How does one excommunicate a Pope

[marlo]

My opinion is that no one can excommunicate the reigning pontiff, as he is the one who confirms and remove excommunication, He is the final court. He will not confirm his own excommunication. However, a reigning pontiff can confirm the excommunication of a “previous pope”. If there’s a council to excommunicate somebody including a previous pope, the current pontiff has all the authority to do it and confirm the council including a past pontiff’s excommunication

 

[Tietjen]

I didn’t post what you quoted me as saying, and you know it. You might want to retract that-- unless you think Benedict XVI gave you license to lie on this forum.

Actually, you’re correct but because you didn’t quote correctly when you responded to bilop, it caused your response to look as though you did actually say it. Look at your response from the post you submitted at 4:29 am.

Now, I would never suggest or use sarcasm to suggest you plagiarized what bilop actually wrote, so why pray tell would a charitable person such as yourself suggest that I was lying because YOU didn’t respond correctly to a post?! LOL Don’t worry, I forgive you, but I hardly see a need to retract anything.

Now I wonder if you will be honest enough to retract your less than charitable accusation concerning my honesty? God bless.

 

[Milliardo]

My opinion is that no one can excommunicate the reigning pontiff, as he is the one who confirms and remove excommunication, He is the final court. He will not confirm his own excommunication. However, a reigning pontiff can confirm the excommunication of a “previous pope”. If there’s a council to excommunicate somebody including a previous pope, the current pontiff has all the authority to do it and confirm the council including a past pontiff’s excommunication

This poses a lot of problems, foremost of which if a Pope does not submit to correction, then what would the Church’s response be? Would it let itself be led into error? Would the Cardinals and bishops who see the error uncorrected call a Council to depose him? Would the Pope accept the Council’s decision to depose him? And where would the Catholic Church go should the situation continue? I think that the Church has already in place a long time ago a provision to depose any bishop who is in error; we saw that in the early Church Councils where bishops who were in error were deposed by a Council if they resist correction. I do not see why this should not apply to the Pope; I would think it should be more so, if the Catholic Church would remain true to its Apostolic Faith. To not depose someone who is clearly in error and lead the Catholic Faith into error would have grave consequences for the Catholic Faith, consequences that if not corrected will only lead to further errors.

 

[catharina]

Good point snhs. I don’t know how Cardinals could call a Synod. I know that any Pope after the heretic Pope died could excommunicate the previous Pope, however this wouldn’t help if the current Pope was really bad. Perhaps if all of the Cardinals thought the Pope was wrong they would call a Synod anyways and elect a new Pope. The new Pope would of course be an anti-Pope, however perhaps if the entire Church in an Ecumenical Council agreed to him he could be elected like in the Great Western Schism.

holden, to the best of my knowledge, the Church does not declare the excommunication of any dead people (including Popes). I can’t recall a single instance of it.

 

[jj2011]

Actually, you’re correct but because you didn’t quote correctly when you responded to bilop, it caused your response to look as though you did actually say it. Look at your response from the post you submitted at 4:29 am.

Now, I would never suggest or use sarcasm to suggest you plagiarized what bilop actually wrote, so why pray tell would a charitable person such as yourself suggest that I was lying because YOU didn’t respond correctly to a post?! LOL Don’t worry, I forgive you, but I hardly see a need to retract anything.

Now I wonder if you will be honest enough to retract your less than charitable accusation concerning my honesty? God bless.

The gentleman is correct; I used the edit function incorrectly. I retract the words “and you know it” and any insinuation made about your honesty. My apologies for that part of my comments.

 

[Tietjen]

The gentleman is correct; I used the edit function incorrectly. I retract the words “and you know it” and any insinuation made about your honesty. My apologies for that part of my comments.

Thank you. I absolutely appreciate that. Many would have simply remained silent but you corrected a mistake. I truely believe that is all it was and I too wish to apologize to you for my sharp tongue (err… keyboard). Take care, God bless and I look foreward to communicating with you again.

 

[ProVobis]

holden, to the best of my knowledge, the Church does not declare the excommunication of any dead people (including Popes). I can’t recall a single instance of it.

Why would you want to excommunicate a dead Pope or Popes? Simply call an ecumenical council and replace his (or their) teachings with yours. Isn’t that what they did with the spirit of Vatican II?

The point is that any teachings need to be consistent in order to be effective. You can’t preach such-and-such for 2000 years, then call everything that you had preached was only a discipline, then to on and reverse or relax those rules, then say you are right and everyone else is wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Unless, of course, it’s in your favor.

 

[catharina]

Why would you want to excommunicate a dead Pope or Popes? Simply call an ecumenical council and replace his (or their) teachings with yours. Isn’t that what they did with the spirit of Vatican II?

The point is that any teachings need to be consistent in order to be effective. You can’t preach such-and-such for 2000 years, then call everything that you had preached was only a discipline, then to on and reverse or relax those rules, then say you are right and everyone else is wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Unless, of course, it’s in your favor.

Hope you’re not addressing me (but, alas, you were). I have no desire to excommunicate any Pope. I hope that I’m faithful enough to know that the Church teaches and I obey. So simple.

You seem to have a different agenda.

 

[pnewton]

I think that you meant your reply for someone else.

I was responding to the initial thread title, not anyone in particular. The refereences were of a historical nature. You get it or you don’t.

 

[East_and_West]

A Pope can certainly be excommunicated and deposed by a Synod/Council if ever there’s a need to do so.

No Way!!! That’s the heresy of conciliarism.

 

[East_and_West]

I’m pretty sure you could depose a Pope in extreme cases.

What if a Pope decided to convert to Islam, and said he was going to destroy St. Peter’s, all the Churches in Rome, and all the art in the Vatican because they were idolatrous?

I’m pretty sure the Curia would have the Swiss Guard arrest him, and convene the College of Cardinals, or an Ecumenical Council, and elect a new Pope. They might have him declared mentally incompetent or something to save face, but they’d act.

God Bless

He wouldn’t have to be excommunicated because his act of apostasy would already remove him from the Body of Christ and, thus, he would automatically lose his position as pope.

 

[East_and_West]

Actually when I was considering Orthodoxy I had my profile set to Catholic/Orthodox Inquirer. I recently by the grace of the Holy Ghost understood that Orthodoxy is wrong, so I changed my profile to Catholic Inquirer to show that I am not yet Confirmed into the Church, yet I am planning on being as soon as possible.

Praise God!!! I am so glad you are coming home to Christ’s Church. I will be praying for you!

 

[cam100]

A Pope can certainly be deposed; the Catholic Church has experienced this from time to time, like for instance the Western Schism when Popes and anti-Popes would depose one another. Of course, one could say that the anti-Popes weren’t real Popes, but given the context of the time then, they acted in good faith and thought themselves to be the successor to Peter, thus exercising their power to depose another bishop. A Council can depose a Pope as well, since the Pope is a bishop, and just like any bishop can be deposed if he is in error and will not recant of such an error.

Your position is known as Conciliarism and was condemned by the First Vatican Council. A council may never depose a pope.

Your example of the Western Schism doesn’t apply because each papal claimant was acting on the assumption that he himself was the real pope and the other party was NOT a pope. So this was clearly not a case of a subordinate trying to depose a pope, but a pope denouncing the schismatic claims of a usurper.

The pope is NOT just another bishop. Please take a look at Pastor Aeternus, the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council for an understanding of the pope’s role and authority.

 

[wraithx]

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) article on Pope Liberius:

“If he really consorted with heretics, condemned Athanasius, or even denied the Son of God, it was a momentary human weakness which no more compromises the papacy than does that of St. Peter.”

This would suggest that a Pope can be a heretic. Of course, thanks to infallibility, he can not do so when declaring an issue of faith or morals.

 

[cam100]

I know that any Pope after the heretic Pope died could excommunicate the previous Pope, however this wouldn’t help if the current Pope was really bad.

Dead people are not really excommunicated. Excommunication involves the person’s right to receive the sacraments and/or Christian burial. None of this even applies to someone already dead and buried.

 

[wraithx]

Oh - I forgot to mention the Cadaver Synod in which Pope Formosus was dug up from his grave, put on trial, condemned, mutilated, and all of his acts as Pope reversed.

While he was eventually buried back in St Peter’s, another Pope at a later date CONFIRMED the condemnation and order all Bishops concecrated by him to be re-consecrated.

It was an extremely scandalous event - but clearly the Popes at the time considered that they had the power to judge a previous pope.

The weirdest twist was that the Pope who convened the synod to condemn Formosus had been consecrated by Formosus - so he was declaring his own consecration void.

Wikipedia covers it briefly but well: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod

Regardless of whether you agree with Steven VI or Formosus - either one of the two Popes did great evil and was condemned for it.

 

[East_and_West]

holdencaulfield;3591863:

recently by the grace of the Holy Ghost understood that Orthodoxy is wrong…QUOTE]

Please expound. What, exactly, about Orthodoxy, is wrong? Joe

Lets see.

1. The essence/energies distinction is a GRAVE error that is either logically inconcistant or falls to ditheism!
2. They are really Pelagians and you can see this in their denial of original sin!
3. Because of their Pelagianism, they deny the wonderful doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
4. They deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son even though Fathers taught that he did.
5. The deny the rightful place of the Bishop of Rome as taught by the Fathers (I know that the EO churchs will perform acrobatics in an attempt ot explain this away).
6. They deny the scriptural doctrine of Purgatory.
7. They deny the Beatific Vision even though the Scriptures say that “We shall see him as he is” and that “we shall see him face to face.”
8. They place such an emphasis on “mystery” that doctrine has almost no meaning (modernists do the same thing).
9. They allow contraception.
10. They allow divorce .
11. Their Churches have become nothing more than places for ethnic studies as you pretty much have to give up any western cultural identity to become and EO.
12. They are some of the most intense anti-Cathlics one can come accross.
13. They have no place for great doctors of the Church such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine.
14. They deny our God given reason so much so that they deny that we can know that God exists through the use of reason. This is the heresy of Fideism.
15. They create charicatures and straw man arguements to insult Holy Mother Church.
16. They promote Hesychast spirituality which borders on New Age.
17. The Eastern Orthodox Concept of theosis borders on Pantheistic whereas the western concept of theosis does not.
    etc., etc., etc.
    Here is a link to an article that discusses some of the dangers that have infected Eastern Orthodoxy:
    christianorder.com/features.html

 

[pprimeau1976]

I don’t think anyone can excommunicate the Pope, but I wonder what would happen if the supreme pontiff excommunicated himself laetae sententiae? Granted the chances of this happening are probably 0.00000000000001%, but it makes you go .

It suprises me that there is no way for a pope to be removed if the needs arise. What if a pope goes mad like King George III? There’s no way for the College of Cardinals to convene and declare that the chair is vacant? Shouldn’t there be some defined procedure?

 

[jj2011]

I don’t think anyone can excommunicate the Pope, but I wonder what would happen if the supreme pontiff excommunicated himself laetae sententiae? Granted the chances of this happening are probably 0.00000000000001%, but it makes you go .

It suprises me that there is no way for a pope to be removed if the needs arise. What if a pope goes mad like King George III? There’s no way for the College of Cardinals to convene and declare that the chair is vacant? Shouldn’t there be some defined procedure?

It takes a higher power to depose a living pope, and there is no such power on earth. That’s why it has never happened.

 

[Chris_McAvoy]

Usually, on topics such as this, someone will help us understand the truth of the matter. We are long past the Dark Ages.

Ironically it was it the dark ages that laity and clerics probably had the most authentic apostolic understanding of the process of excommunication of a man who claims to be Pope.