A heretic would not cease to be pope: Thoughts on Bellarmine.

have argued before that a pope can not be a heretic. There is noth­ing that makes it the­o­ret­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble; the Holy Spir­it only pro­tects the pope from bind­ing Catholics to heresy. But it seems to me that the safest way for the Holy Spir­it do to this is sim­ply to ensure that no one who is a heretic, or who could become a heretic, would ever be elect­ed pope. The oth­er option, I guess, would be that the Holy Spir­it could strike the pope down with a stroke or a heart attack just before the fatal moment when any such bind­ing were to occur. These are extrav­a­gant spec­u­la­tions. The belief that a pope could not ever be a heretic is “prob­a­ble,” accord­ing to Bel­larmine, and “can eas­i­ly be defend­ed,” even though it is “not cer­tain.”

Now, in Book II, chap­ter 30 of De Romano Pontafice, Bel­larmine is engag­ing in the­o­log­i­cal spec­u­la­tion. It is impor­tant to know that. He is not mak­ing a def­i­nite pro­nounce­ment as to what in fact would hap­pen if a pope were to be a heretic. Only the Church could do such a thing, and the Church has not done so. Bel­larmine was a car­di­nal, of course, but he was not mak­ing a rul­ing on behalf of the Church.

The rea­son I say this is because it has been mis­un­der­stood. Even Car­di­nal Burke, in an inter­view with Catholic World Report, said that if a pope were to “for­mal­ly pro­fess” heresy, he would cease to be pope.

CWR: Some peo­ple are say­ing that the pope could sep­a­rate him­self from com­mu­nion with the Church. Can the pope legit­i­mate­ly be declared in schism or heresy?

 

Car­di­nal Burke: If a Pope would for­mal­ly rofess heresy he would cease, by that act, to be the Pope. It’s auto­mat­ic. And so, that could hap­pen.

 

CWR: That could hap­pen.

 

Car­di­nal Burke: Yes.

Car­di­nal Burke is wrong on two points here.

• Whether a pope could be a heretic, a pope can not pos­si­bly “for­mal­ly pro­fess heresy.” The Church has taught this dog­mat­i­cal­ly.
• The spec­u­la­tions of Bel­larmine (and also Suarez) were just that. It is wrong for Burke to treat them as though they con­sti­tute exist­ing canon law.

On this first point, con­sid­er Pas­tor Aeter­nus:

We teach and define that it is a divine­ly-revealed dog­ma: that the Roman Pon­tiff, when he speaks ex Cathe­dra, that is, when in dis­charge of the office of Pas­tor and Teacher of all Chris­tians, by virtue of his supreme Apos­tolic author­i­ty, he defines a doc­trine regard­ing faith or morals to be held by the Uni­ver­sal Church, by the divine assis­tance promised to him in blessed Peter, is pos­sessed of that infal­li­bil­i­ty with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defin­ing doc­trine regard­ing faith or morals: and that there­fore such def­i­n­i­tions of the Roman Pon­tiff are irreformable of them­selves, and not from the con­sent of the Church.

Burke can not use the “that’s not dog­mat­ic” line on Pas­tor Aeter­nus like he did with Nos­tra Aetate. The Vat­i­can I doc­u­ment says flat-out: This is a dog­ma. The pope can not for­mal­ly pro­fess heresy. He is pro­tect­ed from it by the Holy Spir­it.

On the sec­ond point, there is sim­ply no pro­vi­sion in canon law that says what Burke claims. Giv­en that Vat­i­can I says a pope can not “for­mal­ly pro­fess” heresy, if a pope did, that would mean Vat­i­can I taught heresy, which would mean Pius IX had ceased to be pope, which would mean all the popes after him that have accept­ed Vat­i­can I were also not ever popes, which means Burke is not even a valid Car­di­nal, he does­n’t have valid holy orders, and there is no Catholic Church.

But even if we were to be faced with a pope who was a heretic, even if he had not taught heresy, there is no pro­vi­sion in canon law for what to do about it. Some­one would have to have the author­i­ty to judge whether a pope was in heresy, and some­one would have to have the author­i­ty to remove him so that a con­clave could elect a new pope. (Pos­si­bly Car­di­nal Burke him­self.)

Canon law says noth­ing like this. In fact, it says the oppo­site. Canon 1404 says: “The First See is judged by no one.” Not by me, not by you, not by 1 Luther 5 or LSD News, and not by Car­di­nal Burke. Not even a Coun­cil can depose a pope. (The Third Coun­cil of Con­stan­tino­ple was pro­nounc­ing a judg­ment on a for­mer pope when it con­demned the dead Hon­o­rius I.)

Anoth­er impor­tant point to make in this con­text is that the Coun­cil of Con­stance (1415) con­demned a few hereti­cal ideas of Jan Hus, and one of them was the idea that a wicked pope would cease to be pope. In arti­cle 20, the Coun­cil con­demns the fol­low­ing as heresy:

If the pope is wicked, and espe­cial­ly if he is fore­known to damna­tion, then he is a dev­il like Judas the apos­tle, a thief and a son of perdi­tion and is not the head of the holy church mil­i­tant since he is not even a mem­ber of it.

If Hus was wrong in say­ing that a wicked pope would cease to be pope, would it not like­wise be wrong to say that a heretic pope would cease to be pope?

•••

The Church has not said. And that’s where we return to Bel­larmine. Bel­larmine him­self believed a pope could not be a heretic. He spec­u­lat­ed as a the­o­log­i­cal exer­cise in light of the truth that no one knows if a pope could actu­al­ly be a heretic or not. So what if?

Bel­larmine walks the read­er through five dif­fer­ent opin­ions on the ques­tion, one by one detail­ing the inad­e­qua­cies. His view was that a pope who was a “man­i­fest heretic” would auto­mat­i­cal­ly cease to be a pope—he would even cease to be a Christian—and could then be judged by the Church. He cites some author­i­ties to show how this is true with heretics in a gen­er­al way, but does not address some impor­tant ques­tions.

• Who would have the author­i­ty to decide the pope was a “man­i­fest heretic”?
• What canon­i­cal process would depose such a pope?

Bel­larmine rejects Caje­tan’s view that a pope could be deposed, since there is no author­i­ty high­er than the pope’s. This seems right, but the idea that a pope is deposed latae sen­ten­ti­ae also fails, in my view, since Bel­larmine nev­er con­sid­ers how the Church would know that a pope had ceased to be pope. The elec­tors would need to choose a new one. How would they know to gath­er in con­clave? What if the pope resist­ed? Bel­larmine con­cedes that to be a prob­lem with a depo­si­tion. But even a latae sen­ten­ti­ae depo­si­tion is a depo­si­tion.

But the fact is, Bel­larmine is spec­u­lat­ing. There is no pro­vi­sion in canon law that address­es this ques­tion.

A pope can not teach heresy. But what if a pope were a heretic? What would hap­pen?

As near as I can tell: Noth­ing.