I agree completely that the Holy Spirit will protect the Church from teaching heresy, all I’m saying is that the Holy Spirit will use people to protect the Church. God acts on this earth primarily through the faithful. If a Pope tries to teach heresy, the faithful bishops will find a way to remove him.
This is what I’m telling you. There is no lawful way of doing this. Bl. John Paul blocked all the doors. Unless another pope comes along and changes the law, it is what it is. We have to think of Church law and governance using God’s logic, not our logic.
I think John Paul II erred in changing Canon Law. I see no theological reason why men can’t remove a Pope;
It’s not an error if it’s your prerogative. Christ writes the law in the heart of Peter. Peter transmits it to the Church. Not everything needs a theological reason. This is the layman’s way of thinking, not the hierarchy’s way of thinking. There are some things that the Church does for the common good. Canon law is not theology. Canon law has to be grounded in theology. When the law says that the pope cannot be removed from office, the theological basis for this is that no one can bind and unbind Peter. He who is the giver of the law is above the law. Since Christ gives the law only through popes, then only Christ himself has authority over popes, not the bishops. We would have to wait for divine intervention to remove a pope. As I said, fraud is possible, but he remains pope no matter who sits on the Chair of Peter.
There is another important piece that one must remember. A man is the pope because he is the Bishop of Rome. Otherwise, he would not be pope. The bishop is the highest ranking authority in any diocese, second only to the pope. In the case of the Diocese of Rome, there is no one above the Bishop of Rome. The rest of the college of bishops has no jurisdiction over the Church of Rome. We can’t dismantle one truth in order to preserve another truth. Even if the pope manifestly embrace a heretical principle, it would be equally heretical to assume that any bishop or bishops have jurisdiction over Rome. Even the Orthodox subscribe to that principle.
men choose the Pope after all. It can’t be the Holy Spirit choosing directly, otherwise we wouldn’t have had many, many bad Popes.
The Holy Spirit guides the college by allow it to discern the kind of man that the Church needs. The human part is matching the man with the needs as presented by the Holy Spirit. There is another issue here, which is rather interesting. We can’t really speculate whether or not the Holy Spirit chose the Borgias, for example. There is something important here that has to be factored in. Would the Church be the same if they had not been popes? God, who is outside of time and space, know the bigger picture. We just don’t know and won’t know until we get to heaven.
I am not at all terrified of the authority of the Church, I often wish it would exercise more authority on faith and morals. All I’m saying is that there are issues beyond the Church’s purview.
Not exactly. One of the titles of the pope is Ruler of the World. There are issues that the Church chooses to leave to the secular world. Can a pope claim jurisdiction? Yes he can. He is not bound by canon law or by civil law. It is part of the faith of the Church that only revealed law binds the pope. Outside of that, it’s really up to him how he chooses to govern.
If an opinion of a Pope tended to contradict the teaching of the great Saints and Doctors of the Church, past Popes, and the Tradition of the Church, I would be inclined not to follow it.
Here is where one would be mistaken. No saint, no doctor, no council, no tradition can bind a pope. This has been the faith of the Church since the time of Boniface IV who made this very clear. A pope can pick and choose what he wants to carry forward and what he wants to leave behind.
This is one of the issues between the SSPX and the Holy See. The SSPX insists on “this is tradition” and the Holy See is saying that only the pope can state what is and is not irreversible tradition. Tradition does not always bind the pope, unless it has been revealed. Another issue between some traditionalists and the Holy See under Pope Benedict is the authority of Thomas Aquinas. Pope Benedict publicly stated that he found Aquinas to be self-serving. He did not use him as a point of reference as much as he used Augustine and Bonaventure. I think that Pope Francis uses Aquinas more than Pope Benedict. None of the doctors have any claim to authority in the Church. Their teachings carry authority only when the pope says so. The same is true of the great saints.
To date, there are very few times when popes and saints or popes and doctors have not been on the same page. But it is possible and if it happens during our lifetime, our allegiance must be to the pope. The other people have no jurisdiction over us unless it’s supplied by the Church.
The classic recent example of this has been the teachings on the death penalty. As Benedict himself wrote (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger), a Catholic is free to disagree with the Holy Father on capital punishment, and remain a Catholic in good standing.
At this point, this has been left open. But that is not to say that it cannot change. The Church can certainly say that the conditions under which this was stated no longer exist; therefore, we can no longer subscribe to the principle. Bl. John Paul came very close in Evangelium Vitae. He said that these conditions “rarely if ever exist”. Had he said that they no longer exist, that would have bound us. It was not a opinion. In Evangelium Vitae he speaks as the pope not a philosopher. When Cardinal Ratzinger said it, he spoke as a theologian.
