Deposition of the pope

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joshringsell

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Should there not be a canonical way of deposing the pope if enough legitimate opposition from the laity comes about? 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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The pope isn’t a dictator and he doesn’t really have that much power to be something to worry about. Also there is also the problem of having to elect another pope.
 
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
 
The trouble is we don’t have all the information.

What if the laity acted to remove a Pope who had done nothing wrong?

The mob, I think, is susceptible to irrational behavior and beliefs.
 
What exactly has the Pope done? One letter from one Archbishop doesn’t convict anyone. We now know priests and laity are involved in sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults. Is it not possible then, priests and laity can also commit other sins like calumny, perjury and bearing false witness.
 
Naturally this is all hypothetical but I’m sure the deposition would occur in only the most extreme of circumstances
 
If you are Catholic, you will know the Church is not a democracy, Heaven is not a democracy, God is not a democracy.

Our religion means subservience and submitting with humble obedience of those higher up that are responsible for our soul salvation
 
somecanadian said:
The mob, I think, is susceptible to irrational behavior and beliefs.
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Yeah, if the laity could remove Popes at will, Pope Paul VI probably would have been toast after Humanae Vitae and we’d have ended up with a Pope who allowed birth control, divorce and remarriage, women priests and probably other stuff.
 
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I would never trust the mob to make the right decision. I think we see far too often that people, when whipped into a frenzy, will believe anything with very little evidence.

The system we have is best. God will protect His Church from error. NO corrupt Pope has EVER sat on the Chair of Peter and changed Church dogma. When Christ promised to protect the Church, He was speaking about protecting the Church from error not protecting it from corrupt leaders.
 
Blech. Just think of how fast Pope Emeritus Benedict would have been gone? Soooo many Catholics could not stand him.
 
I’m going to offer an analogy. In the US, how much power you think the president should have depends on whether you like the president. If you like the president, executive orders and presidential proclamations are fine. If you don’t like the president, executive orders mean the president is a dictator.

It’s the same in the church. The same people who spent decades defending the principle of papal dictatorship now feel very differently, because the current “dictator” isn’t their dictator. You don’t deal with a dictatorship by getting a better dictator; you deal with a dictatorship by changing the institutions that make dictatorship possible.
 
we cannot say that Holy Father Pope Francis is corrupt, just because there are corrupt priests and laity globally that have raped and abused children.

Do we say that about Schools, government, medical professions, sports ?
 
We had popes that did horrible things, sometimes against the teachings of the Church, but this was never considered, after all the Pope is the Pope.
 
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Well, we did have those times when two or three popes were reigning at once and quibbling over who was the real Pope.
 
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(Doesn’t really have enough power to do anything worth worrying about)… this following some major changes that have occurred and serious scandals that the pope could have potentially covered up? The pope clearly has more power than your giving him credit for.
 
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