Deposition of the pope

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Thank you all for your replies, perhaps I have not given this enough thought, or I do not know enough about the Holy Father’s office, or both. I simply felt that for moral reasons, there should be some system in place where in extreme cases a pope should be removed, but hey, I shall think on it.
 
I think it’s a fair question. Most of us live in democracies, so we’re used to be able to hold our leaders accountable. The Catholic Church isn’t set up that way, although other churches are, and I think there’s room for more democracy in the Catholic Church.
 
No, there’ no room for more democracy in the Church.
The Church is not a republic.
 
You’re right, it’s not, and I’m suggesting that the church should be democracy. Rather, I’m suggesting that we could look at limited democratic decision-making at the parish or diocesan level (on matters of church governance, not on matters of doctrine).
 
We would have to remove the word “Catholic” as the Church would no longer be universal. Nor would it be the Church Jesus founded. We’ve seen this story before. There would be as many flavors of Catholicism as there is protetestantism.
 
joshringsell said:
Should there not be a canonical way of deposing the pope if enough legitimate opposition from the laity comes about?
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That wouldn’t do much of anything. The Pope is the supreme legislator of canon law. He can change it and get rid of any such method as he’d like.
 
I have a suspicion that some of us have forgotten that God is in charge; that Christ promised the Church the Holy Spirit, and said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.

that is not to say that the Holy Spirit is so influential that anything which happens, happens because of that guidance. But the bottom line is that a careful review of history will show the Church has had any number of crises, and it still preaches Christ, and him crucified.

The laity have no say - none, nada - in who becomes the next Pope, or how long a Pope stays in office. It has no say in who becomes a bishop or for that matter, who gets ordained and who doesn’t.

that is not to suggest that laity should have no part in the investigation of the sexual scandals, and in fact, that has been occurring in various dioceses.

In no way is this an excuse: a number of bishops have attempted to silence any information concerning wrong doing by some priests out of fear of the scandal it would cause. Consider this: the multi millions of dollars of settlements in each and every diocese which has had sexual scandals has proved that matter spot-on. Again, that does not excuse their hiding of the information; but the act of hiding has amplified the results beyond most people’s comprehension. Again, it is absolutely no excuse. The hiding was at least in some instances done without the malice that is attributed to each incident, but it also shows that the truth will out, and the matter was far more egregious than how it was treated.

I happen to personally have known the first priest in the US (as best I understand it) to be convicted of a sexual crime against youth; that occurred in the 1980’s. So I am a bit less than shocked when information pours out, again (and again, and again) concerning the issue. I suspect we have not gotten to the bottom of it all, and I am not sure how long that will take. However, each time something surfaces and the news goes hog wild, and the vultures start circling is one more wake up call to the Church - laity, priests, bishops, Cardinals, and Popes. Eventually, almost all will be awake and proactive in protecting youth.

Meanwhile, no one at all is going to depose the Pope.

And the press, the majority of which is woefully (and on occasion willfully and/or maliciously) ignorant of the Church and morality goes into hyperbolic overdrive. Believe me, the point is getting home. To absolutely everyone? No. Some are slow learners; some don’t want to hear it because they carry their own set of issues. But it will sort out.
 
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joshringsell said:
Should there not be a canonical way of deposing the pope if enough legitimate opposition from the laity comes about?
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No.
joshringsell said:
I understand papal supremacy but when we find ourselves in situations like this, and if the pope refuses to step down, we are basically left with a dictator
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You are under the mistaken impression that the Church is a democracy. It is not. I’m also not sure you really understand the role of the Pope either.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The Catholic Church is not a democracy. Laity don’t get a say in anything other than whether we want to stay in the church or leave it.
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Exactly!
joshringsell said:
I understand papal supremacy but when we find ourselves in situations like this, and if the pope refuses to step down, we are basically left with a dictator
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This would only make sense if the Pope had financial, legal, life, social and political power over Catholics. He has none of these things. Your comment is a gross, gross over reaction. Additionally, I had not heard that the reports against the Pope have been verified. Finally, where in the Bible or Tradition do you find support for “deposing” the pope or “voting” on Catholic leadership by the laity?
joshringsell said:
I understand that but there are surely cases where the pope must, for the sake of the entire church, be removed.
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Look, there are popes who committed incest with their family members, dug up predecessors corpses and put them on trial, perjury, simony, torture, murder, selling of indulgences, poisoning, issuance of a papal bull that stated it was essential for the salvation of every human creature to be “subject” to the Roman pontiff, denial of Christ, and more. If they were not “deposed”, Pope Francis is not going to be deposed for an ALLEGED mishandling of sexual abuse information.

It is not in our Popes that we have Truth and the promise of eternal salvation. It is in Christ’s declaration that we ARE His Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
somecanadian said:
The mob, I think, is susceptible to irrational behavior and beliefs.
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The French Revolution comes to mind…
joshringsell said:
most extreme of circumstances
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Who determines what is “extreme”? What proof, if any, is needed? On whose word?

The leadership in Jesus’ time was corrupt as well. This was his response: Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." (Matt 23:1-3).
 
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joshringsell said:
I understand that but there are surely cases where the pope must, for the sake of the entire church, be removed. Perhaps this should be solely the prerogative of cardinal, I don’t know
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Cardinals attacking the Pope. Is it anything new? There is perhaps much that we do not know about the plot and intrigue in the Vatican. Even the little that we know, like Pope St. John XXIII, was certainly not the original choice of those Cardinals who preferred someone else. But the Holy Spirit worked differently. The rest was history and John XXIII became Pope.

There is nothing to cause the present Pope to step down other than an attack on the Papacy and the Church. Cardinals are cardinals. Some of them perhaps have their own agenda, and perhaps an ambition for the throne itself.

We need to pray for the Pope. He is very strong so far but he needs our prayers too.
 
The pope cannot be removed.

That is the end of the story.

Now, it is possible for the cardinals to conduct a trial to determine if the man still is the pope, as he would cease to be so if he became a heretic.

And church law presumably could be changed to match that of the Orthodox, where the synods can and do remove patriarchs and other metropolitans–but it would take a pope to make that change . . .

hawk
 
So, apparently, are the elect who choose candidates knowing full well of their qualities…
 
The Pope is beholden to God, and the Church as a whole is called to actively practice and evangelize as Jesus taught us, which includes rebuking and overthrowing invalid priests through civil protest.
 
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Publicly and visibly protesting priests who engage in abusive behaviour, and those who conceal their actions, by:
  • Notifying police
  • Writing to the bishop, individually or via petition
  • Writing op/eds about abuse mismanagement, and calling out specific parties who enable abuse
  • Withholdong funding for parishes that conceal abuse
  • Switching parishes
  • Starting lay associations to report on abuse by priests (like a neighbourhood watch)
  • Providing watch lists to curate info about abusers and settlements paid out
  • Protesting outside Churches or nuncios
  • Organizing rallies and events to demand change
Basically, anything that would be done with a secular body to protest gross mismanagement,
 
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