Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. XX: Death Penalty Edition.

ohn Zmirak!—who denies that there is such a thing as Catholic social teach­ing, even though the Vat­i­can pub­lished a whole Com­pendi­um of it—is wor­ried that Pope Fran­cis is “fal­si­fy­ing Catholic teach­ing.” “We should defy him!” he cries in an obnox­ious tweet, [long before Twit­ter banned him—SEA, 4/21/24]. The lack of irony is aston­ish­ing. Per­haps the only way out is if Mr. Zmi­rak will just admit that by “Catholic teach­ing” he means “my opin­ions.” There’s no social teach­ing in Zmi­rak’s opin­ions; the pope is fal­si­fy­ing Zmi­rak’s opin­ions. Sound bet­ter?

Mean­while Ray­mond P.W. Arroyo, also on Twit­ter, can bare­ly hide his insin­u­a­tion and his calum­ny that Pope Fran­cis’s change to the Cat­e­chism was some­how meant to dis­tract atten­tion from the sex abuse scan­dal. This despite the fact that the pope had been say­ing the very same things back in Octo­ber of 2017. Per­haps Mr. Arroyo will tell us that the pope antic­i­pat­ed the scan­dal even then. Per­haps St. John Paul II and Bene­dict XVI, who both advo­cat­ed the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, antic­i­pat­ed it too. They knew what was com­ing in 2018, and con­coct­ed a cam­paign against the death penal­ty to dis­tract from it. Those wily popes. But P.W. sees all.

Then, the chron­i­cal­ly con­fused Phil Lawler decides that, because he is con­fused, “the [whole] world [must also be] full of con­fu­sion” He gives no evi­dence, in his mad arti­cle, that he took a sur­vey of the world and now reports back to us on their con­fu­sion. By no means. I read a man who says “I am con­fused” and then pro­ceeds to project his own befud­dle­ment upon every­one else. Mr. Lawler must think that con­fu­sion is like laugh­ter: If you’re con­fused, the world is con­fused with you. Mr. Lawler is so con­fused he even con­fus­es the world with him­self. But he should­n’t feel bad; Mr. Zmi­rak con­fused his opin­ions with Catholic teach­ing.

Cafe­te­ria Catholic Steve Sko­jec, how­ev­er, is not con­fused. He’s cer­tain that the pope is guilty of “mate­r­i­al heresy.” The rea­son Mr. Sko­jec thinks this is that the admis­si­bil­i­ty of the death penal­ty, at all times and all places, world with­out end Amen, is (so Sko says) an “infal­li­ble” teach­ing of the Church.

State Your Case With Black or White

Death Site News also implies that the pope’s teach­ing is heresy. Dr. Peter Kwas­niews­ki, writ­ing at that ven­er­a­ble site, says at first that the pope is “open­ly hereti­cal.” But then he backpedals for cov­er. Oh no, I did­n’t quite mean that, he clar­i­fies.

“Whether Fran­cis,” K. intones sage­ly,

is a for­mal heretic—that is, ful­ly aware that what he is teach­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is con­trary to Catholic doc­trine, and proves per­ti­na­cious in main­tain­ing his posi­tion in spite of rebuke—is a mat­ter to be adju­di­cat­ed by the Col­lege of Car­di­nals.

Because of course what the pope teach­es is con­trary to Catholic doc­trine! There is no oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty, since the infal­li­ble Petrus K. says that it is. Petrus K. locu­ta est. But Petrus K., who is infal­li­ble on the death penal­ty, some­how is not infal­li­ble about whether Pope Fran­cis is a heretic; all of a sud­den Petrus K. can’t say, he’s agnos­tic on that, but the men in red hats can. And where is that in canon law? I don’t find that in canon law. What I do find in canon law is this: “The first see is judged by no one.” That’s canon 1404. But Petrus K. thinks the first see can be judged by the Col­lege of Car­di­nals.

So here we have some curiosi­ties. John Zmi­rak thinks that “Catholic teach­ing” means “Zmi­rak’s opin­ions.” Phil Lawler thinks “the world” means “me.” And Peter Kwas­niews­ki thinks “no one” means “the Col­lege of Car­di­nals.” So who could be sur­prised if they go off in search of Catholic teach­ing on the death penal­ty and come out mis­tak­en on a point or two? I mean, at least Mr. Lawler has the hon­esty to admit he’s con­fused. He should­n’t be so cer­tain he knows what the Church has “always taught.”

Do What They Say, Say What They Mean

But let’s say a few things on this point about heresy and infal­li­ble teach­ings. Shall we? Set the death penal­ty to the side for one moment. You want an infal­li­ble teach­ing? I’ll give you one: The pope is pro­tect­ed by the Holy Spir­it from teach­ing error. This is a de fide dog­ma, and it is based on more than one text of Scrip­ture.

John 16:13. “How­beit when he, the Spir­it of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth.”

John 21:17. “He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was griev­ed because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou know­est all things; thou know­est that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”

(Some of the sheep, of course, are obsti­nate, and refuse to be fed. They act as though they are the source of their own food.)

Luke 10:16. “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.”

Luke 22:32. “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art con­vert­ed, strength­en thy brethren.”

Does Mr. Sko­jec mean to tell us Christ’s prayer was not answered and that Peter’s faith has, in fact, failed? Or does he mean to tell us that Pope Fran­cis is not Peter? Be care­ful now.

1 Tim. 3:15. “But if I tar­ry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought­est to behave thy­self in the house of God, which is the church of the liv­ing God, the pil­lar and ground of the truth.”

Now, some peo­ple get into these dis­cus­sions and say, well, a pope could be a heretic, but he could­n’t teach heresy. The Holy Spir­it would pro­tect him from this. But once you under­stand that Pope Fran­cis has put this teach­ing into the Cat­e­chism, we’re past the point of try­ing to make this dis­tinc­tion. If the teach­ing is heresy, the pope has taught heresy. There is no way around that.

But the Church has taught, as an actu­al dog­ma, that a pope can do no such thing.

Lumen Gen­tium 25, cit­ing the infal­li­ble teach­ing of Vat­i­can I, says that the pope teach­es with the author­i­ty of Christ. Thus Catholics are to sub­mit to his teachings—note this—“even when he is not speak­ing ex cathe­dra.” There is no “defy­ing” the pope, as Mr. Zmi­rak beats his noble chest and brags he is going to do. Not if you are Catholic. The pope does not have to be speak­ing ex cathe­dra. He is “not pro­nounc­ing judg­ment as a pri­vate per­son,” says Lumen Gen­tium, “but as the Supreme teacher of the Uni­ver­sal Church.” Where­as, Mr. Zmi­rak is the supreme teacher of his Twit­ter fol­low­ers.

Mr. Lawler com­plains that the pope made the change to the Cat­e­chism “with­out con­sul­ta­tion.” Well, he must be con­fused, since Lumen Gen­tium 25 says that the pope does not need “the approval of oth­ers.” Cer­tain­ly Paul VI did not need any­one’s approval when he wrote Humanae Vitae. Paul VI famous­ly flout­ed the coun­sel of oth­ers. I don’t hear Mr. Lawler com­plain­ing about that. Nor does what the pope teach­es need “an appeal to any oth­er judg­ment.” Not Zmi­rak’s judg­ment, not Sko­jec’s, not Arroy­o’s, not Lawler’s, not Kwas­niewski’s. Not Car­di­nal Burke’s.

The Church also teach­es us all this in Don­um Ver­i­tatis:

All acts of the Mag­is­teri­um derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His Peo­ple walk in the entire truth. For this same rea­son, mag­is­te­r­i­al deci­sions in mat­ters of dis­ci­pline, even if they are not guar­an­teed by the charism of infal­li­bil­i­ty, are not with­out divine assis­tance and call for the adher­ence of the faith­ful.

One Little Bump Leads to Shock Miss a Beat

Now, some might say: “But Alt! These are new doc­u­ments, the Church did­n’t peren­ni­al­ly teach this idea that I must adhere to the Mag­is­teri­um even when it’s not ex cathe­dra, and so forth. Why do you only cite post-Vat­i­can II nov­el­ties?”

Be care­ful. You’re guilty of a mod­ernist heresy, accord­ing to Pius IX in the Syl­labus of Errors. It was writ­ten in 1864, a full one hun­dred years before the taint­ed post-Vat­i­can II Church of Nice that Michael Voris com­plains so much about. Here is one of them:

The oblig­a­tion by which Catholic teach­ers and authors are strict­ly bound is con­fined to those things only which are pro­posed to uni­ver­sal belief as dog­mas of faith by the infal­li­ble judg­ment of the Church.

“I only have to lis­ten to the pope if he’s infal­li­ble” is a con­demned heresy.

It’s also a heresy that the pope can teach error. In Ott’s Fun­da­men­tals of Catholic Dog­ma, p. 287, we read that the Holy Ghost “pro­tects the supreme teacher of the Church from error.” Even “non-revealed teach­ings,” says Ott, are under this pro­tec­tion. None of this “but it’s not infal­li­ble” loop­hole-search­ing. Ott says this is a de fide dog­ma of the Church. As his author­i­ty, he cites three Church coun­cils pri­or to, not just Vat­i­can II but Vat­i­can I: Con­stan­tino­ple, Lyons, and Flo­rence.

Now if this is a de fide dog­ma, to deny it—to think that a pope could teach error—is a heresy. A heresy is, accord­ing to Canon 751, “the obsti­nate denial or obsti­nate doubt after the recep­tion of bap­tism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith.” That the pope can not teach error is one such truth. So it’s not the pope who’s flirt­ing with heresy here, but Messrs. Sko­jec & Zmi­rak, and Dr. Kwas­niews­ki.

The Wrong Antidote

So those charg­ing the pope with heresy are in a bit of a bind here, and there are two pos­si­bil­i­ties. The first is that the pope’s update to the Cat­e­chism is not an error. As Catholics, we have the duty to sub­mit to it. If it seems wrong to me, and some­how a rever­sal (rather than a devel­op­ment) of what came before, then, because the pope can’t teach in error, either I do not under­stand the cur­rent teach­ing, or I do not under­stand the old teach­ing. I must fig­ure out where I have gone wrong.

Or, the pope has taught an error, he has reversed the infal­li­ble teach­ing of the past. In that case, it real­ly is pos­si­ble for a pope to bind the Church to error. But then the Church has taught an error in say­ing that a pope can’t do this. And so the Catholic Church is not real­ly the true Church, and I must leave and join some oth­er one.

You must choose.