that PF "just really wants to be accepted by everyone" and that all the things you ascribe to JPII could well be applied to PF as well. It's intellectually dishonest to think that JPII was a well-meaning (if bumbling) man who just wanted to make the faith more accessible and at the same time think PF is a conniving evil man trying to destroy the faith from within. Either could be true for both, and it depends on their motivation.
However, their motivations don't matter. At the end of the day, we can really only make a call on their actions and public statements. On both of these, JPII and PF are both clearly in grave error, and have done great damage to the faith by their public acceptance and promotion of idolatrous worship and condoning of apostasy.
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