Can the Pope be recalled?

  • Thread starter Thread starter HerCrazierHalf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Actually, not quite. A Pope is protected from teaching heresy in matters of faith and morals under the charism of infallibility, BUT that charism does not protect him from speaking heresy in a ‘private capacity’. IOW, off-the-cuff remarks or even letters to individuals or small groups of bishops which contain error even to the point of heresy can be ‘made’ by a Pope. But a Pope cannot teach heresy with regard to infallible teachings and attempt to make the heresy infallible as well.

As an example, a Pope cannot decide that Mary is a member of the Godhood and proclaim her a goddess, or that God is a quadruple personality, AND proclaim this as Catholic dogma in union with all the bishops of the Church.

He could though in off the cuff remarks or in speech with the bishops (without their assent) state that this is the ‘only way to understand the nature of God’. He would, then, be proclaiming heresy, but he would not be stating such as the magesterial and infallible teaching of the Church.
 
There is no legal method to remove a Pope. However, if a Pope acts foolishly, cheif advisors will resign in protest, isolating him. An incompetent or (God help us) evil Pope would find very little support, and likely be convinced to resign.
 
EZweber said:
Where are you getting this from? No pope in all of history has been subjected to this. Unless you can bring up a papally approved magisterial document, I am just not buying that.
Click to expand...
Once you sit on St. Peter’s throne in Rome, I may “buy” your substitution of your personal opinions for two thousand years of understanding as relevant, and think that you understand more than St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine . . .
 
There have been saints who have been mistaken, Even St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception. As to “two thousand years of understanding,” that is precisely what I am asking you to demonstrate.
 
Malcolm said:
I just heard a guy on youtube say the bishops together can’t impeach a pope but can supposedly investigate if a pope has in effect removed himself by speaking and acting heretically . nice nuance there , no idea if it’s true
Click to expand...
Benedict XIII was declared a schismatic by the Council of Constance and excommunicated (27 July, 1417). Era 1394-1417.
 
EZweber said:
Where are you getting this from? No pope in all of history has been subjected to this. Unless you can bring up a papally approved magisterial document, I am just not buying that.
Click to expand...
The Pope has to be Catholic (obviously). If the Pope were to formally convert to say, Lutheranism or Islam, it would be revognized that he had left the Church and we would need a new Pope.

The Pope can’t be deposed, but the Church must be able to recognize when she is without her head and have the means to restore it–whether she was deprived of her head by death, resignation, or defection from the Church.

The First Vatican Council defined as a dogma that there is to be a perpetual succession of Roman Pontiffs in the primacy. Along those same lines, the Council of Constance definitively condemned the heresy that the Church could simple proceed without such a head.

Therefore, the Church must be able to recognize this, even by divine assistance.

The following ecclesiastically approved theology manual provides additional reasoning:

Hunter’s Outlines of Dogmatic Theology Vol 1:
First, then, the Church is infallible when she declares what person holds the office of Pope; for if the person of the Pope were uncertain, it would be uncertain what Bishops were in communion with the Pope; but according to the Catholic faith, as will be proved hereafter, communion with the Pope is a condition for the exercise of the function of teaching by the body of Bishops (n. 208); if then the. uncertainty could not be cleared up, the power of teaching could not be exercised, and Christ’s promise (St. Matt. xxviii. 20; and n. 199, II.) would be falsified, which is impossible.

This argument is in substance the same as applies to other cases of dogmatic facts. Also, it affords an answer to a much vaunted objection to the claims of the Catholic Church, put forward by writers who think that they find proof in history that the election of a certain Pope was simoniacal and invalid, and that the successor was elected by Cardinals who owed their own appointment to the simoniacal intruder; from which it is gathered that the Papacy has been vacant ever since that time. A volume might be occupied if we attempted to expose all the frailness of the argument which is supposed to lead to this startling conclusion; but it is enough to say that if the Bishops agree in recognizing a certain man as Pope, they are certainly right, for otherwise the body of the Bishops would be separated from their head, and the Divine constitution of the Church would be ruined. In just the same way the infallibility extends to declaring that a certain Council is or is not ecumenical.
Click to expand...
So the fact that the episcopate still recognizes Francis as its head is proof in itself that he has not defected from the Church through heresy. But if he were to, the Church would recognize it–just as she recognizes when a Pope has died or resigned–and proceed to continue the perpetual succession.
 
Last edited:
CCHcolonel said:
Eh, I think counting an anti Pope is a bit of a stretch.
Click to expand...
There was doubt about who was the authentic pope during the Western Schism, so it was only later that a definitive list could be made of those during the time of antipope Benedict XIII (1394-1417):
  1. Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404)
  2. Pope Innocent VII (1404-1406)
  3. Pope Gregory XII (1406-1415) then two years vacant.
  4. Pope Martin V (1417)
 
Last edited:
Genesis315 said:
The Pope has to be Catholic (obviously). If the Pope were to formally convert to say, Lutheranism or Islam, it would be revognized that he had left the Church and we would need a new Pope.
Click to expand...
If the Pope did this, I would consider it a resignation, since he would no longer even consider the office of bishop to mean anything.
 
Genesis315 said:
So the fact that the episcopate still recognizes Francis as its head is proof in itself that he has not defected from the Church through heresy. But if he were to, the Church would recognize it–just as she recognizes when a Pope has died or resigned–and proceed to continue the perpetual succession.
Click to expand...
Where is the proof that a Pope’s personal heresy deprives him of office? In the case of a living Pope, that means the bishops must judge a man who is probably the Pope - which no earthly authority can do.
 
EZweber said:
If the Pope did this, I would consider it a resignation, since he would no longer even consider the office of bishop to mean anything.
Click to expand...
That’s the correct way to look at it–defection from the Church through heresy would be considered a tacit resignation.
 
EZweber said:
Where is the proof that a Pope’s personal heresy deprives him of office? In the case of a living Pope, that means the bishops must judge a man who is probably the Pope - which no earthly authority can do.
Click to expand...
Heresy by its very nature is a “sin of separation”. “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.” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis 23).

The bishops aren’t passing a juridical judgment. Just like the Church had to be able to recognize whether Pope Benedict validly resigned or not, the Church would have to recognize if a Pope actually tacitly resigned (by separating himself from the Body of the Church).
 
Last edited:
Genesis315 said:
That’s the correct way to look at it–defection from the Church through heresy would be considered a tacit resignation.
Click to expand...
The reason the Pope would have resigned is because he would no longer regard the office of Bishop of Rome to have any real power, and by that he would surrender its power. If a Pope resigns by heresy, then he could resign accidentally and therefore without his consent - which isn’t exactly resigning.
 
Also, if it is only wilful heresy, then who is to judge whether the Pope’s heresy is wilful or not?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top