Pope Francis: ‘Status quo must be maintained’ for Eastern Catholics and Orthodox

[Prodigal1984]

What would happen if a Pope did repent and return to the Orthodox Church? Would we all in fact be Orthodox then?

 

[Bataar]

What would happen if a Pope did repent and return to the Orthodox Church? Would we all in fact be Orthodox then?

Nope. The pope would no longer be Catholic and according to church law, a non Catholic cannot hold any office in the church so a conclave would need to be held to elect a new pope.

 

[Prodigal1984]

Nope. The pope would no longer be Catholic and according to church law, a non Catholic cannot hold any office in the church so a conclave would need to be held to elect a new pope.

So if the Pope said something like I declare and define that the Church is in fact part of the Orthodox Communion and I am now the Bishop of Rome and the first among equals in the Church, what could we really say?

 

[Neithan]

The letter from Orthodox bishops Seraphim and Andrew to Pope Francis, urging him to repent and to return to the Orthodox Church does not sound like they are subjecting themselves to the authority of the Roman Pontiff.

I’m disturbed by stuff like this (whence all this confusion?) but I was suggesting that the Pope is dispensing them from their obligation to recognize his authority for the time being, but that they are still de jure subject to him; he just is not enforcing the subjugation for now.

You, the Papists, in essence, hinder this unity. We Orthodox are unifiers par
excellence, whereas you, the Papists, are separators. If you do not repent here in this present life, you will repent in Hades, where, however, there “is no repentance”!

This is fodder for atheism, frankly. These Orthodox bishops are condemning us to hell. They don’t have the authority to do that, and I would say they are just heaping more scandal on the ecclesial situation; but they do seem to be sincere and they bring up a lot of problems with the Roman church currently.

 

[Bataar]

Bataar:

Nope. The pope would no longer be Catholic and according to church law, a non Catholic cannot hold any office in the church so a conclave would need to be held to elect a new pope.

So if the Pope said something like I declare and define that the Church is in fact part of the Orthodox Communion and I am now the Bishop of Rome and the first among equals in the Church, what could we really say?

If a pope did that, it would be 100% contrary to currently defined church doctrine so it would be heretical. By committing the sin of heresy, the pope would cease to be Catholic and would lose his office.

 

[Neithan]

If a pope did that, it would be 100% contrary to currently defined church doctrine so it would be heretical. By committing the sin of heresy, the pope would cease to be Catholic and would lose his office.

Who could make this judgment?

I think we would likely have a period of profound confusion, where some interpretation of the declarations would be sought that don’t violate the law of non-contradiction until some clarification by a successor (who perhaps could then declare that the predecessor effectively abrogated the Office at some point.)

 

[Bataar]

Bataar:

If a pope did that, it would be 100% contrary to currently defined church doctrine so it would be heretical. By committing the sin of heresy, the pope would cease to be Catholic and would lose his office.

Who could make this judgment?

I think we would likely have a period of profound confusion, where some interpretation of the declarations would be sought that don’t violate the law of non-contradiction until some clarification by a successor (who perhaps could then declare that the predecessor effectively abrogated the Office at some point.)

Since something like that would be obviously against church doctrine/dogma/infallible teaching, hopefully, the bishops and college of cardinals would stand up and declare that the pope has abandoned his office and call a new conclave. If, however, they were weak and went along with it, it would be up to each individual Catholic. The doctrines are very clear and a simple Google search can find them. If that did happen, the number of Sedevacantists would increase dramatically.

 

[Bataar]

Wow, so a post of mine quoting Pope Boniface VIII gets removed. I didn’t realize it was against forum policy to quote papal statements.

 

[Prodigal1984]

That’s unbelievable if they deleted that honestly.