Deposition of the pope

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Tis_Bearself said:
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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Which side are you arguing here? 😉
 
joshringsell said:
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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Canon law (CIC):
Can. 1404 The First See is judged by no one.
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The Church is not a democracy. The Pope rules for life. I love Pope Francis and Pope Benedict but Pope Benedict did put the idea of papal resignation in people’s minds when he stepped down.
 
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If a deposition were to ever happen, it would probably have to be done by the College of Cardinals after a formal declaration of heresy.
 
Why are we talking about deposing the Pope at this point?

I hope it is not because of unsubstantiated claims of a sidelined Archbishop…We should be very careful not to skip straight to deposing the pope when ZERO evidence has been provided against him.
 
godisgood77 said:
Why are we talking about deposing the Pope at this point?

I hope it is not because of unsubstantiated claims of a sidelined Archbishop…We should be very careful not to skip straight to deposing the pope when ZERO evidence has been provided against him.
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It’s a reflection of our “instant gratification” culture. People see some allegation, rush to judgment and expect the guy to be gone in 24 hours. This may be how it works for CEOs of major companies where the stock is going to plummet and the Board has to do something right now, but it’s not how it works for Popes.
 
Claims of a sidelined Archbp. Verified by other Cardinals.
 
semper_catholicus said:
Claims of a sidelined Archbp. Verified by other Cardinals.
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No one has verified anything relative to accusations against the Pope. Let’s be honest please… a few Cardinals saying ’ Jeez this sounds credible’ is not evidence.

Should this massive amounts of covering up be investigated? 100% YES!! Should every single bishop in the US be on watch… 100% YES! The whole lot of them… Wuerl is already in the cross hairs, but guys like Burke and Vignano are not above scrutiny… Everyone who had influence over the years and was in a position to know and act should be investigated and either found guilty or exonerated. Anyone who knew and did not speak up, needs to be held accountable … and a life of prayer and penance does not suit the crime in my eyes.

We life in the United States… innocent until proven guilty. I hope the innuendo and unsubstantiated claims that were released through FAR right religious blogs are not our source of truth…
 
The worst part is if these claims are proven false these same outlets won’t report on THAT. They’ll just find a new bone to chew on.
 
Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will. It is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.

(St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice , Book II, Chapter 29)
 
The description in your opening post sounds an awful lot like conciliarism, of the kind not deemed orthodox in Catholic ecclesiology after its high watermark at Council of Constance in 1414-1418.

Papal supremacy has been clearly defined as part of the church’s sacred tradition since, I don’t know, Pope St. Gregory VII’s Dictatus Papae in 1075 (yep, key is in the name - unmistakable even in Latin). The Vatican I council in the late 19th century pretty much made it definitive as far as dogma is concerned.

It would take a person of considerable expertise in the relevant theological disciplines to even begin to wade into the borderline heretical territory of there being an extraordinary situation in which a canonically elected pontiff could be deposed without wading into full-blown conciliar territory (which held that only an ecumenical council could do so).

My inclination is to reckon that this is not possible within the unbreachable parameters of Catholic teaching but I am, as ever, open-minded. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, however and I seriously doubt that a good case could be made in favour of this.

It’s ironic. How many “liberals” wanted to depose Pius XI and Pope St. John Paul II and were labelled as heretics for even contemplating it. Fr. Hans King comes to mind as a modern day proponent of some kind of conciliarism.

Yet now, we have the same arguements coming from conservatives. Bizarre state of affairs.

The unproven accusations of one cardinal against the pope wouldn’t have been sufficient to depose a pontiff under medieval/early modern theory of concilarism anyway. The accusation was procedural (mishandling a sexual abuse case) and character defaming, not theological.

It is my understanding that conciliarists restricted the right of deposition to manifest heresy but I’d need to check that up.
 
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The selection of bishops is only denied the laity by choice, not divine law. Catholic bishops in the past have been nominated in the past by kings, canons, and even the public (see St. Ambrose). The ordination power is reserved to the Church, but theres no reason the bishop-elect couldnt be chosen by a more open process.
 
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