Pope Honorius I

[Shlomey]

The issue is about Pope Honorius I which arose when I tried to bring back a former Catholic to the faith.
I believe he is listed amongst official/valid popes. If I am not mistaken: Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio strips of the office any Catholic that is proven to have committed a heresy.

Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio:

Thus We will and decree that the aforementioned sentences, censures and penalties be incurred without exception by all members of the following categories:

(i) Anysoever who, before this date, shall have been detected to have deviated from the Catholic Faith, or fallen into any heresy, or incurred schism, or provoked or committed either or both of these, or who have confessed to have done any of these things, or who have been convicted of having done any of these things.

(ii) Anysoever who (which may God, in His clemency and goodness to all, deign to avert) shall in the future so deviate or fall into heresy, or incur schism, or shall provoke or commit either or both of these.

(iii) Anysoever who shall be detected to have so deviated, fallen, incurred, provoked or committed, or who shall confess to have done any of these things, or who shall be convicted of having done any of these things.

These sanctions, moreover, shall be incurred by all members of these categories, of whatever status, grace, order, condition and pre-eminence they may be, even if they be endowed with the Episcopal, Archiepiscopal, Patriarchal, Primatial or some other greater Ecclesiastical dignity, or with the honour of the Cardinalate and of the Universal Apostolic See by the office of Legate, whether temporary or permanent, or if they be endowed with even worldly authority or excellence, as Count, Baron, Marquis, Duke, King or Emperor.

All this We will and decree.

1. In addition, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine, decree and define:-]

that if ever at any time it shall appear that any Bishop, even if he be acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch or Primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, or, as has already been mentioned, any legate,** or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy**:

(i)** the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless**;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;
(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way;
(iv) to any so promoted to be Bishops, or Archbishops, or Patriarchs, or Primates or elevated as Cardinals, or as Roman Pontiff, no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted either in the spiritual or the temporal domain;
(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;
(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power.

With that beign said, Pope Honorius I was anathematized and condemned a heretic.

**More than forty years after his death, Honorius was anathematized by name along with the Monothelites by the Third Council of Constantinople (First Trullan) in 680. **The anathema read, after mentioning the chief Monothelites, “and with them Honorius, who was Prelate of Rome, as having followed them in all things”.

Furthermore, the Acts of the Thirteenth Session of the Council state, “And 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 [Patriarch] Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines.” The Sixteenth Session adds: “To Theodore of Pharan, the heretic, anathema! To Sergius, the heretic, anathema! To Cyrus, the heretic, anathema! To Honorius, the heretic, anathema! To Pyrrhus, the heretic, anathema!”

This condemnation was subsequently confirmed by Leo II (a fact disputed by such persons as Cesare Baronio and Bellarmine,[1] but which has since become commonly accepted) in the form, “and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted”.** The Catholic Encyclopedia notes: “It is clear that no Catholic has the right to defend Pope Honorius. He was a heretic, not in intention, but in fact; and he is to be considered to have been condemned in the sense in which Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who died in Catholic communion, never having resisted the Church, have been condemned.”**

So the question being: was he even a “real Pope”?
If not, then we would not have an unbroken line of Petrine Successors?

 

[Ghosty]

The issue is about Pope Honorius I which arose when I tried to bring back a former Catholic to the faith.
I believe he is listed amongst official/valid popes. If I am not mistaken: Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio strips of the office any Catholic that is proven to have committed a heresy.

Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio:

With that beign said, Pope Honorius I was anathematized and condemned a heretic.

So the question being: was he even a “real Pope”?
If not, then we would not have an unbroken line of Petrine Successors?

He was a real Pope, and if he wasn’t a heretic then he certainly aided heresy in spreading. None of this makes him a non-Catholic or an invalid Pope. He never publically professed heresy, but rather wrote a rather muddled and unclear letter to a heretical Patriarch in which he basically said “you’re right to continue in your belief and teaching”. That in itself is not automatically condemnable to the degree of casting him out of the Church and his office, since he did not obstinately hold to any heretical view, and in fact died long before the question was brought to judgement by a later Pope and Council.

So in his lifetime he was indeed the legitimate Pope, though his time was marked by a grave error, perhaps the worst any Popes have committed. Even if we consider the notion that he lost the title of Pope because of this, we don’t have a broken chain of succession, only a period where there was no Pope (which is something that happens at the death of every Pope, and which has lasted years at certain times in history). The succession is still there, because it has always been the Bishops of Rome who have inherited the Petrine Ministry, and this line has never had to be “remade” from whole cloth.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Shlomey]

He was a real Pope, and if he wasn’t a heretic then he certainly aided heresy in spreading. None of this makes him a non-Catholic or an invalid Pope. He never publically professed heresy, but rather wrote a rather muddled and unclear letter to a heretical Patriarch in which he basically said “you’re right to continue in your belief and teaching”. That in itself is not automatically condemnable to the degree of casting him out of the Church and his office, since he did not obstinately hold to any heretical view, and in fact died long before the question was brought to judgement by a later Pope and Council.

So in his lifetime he was indeed the legitimate Pope, though his time was marked by a grave error, perhaps the worst any Popes have committed. Even if we consider the notion that he lost the title of Pope because of this, we don’t have a broken chain of succession, only a period where there was no Pope (which is something that happens at the death of every Pope, and which has lasted years at certain times in history). The succession is still there, because it has always been the Bishops of Rome who have inherited the Petrine Ministry, and this line has never had to be “remade” from whole cloth.

Peace and God bless!

Does he not though fall unto the categories as provided by Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio?

And he was indeed named a “heretic”, thus by Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, he would have been automatically stripped of his ecclesial offices, or no?

 

[puppypatrol]

newadvent.org/cathen/07452b.htm

After Leo had notified the emperor that the decrees of the council had been confirmed by him, he proceeded to make them known to the nations of the West. The letters which he sent for this end to the king and to the bishops and nobles of Spain have come down to us. In them he explained what the council had effected, and he called upon the bishops to subscribe to its decrees.** At the same time he was at pains to make it clear that in condemning his predecessor Honorius I, he did so, not because he taught heresy, but because he was not active enough in opposing it.** In accordance with the papal mandate, a synod was held at Toledo (684) in which the Council of Constantinople was accepted.

The more famous Gallicans, such as Bossuet, Dupin, Richer, and later ones as Cardinal de la Luzerne and (at the time of the Vatican Council) Maret, Gratry, and many others, usually held with all Protestant writers that Honorius had formally defined heresy, and was condemned for so doing. They added, of course, that such a failure on the part of an individual pope did not compromise the general and habitual orthodoxy of the Roman See.

The fault of Honorius lay precisely in the fact that he had not authoritatively published that unchanging faith of his Church, in modern language, that he had not issued a definition ex cathedra.

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3301&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=382252

And there is much more. Also keep in mind that EVERYONE who didn’t do enough, stood by and did nothing, or was politically correct “IN THOSE TIMES” was a heretic. That was the Inquisition and the Inquisition was more of a political problem than a Church problem.

 

[Shlomey]

newadvent.org/cathen/07452b.htm

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3301&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=382252

And there is much more. Also keep in mind that EVERYONE who didn’t do enough, stood by and did nothing, or was politically correct “IN THOSE TIMES” was a heretic. That was the Inquisition and the Inquisition was more of a political problem than a Church problem.

I am actually very confused now…was he then a pope or a heretic and thereby not a pope?

 

[puppypatrol]

I am actually very confused now…was he then a pope or a heretic and thereby not a pope?

I am going to have to continue researching this because I don’t know.

He was Pope for 11 years, was a pope in good standing, actually admired until the day he died, anathematized 40 years after his death not for what he did but for what he didn’t do. I cannot find a single list that doesn’t have him listed as a Pope.

I guess that is a goal for me: to find out if he stayed a pope and what “anathematized in name” means.

 

[Ghosty]

Does he not though fall unto the categories as provided by Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio?

And he was indeed named a “heretic”, thus by Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, he would have been automatically stripped of his ecclesial offices, or no?

Honorius died long before he could be judged a heretic, and even then term “heresy” used in his judgement was not the same as it would come to be used later in history (one could be a heretic simply for not speaking out against heresy, for example, rather than having to profess the heresy itself; incidentally, this is exactly what Honorius was found guilty of).

While the law you cite mentions that it applies to people who held such views even before the law was enacted, this doesn’t mean it can somehow retroactively apply to the dead. Honorius doesn’t automatically become “not a Pope” because of a displinary law enacted a thousand years after his death.

He was a Pope, albeit a poor one, possibly the worst one because his ineptitude played directly into the hands of heresy. Even the Council that declared him a “heretic” didn’t say he was no longer considered to have been Pope.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Rogerteder]

Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio strips of the office any Catholic that is proven to have committed a heresy.

NOPE!!! Cum Ex Apostolaus Officio says a Pope stops being Pope (or his election is invalid) if the man “elected” is a MANIFEST HERETIC. Example: if Pope Benedict XVI became a Baptist. He would stop being Pope. If the Cardinals elected Billy Graham to be Pope he would not be validly elected. Also if a Cardinal were secretly a Protestant (that is why Paul IV wrote Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio because there was a Cardinal that was rumored to secretly be a Protestant) and were elected, and then said "I’m a Baptists, and have been a Baptist his election would be null and void.
Cum Ex Apostolaus Officio does not give individual Catholics the right to declare a Pope null and void. Some, in our present day, mistakenly misinterpret Cum Ex Apostolaus Officio. It has never been a pplied that way in the history of the Church.

 

[JMJ_coder]

Pope Honorius is an interesting case (and not just because some like to attempt to use him to disprove the doctrine of Papal Infallibility).

First, the Pope was deceived. A man named Sergius, who was the Patriarch of Constantinople, taught the heretical doctrine of monothelitism. He wrote a letter to the Pope and worded it very carefully – and the Pope was indeed mislead. The Pope wrote back that it sounded ok – which it does if you understand the words in a certain way (but Sergius gave different meanings to the wording to have a heretical implication).

At a subsequent Ecumenical Council, Honorius was named, along with Sergius and others, in the anathema. But, was he condemned as a heretic? No!

When the then current Pope sent the Councils decrees to be ratified by various Churches in the West, for instance (and most famously) the Church in Spain, he made it plain that Honorius was not condemned as a heretic, but because he failed to adequately combat the heresy.

So does this disprove the doctrine of Papal Infallibility? No!

Pope Honorius wasn’t defining anything.
Pope Honorius wasn’t speaking to the whole Church – just one Bishop.
Pope Honorius didn’t teach heresy, he neglected to combat it.

THE TRUTH ABOUT POPE HONORIUS

catholic.com/library/Papal_Infallibility.asp (scroll to bottom and read “Their ‘favorite case’”)

 

[Shlomey]

Thanks a lot for all the information!

One more question: the Council doe use the word “heretic”: how is it different from the usage of later times?

 

[Deconi]

Pope Honorius is an interesting case (and not just because some like to attempt to use him to disprove the doctrine of Papal Infallibility).

First, the Pope was deceived. A man named Sergius, who was the Patriarch of Constantinople, taught the heretical doctrine of monothelitism. He wrote a letter to the Pope and worded it very carefully – and the Pope was indeed mislead. The Pope wrote back that it sounded ok – which it does if you understand the words in a certain way (but Sergius gave different meanings to the wording to have a heretical implication).

At a subsequent Ecumenical Council, Honorius was named, along with Sergius and others, in the anathema. But, was he condemned as a heretic? No!

When the then current Pope sent the Councils decrees to be ratified by various Churches in the West, for instance (and most famously) the Church in Spain, he made it plain that Honorius was not condemned as a heretic, but because he failed to adequately combat the heresy.

So does this disprove the doctrine of Papal Infallibility? No!

Pope Honorius wasn’t defining anything.
Pope Honorius wasn’t speaking to the whole Church – just one Bishop.
Pope Honorius didn’t teach heresy, he neglected to combat it.

THE TRUTH ABOUT POPE HONORIUS

catholic.com/library/Papal_Infallibility.asp (scroll to bottom and read “Their ‘favorite case’”)

I was looking for that!..Thank You, JMJ.

 

[Mickey]

Even the Council that declared him a “heretic” didn’t say he was no longer considered to have been Pope.

But he was considered to be a heretic.

 

[mardukm]

But he was considered to be a heretic.

And as we Catholics all know, declaring who or who is not a heretic IS NOT a matter subject to the protection of infallibility - though indeed declaring WHAT or WHAT IS NOT HERESY IS.

Judging from the fragments of his letter we possess, from the testimony of Pope Honorius’ own secretary, and from the defense of St. Maximos himself, Pope Honorius was not a heretic in any formal sense.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Mickey]

Judging from the fragments of his letter we possess, from the testimony of Pope Honorius’ own secretary, and from the defense of St. Maximos himself, Pope Honorius was not a heretic in any formal sense.

I vehemently disagree with you.

**The Sixteenth Session of the Council of **Constantinople

”To Honorius, the heretic, anathema!”

 

[Ghosty]

I vehemently disagree with you.

**The Sixteenth Session of the Council of **Constantinople

**”**To Honorius, the heretic, anathema!****”

I think we’ve already established that he was declared a heretic, Mickey. The entire thread presumes that fact, so what’s your point?

Peace and God bless!

 

[mardukm]

I vehemently disagree with you.

**The Sixteenth Session of the Council of **Constantinople

**”**To Honorius, the heretic, anathema!****”

Did I deny that?

I think it is legitimate to call into question what the early Church meant by “heretic.” Heck, I think it is legitimate to call into question the very validity of the early Church’s judgment of WHO or who is not a heretic (though I would never call into question the Church’s judgment of WHAT or what is not heresy).

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Mickey]

I think we’ve already established that he was declared a heretic, Mickey.

Fair enough. Thank you.

 

[Mickey]

I think it is legitimate to call into question what the early Church meant by “heretic.”

There is no question what the early Church “meant” by heretic.

A heretic is a heretic–and Honorius was a heretic. We are in agreement. Thank you.

 

[mardukm]

There is no question what the early Church “meant” by heretic.

A heretic is a heretic–and Honorius was a heretic. We are in agreement. Thank you.

Actually, the early Church’s understanding of “heretic” was a lot more general than it is today. But I’ll have to explain it to you in detail next week.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Mickey]

Actually, the early Church’s understanding of “heretic” was a lot more general than it is today.

Only if you want to cut Honorius some slack.

But I’ll have to explain it to you in detail next week.

That’s okay–I am usually not in agreement with your explanations.

But I will not be on line for a while.
January 7 is our blessed Nativity and there will be Great Compline, Nativity Liturgy, Liturgy for the feast of St Stephen, etc.

Peace and blessings.
Mickey