What Happens if a Pope is a Heretic?

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Ok very enlightening thank you! So, if someone - lets just say a layperson or a priest were to, for example, state that they were in favour of gay marriage or euthanasia or that they disagreed with some teaching of the Church (and I see from the article above that there are degrees or categories of belief), that wouldn’t, from my understanding make them a heretic. But what would it mean? Simply that they were in grave error, and maybe mortal sin? Or is there a term for that state? I feel like I should know this, it seems so simple, and yet it’s an area I don’t fully understand!
 
They would be in error, and it would be the job of their priest or bishop or superior to have a talk with them, usually in private. Their priest or bishop or superior would also tell them, again probably in private, if he thought they were committing some sin. Not all opinions necessarily constitute sin. A lot depends on how the priest or layperson is expressing the opinion, in what context, etc. It may be one thing to discuss a controversial opinion at a private theological conference, and quite another to blast it on Twitter or at a World Youth Day rally.
 
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sealabeag said:
Ok very enlightening thank you! So, if someone - lets just say a layperson or a priest were to, for example, state that they were in favour of gay marriage or euthanasia or that they disagreed with some teaching of the Church (and I see from the article above that there are degrees or categories of belief), that wouldn’t, from my understanding make them a heretic. But what would it mean? Simply that they were in grave error, and maybe mortal sin? Or is there a term for that state? I feel like I should know this, it seems so simple, and yet it’s an area I don’t fully understand!
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From what I understand, there’s a difference between public and private heresy–one can certainly be guilty of heresy as a mortal sin without it having the public, visible effects of separation. When it comes to the visible, more public species, what makes it easier to identify with lay people or other ranks other than Pope, is that there is a higher authority that can correct them and so obstinacy would be demonstrated by being stiff necked and incorrigible in the face of that authority (“contumacy”). That’s why with a Pope it seems impossible other than if he explicitly and incorrigibly thumbed his nose at a specific definition.
 
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Genesis315 said:
When it comes to the visible, more public species, what makes it easier to identify with lay people or other ranks other than Pope, is that there is a higher authority that can correct them and so obstinacy would be demonstrated by being stiff necked and incorrigible in the face of that authority (“contumacy”).
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Laypeople and lower ranks of clergy are often penalized by being given some directive to do something (e.g. resign from some organization, stop publicly speaking or blogging, present yourself in Diocese X to explain yourself to your bishop, etc.) and if the person is disobedient, then they’re punished for the disobedience, not for “heresy”. It makes it easier than having to decide whether what they’re saying is truly heretical.
 
Yeah, I can’t find any recent examples of specific laity having an excommunication specifically declared for heresy (or even many historically, really, unless they were rulers or it became a high profile case with widespread ramifications).

I did find lower clergy and religious who had excommunications declared for heresy in recent times, so that does happen it seems. But like we both noted, in those cases it was after numerous corrections and opportunities to get in line.
 
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There was one case in Lincoln, Nebraska under the traditionalist former bishop, I will look for the news article.

Edited to add, here’s the article. Bishop Bruskewitz was one of the most conservative in the USA. His diocese was the only one in US that didn’t allow any female altar servers in the diocese anywhere.
The excommunication wasn’t specifically for heresy, it was for belonging to a group that the Bishop obviously thought took positions antithetical to the faith. So it was “sort of heresy”.

 
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Oh yeah, I remember that–he tagged everyone from the SSPX to the Hemlock Society, not to mention the usual “progressive Catholic” groups. It looks like Bishop Conley is willing to lift them for individuals that abandon their un-Catholic views.
 
Papal madness actually has happened before. Blessed Pius IX suffered from a severe illness the year before he died. The extremely high fevers he experienced boiled his brain and the College of Cardinals realized this, trying to decrease his duties to reduce his stress. It came to a head when Pope Pius IX declared that the nude male statues in the Vatican museums tempted the religious to corruption and ran through the halls with a mallet emasculating every nude statue he found. For the last few months of his life, he was confined to his apartments by the College of Cardinals and any decrees of the Pope had to be first approved by the Dean of the College and the Camerlengo. This semi-imprisonment only lasted for a few months because he passed away due to complications of his illness in February of the next year.
 
This was made up by Dan Brown in Angels and Demons as far as I have seen (open to correction).
 
No, this actually happened. It shook the College of Cardinals so much that when Leo XIII was elected, he ordered that all nude statues in papal possession which Pius IX missed be covered by fig leaves. Some fig leaves were applied in the 16th and 18th centuries, but Leo made it a universal policy for fear of this issue being brought up again. I believe that some of the leaves were ordered removed by Pius VI in the 60s when the Vatican Museums’ attendance surged during the later sessions of Vatican II.
 
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Do you have a reliable source? The reason I ask is that there are many webpages on this claiming it’s a myth and that the most Pope Pius IX did is put fig leaves on some statues. However, most of these webpages are on the order of people’s blogs and Facebooks, and they probably are just reposting what they read on someone else’s blog or Facebook.

If you have something that’s actually authoritative, that would be helpful.
 
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I took a Papal History course with Dr. David Dawson-Vasquez, who now teaches at the Angelicum in Rome. He first introduced me to this event. It was then corroborated by a priest friend who studied at the North American Pontifical College and was a tour guide at St. Peter’s basilica and the Vatican Museums as part of his pastoral duties. The reason that this is often dismissed as a myth was because it was held in the highest secrecy by the College of Cardinals until Paul VI ordered the leaves of Pius IX removed and the conservators questioned why so many of the statues which were covered from that period had contemporary damage to their groins. He then revealed to the conservators doing the restoration how they had become damaged. Since that initial revelation, historians pieced together the rest of the story from the personal journals of the College of Cardinals of the day and resources from the Vatican Archives from the pontificates of Pius IX and Leo XIII.
 
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Very interesting! Many websites claim the statues were actually damaged by the fig leaves causing breakage when they were applied and removed.
I will take your word for things happening as you say though.
 
As a practical matter, it’s hard to imagine all the world’s bishops agreeing on anything. Even if it looked like they might reach agreement that the pope had been guilty of heresy, that would take time.

In the meantime, the pope could appoint bishops, before removal, so they would defeat unanimity.

I suspect there is a secret protocol so that a given pope agreed in advance, an undated resignation letter, that could be processed if his physician thought he was physically or mentally impaired. But that’s likely not heresy.
 
If you go to the Vatican Museums and look closely, you can actually see the chisel marks on a number of the statues. It is true, some of the statues were damaged by the leaves, but those were the leaves applied in the 18th century when the old metal fig leaves which were applied in 16th century were removed. The metal ties which had been drilled into the statue had corroded and eaten away at the marble. These leaves, however, were on different statues than the ones applied by Leo. The 18th century plaster leaves covering the damage caused by the metal were actually left on the statues by Paul VI and conservators for fear that it would damage the statue even further to remove the leaves.
 
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Just a note of interest-
There have been many popes who have died only days after being elected. I think the 10 shortest tenured popes all died within 30 days of their election. Point being there is always that divine aspect that can protect the church also if for some reason we men get it wrong.

Peace!!!
 
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Catholics would begin complaining about it, some strongly. What happens next? Who knows? This has never happened in the past–I have specially studied Church history. We can only guess what happens then. There is no procedure for deposing a Pope,
I expect that God would not allow him to continue in office for long.
If it happened, the people should start praying.
 
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Permitting heresy…like claiming to be a catholic who is pro-abortion ? What happened@ Chalcedon…are the Armenians still suffering? Heresy is speaking without investigating…like supporting Democrats without reading the whole platform and weighing it against the will of…heretics? Maybe we should read the whole story rather tahn the sound bytes of facebook and the news
 
Who was Martin Luther? Pope John? St Pius? Pope Leo? Bishops outside the western rite? Justified wars? Pedophiles? Who defined heresy…were they jewish?
 
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