How can a Pope curse another Pope?

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The Sixth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople in AD 680-1, condemned Pope Honorius:
from the first, the contriver of evil did not rest, finding an accomplice in the serpent and through him bringing upon human nature the poisioned dart of death, so too now he has found instruments suited to his own purpose, namely … Honorius, who was pope of elder Rome… and has not been idle in raising through them obstacles of error against the full body of the church, sowing with novel speech among the orthodox people the heresy of a single will and a single principle of action
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A number of others, including patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch were likewise listed.

This was not an anti-Roman synod:
This same holy and universal synod, here present, faithfully accepts and welcomes with open hands the report of Agatho, most holy and blessed pope of elder Rome
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The acts of the council were sent to Pope Leo II, who had succeeded Agatho, and who approved them, and ordered them to be translated into Latin and signed by all the bishops of the west.

The Seventh Ecumenical Council, at Nicaea in AD 787, concurred:
we declare that there are two wills and principles of action… in the way that the sixth synod, that at Constantinople, proclaimed, when it also publicly rejected Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, those uninterested in true holiness
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According to Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary (London: Routledge, 1951), which does bear an imprimatur,
In the acclamation of Session xvi., the bishops shouted “Anathema to Honorius the heretic!”… Pope Leo II, after anathematizing Cyrus, Sergius, etc., “the discoverers of new error,” continues thus: "also Honorius… The justice of this anathema was recognized by Pope Hadrian II, and for a time each Pope at his election swore that he acknowledged the Sixth Council, which pronounced eternal anathema against Sergius, Pyrrhus, etc., and also against Honorius
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As stated at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople in 553,
to be judged anathematized is just the same as to be separated from God
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These councils are authoritative, according to sections 884 and, e.g., 475 of the Catechism.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,
The letter [to Sergius] cannot be called a private one, for it is an official reply to a formal consultation. It had, however, less publicity than a modern Encyclical. As the letter does not define or condemn, and does not bind the Church to accept its teaching, it is of course impossible to regard it as an ex cathedra utterance… In the thirteenth session, 28 March, the two letters of Sergius were condemned, and the council added: “Those whose impious dogmas we execrate, we judge that their names also shall be cast out of the holy Church of God”, that is, Sergius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Peter, Paul, Theodore, all which names were mentioned by the holy Pope Agatho in his letter to the pious and great emperor, “and were cast out by him, as holding views contrary to our orthodox faith; and these we define to be subject to anathema. And in addition to these we decide that Honorius also, who was pope of elder Rome, be with them cast out of the holy Church of God, and be anathematized with them, because we have found by his letter to Sergius that he followed his opinion in all things, and confirmed his wicked dogmas”.
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The Catholic Answers site, in their page on infallibility, claim that Honorius never taught any doctrine, but the Catholic Dictionary records the actual text of his letter to Sergius: “'εν θελημα 'ομολογουμεν του Κυριου Ιησου Χριστου” (‘one will we confess of the Lord Jesus Christ’). The Encyclopedia concurs, noting that the teaching was not ‘binding’.

Popes Agatho, Leo II and Hadrian contradicted Pope Honorius. Leo II ordered the signing of a document which publicly condemned Honorius. Subsequent popes publicly condemned Honorius, and repeated the anathema against him: a Pope was cursed with separation from God!?! :confused:
 
Is it possible that you are confusing infallibility and impeccability?

There have been ‘bad’ Popes. (Think “Borgia”). There have been weak Popes, ill Popes, very young and very old Popes. And there have been very GOOD Popes.

But none of those Popes–including Honorius–were guilty of TEACHING HERESY.

There have been Popes who fathered illegitimate children–and even quite possibly Popes guilty of personal greater sins than these. For any of those mortal sins, condemnation --of the as opposed to the and of the SIN of the is what is given. Naturally as with all of us these individual men, Popes though they were, are answerable to God alone for eternal judgment.

In the situation you cite, (and I think your reading of “anathema” is slightly skewed as well but I would like to check that our further before responding to that area), in the time and given the culture, the strict condemnation (which you will note was NOT presented as an infallible teaching by Popes nor considered part of the Ordinary Magesterium teachings) of the ‘inaction’ of Honorius is given for his ‘personal’ shortcomings in a particular area. It is not a reflection (as I see it) of a pronouncement of eternal damnation.
 
Anyone recall the Cadaver Synod of 897, where Stephen VI had the body of his predecessor, Formosus (nine months dead), exhumed and tried for violating Church Law by serving as Bishop of Rome while still being Bishop of a differant Diocese. Stephen VI acted as judge, prosecution and jury as he shouted accusations at the dead Pope and the single Deacon chosen to defend the corpse. Pope Formosus was found guilty, he was stripped of his Papal robes, had the three fingers he blessed with cut off and was thrown in the Tiber. His election was declared invalid along with all of his proclaimations.

Stephen VI was deposed shortly after, and Theodore II annulled the Cadaver Synod. Pope Sergius III later overturned Theodore’s rulings, and Formosus’s conviction was reaffirmed. Sergius’s proclaimations were never officialy reversed, but generally disregarded as the proclaimations of a madman.
 
Ecumenical Councils are only infallible in their solemn definitions.
When they exercise the temporal authority of the Church, they are non-infallible.

In the case of the 6th Council, which condemned the late Pope Honorius I for believing in one will instead of two wills in Christ, they correctly taught that Christ has two wills. Their exercise of the teaching authority was without error.

But when they exercised the temporal authority by condemning a Pope who had died before the Magisterium decided the question of how many wills Christ has (and it is really a more complex question than it might seem), they erred. The Pope was not guilty of heresy for several reasons. First, the Church had not decided the question yet. Second, the Pope did not decide the question either way. Third, he did not publically teach his own personal erroneous opinion of one will instead of two. Fourth, he was not, even in his own personal opinion, certain that Christ did have only one will. He expressed uncertainty in the personal letters that led the Council to condemn him.

The Council was correct in condemning the ideas expressed in his letters. But they erred by being too harsh and by condemning him personally.

Similarly, Popes can err in how they exercise the temporal authority of the Church, but never to the extent as to lead the faithful away from the true path to salvation.

Ron
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Is it possible that you are confusing infallibility and impeccability?
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Infallibility is not the issue here; I only mentioned it because that was the entry under which Honorius appeared when I did a search on that site. I realise that poor Honorius is often used as a target for anti-infallibility arguments, and so I would have stated more clearly that that was not the point, but I was trimming to fit the posting limit as it was.

Reading through the Ecumenical Councils, I have been surprised at the willingness to anathematize people. I suspected that part of the motivation might have lain in the fact that they were targeting others who threatened to take over the Church, but then a retrospective action of popes against a dead colleague took me by surprise.
In the situation you cite, (and I think your reading of “anathema” is slightly skewed as well but I would like to check that our further before responding to that area), in the time and given the culture, the strict condemnation (which you will note was NOT presented as an infallible teaching by Popes nor considered part of the Ordinary Magesterium teachings) of the ‘inaction’ of Honorius is given for his ‘personal’ shortcomings in a particular area. It is not a reflection (as I see it) of a pronouncement of eternal damnation.
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The reading of anathema is not mine. As stated, it is that given by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, which identifies anathema as the result of heresy. It appears a few times in the Bible, being used for ‘a thing set apart for destruction’, e.g., an idol, in Deuteronomy 7:26 and 13:17/18 in the LXX. Paul uses the expression for being ‘cut off from Christ’ in Romans 9:3.

Also, the problem was not just inaction: his letter to Sergius includes an assertion ('εν θελημα) which was, according to Pope Agatho, contrary to accepted doctrine:
we say that as the same our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures so also he has two natural wills and operations, to wit, the divine and the human: the divine will and operation he has in common with the coessential Father from all eternity: the human, he has received from us, taken with our nature in time. This is the apostolic and evangelic tradition, which the spiritual mother of your most felicitous empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ, holds.
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I suppose that that was the motivation for the anathema: following Paul’s anathematizing of teachers of heresy in Galatians 1:9, the Ecumenical Councils frequently pronounced anathemata against anyone who might violate one of their canons, or anyone who had done so.

This is the aspect with which I have the problem: the suddenness and ease with which a fellow believer could be condemned for having made one, single mis-step when dealing with a complex theological issue. I do not believe that any such power rests in the hands of mortals, and this whole affair is one of the reasons why.
 
First, let me state, as I have in another reply, that none of this is about infallibility. It is about people cursing someone who is on their side, over a single infelicity of expression.
when they exercised the temporal authority by condemning a Pope who had died before the Magisterium decided the question of how many wills Christ has (and it is really a more complex question than it might seem), they erred. The Pope was not guilty of heresy for several reasons. First, the Church had not decided the question yet. Second, the Pope did not decide the question either way. Third, he did not publically teach his own personal erroneous opinion of one will instead of two. Fourth, he was not, even in his own personal opinion, certain that Christ did have only one will. He expressed uncertainty in the personal letters that led the Council to condemn him.
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As regards the first, they themselves were the Magisterium: the Ecumenical Councils were the authority which determined doctrine for the Church. Note also Pope Agatho’s letter to the Council, in which he decribes the two wills as being part of the established doctrine of “the Apostolic Church of Christ”, citing a great many Fathers, both Latin and Greek, as support. As regards the second and third, he made an assertion regarding Christology using a plural verb form: 'ομολογουμεν, 'we confess, rather than 'ομολογω, ‘I confess’. Thus, he taught the belief as an official of the Church, not as a private individual. According to session XIII of the Council,
with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what we found written by him to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines.
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Leo II approved and promulgated this decision, ordering all of the bishops in his see to sign it.
On your fourth point, I have no disagreement, and I would add that, according to Addis and Arnold, Sergius had told Honorius, “if two wills in Christ, then there are two contrary wills”. Seeing that, Honorius would have reacted in defence of orthodoxy to say that there were not too contrary wills, and seems to have stepped too far.

Frankly, I think that your doctrine of Papal Infallibility places too much of a burden on the popes.
The Council was correct in condemning the ideas expressed in his letters. But they erred by being too harsh and by condemning him personally.
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With this I could not agree more.
Similarly, Popes can err in how they exercise the temporal authority of the Church, but never to the extent as to lead the faithful away from the true path to salvation.
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While I do not believe that mere teaching can deprive someone of their salvation, this pope quite clearly instructed, within his own official capacity, another Church leader, on an issue of faith, giving an instruction which was later decided to be erroneous. He taught it to a teacher who had asked for advice, which means that he must have known that he was also teaching it to that other teacher’s students. I do not think that this interferes with the doctrine of infallibility, because it contravened official Church teaching.

Consider if, for example, a Pope became ill, and, in a delusions, proclaimed that he was speaking infallibly, and ordered that he himself was to be worshipped. That teaching, despite his claim, would not be recognised as an ex cathedra proclamation, because he could not be acting as the leader of the faith by directly contradicting it. Similarly, Honorius’ teaching cannot have been infallible, because it contradicted the faith.
 
Caesar said:
Anyone recall the Cadaver Synod of 897, where Stephen VI had the body of his predecessor, Formosus (nine months dead), exhumed and tried for violating Church Law by serving as Bishop of Rome while still being Bishop of a differant Diocese. Stephen VI acted as judge, prosecution and jury as he shouted accusations at the dead Pope and the single Deacon chosen to defend the corpse. Pope Formosus was found guilty, he was stripped of his Papal robes, had the three fingers he blessed with cut off and was thrown in the Tiber. His election was declared invalid along with all of his proclaimations.

Stephen VI was deposed shortly after, and Theodore II annulled the Cadaver Synod. Pope Sergius III later overturned Theodore’s rulings, and Formosus’s conviction was reaffirmed. Sergius’s proclaimations were never officialy reversed, but generally disregarded as the proclaimations of a madman.
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Did that really happen? This is hilarious. hahaha I’m surprised more people don’t use this against us when arguing against Papal Infallibility. asdkhasdfklahsdf
RyanL said:
I love being Catholic. 😃

God Bless,
RyanL

http://content.answers.com/main/con...urens_Le_Pape_Formose_et_Etienne_VII_1870.jpg
Trial of Pope Formosus
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hahaha
like sprinkles on a cupcake.
Seconded.
 
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