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ServusDei1
Guest
Is a Pope only accountable to God. Can secular authorities arrest him without sinning for a crime?
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SuscipeMeDomine
Guest
Yes, of course.
Yes, but no.
The Pope is head of state of a sovereign nation, and as such, possesses diplomatic immunity with regards to law enforcement outside of Vatican City and the Holy See, and within Vatican City, he is absolute monarch, and therefore cannot be arrested by his own police.
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SuscipeMeDomine
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A better answer than mine.
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BartholomewB
Guest
Who is “she”?
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PaulfromIowa
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I don’t know what you intended the title to be, but you probably should ask the moderator to fix it.
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runningdude
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If he were credibly accused of a major crime, most countries would refuse him entry, and he would be internationally isolated to within his own territory, Vatican City.
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BornInMarch
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Moreover, if it was egregious enough there’d likely be a bloodless coup where the cardinals force him to resign.
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twf
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This would be problematic. If a Pope is coerced to resign, it’s questionable whether the resignation is valid… in which case the next Pope elected could be considered an anti-pope.
The Pope cannot be forced to resign. A resignation that is not done out of the Pope’s own free will is not valid. This excludes coercion completely.
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BornInMarch
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If coerced resignation is out of the question then there’s still other ways to remove a bad Pope.
While legally the Pope can’t be arrested by the Vatican City Police, he could still be de facto imprisoned. If the College of Cardinals decides that the Pope is too corrupt or dangerous to be kept in office, and if they gained the support of the Swiss Guard, they could put the Pope under house arrest and tell the general public that he’s too ill to go in public and that a regent will take over for him. They wouldn’t even need to lie if they worded the public statement well enough (“His Holiness is suffering from heart problems”).
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twf
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And they would all violate canon law / sin by doing so…
That’s just called kidnapping and illegal confinement. It may incapacitate the Pope but it does not remove him from office. There is no such thing as a regent in church governance. It also likely invokes the excommunication decreed by canon 1370.
Try as you like, it cannot be done.
Try as you like, it cannot be done.
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BornInMarch
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To start with, I didn’t say it would be good, just that it would be an option. However I will admit that I don’t think it would be sinful to prevent an unworthy heir to Saint Peter from damaging the Church or leading people astray. I certainly don’t think letting someone like Alexander VI run wild with all that power is the right course of action.
Canon 1370 only prohibits physical force; there are ways to incapacitate a person that doesn’t involve physical force. While he’d still be in office, if incapacitated he’d be unable to do further damage.
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ServusDei1
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It’s a typo.
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commenter
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Of course, this only holds true for nations that follow Traditional law. Napoleon took a Pope prisoner. During WW2 there was fear the Nazis might take Pius XII prisoner, and I think there was a contingency plan.ServusDei1:
Yes, but no.
The Pope is head of state of a sovereign nation, and as such, possesses diplomatic immunity with regards to law enforcement outside of Vatican City
As the EU grows more secular, I have no doubt they would not hesitate to declare the Holy See no longer a “state” and treat the pope as an ordinary citizen.
In that event if things got hostile, the pope could move to, let’s say, Poland which would pull out of EU. His sovereignty is not dependent on any specific territory. The Holy See was recognized as sovereign even during the interval prior to creation of the “Vatican” in the 1920s.
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BornInMarch
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There was a contingency plan in place. The plan was that if Pope Pius XII was captured by the Nazis then the College of Cardinals is to assume he resigned, relocate to Portugal, and elect a new Pope.
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