"What Are the Consequences of Francis's Theology?" — an in-depth personal analysis, by Dr. John Lamont

The "Abrahamic Family House" promoted by Pope Francis

[Rorate note: the article below reflects exclusively the position of the author, and not of the blog. As usual, the blog is open to posting different positions on current matters, even if they may differ from our editorial lines.] 

What Are the Consequences of Francis’s Theology?

John Lamont

 

At least since the Synod of the Family in 2014, much concern has been expressed about words and actions of Francis that do not seem compatible with the Catholic faith. These words and actions have been exhaustively examined and discussed. This process of examination and discussion has been taken as far as it can usefully go. It is now imperative to consider the consequences of these words and actions for Francis and for the Catholic Church. These consequences depend on whether or not Francis must be considered a heretic in the light of what he has said and done. There are theological and legal questions that need to be determined in order to do this; when these determinations have been completed, they can be applied to the facts. This essay proposes to carry out these tasks.

The nature of heresy

The term ‘heresy’ can refer to a proposition, to a personal sin, or to a public crime. A heretical proposition is one that puts in question or denies some divinely revealed truth. ‘Jesus Christ did not rise bodily from the dead’ and ‘It is uncertain if Mary was a virgin at the time that she gave birth to Christ’ are heresies in this sense.

The personal sin of heresy is doubt or disbelief by a baptised person of some divinely revealed truth, when that truth is known by the person to be proposed for belief by the Catholic Church as divinely revealed and as requiring the assent of faith. Heresy is distinguished from apostasy, which is the complete rejection of Christian faith by a baptised person. The heretic accepts some Christian doctrines, and the existence of Christian divine revelation, but denies others. This refusal must be pertinacious, in the sense of being firmly and consciously held in the face of a correct and clear understanding that the proposition being denied or doubted is taught by the Catholic Church as divinely revealed and to be believed with the assent of faith. Some persons never accept all the teachings of divine revelation; such are those who are born and raised in a non-Catholic Christian sect, who accept the existence of Christian revelation and assent to the form of Christianity that is proposed by their sect, while never believing (or perhaps even knowing about) the full and correct divine revelation that is the Catholic faith. The moral evaluation of such persons is different from the moral evaluation of Catholics who first believe the Catholic faith and then come to reject a part of it. The First Vatican Council in its constitution Dei filius (ch. 3) taught: ‘The situation of those, who by the heavenly gift of faith have embraced the catholic truth, is by no means the same as that of those who, led by human opinions, follow a false religion; for those who have accepted the faith under the guidance of the church can never have any just cause for changing this faith or for calling it into question.’ Belief in the Catholic faith is a gift of grace, and cannot be rationally abandoned. Catholics who reject the faith for heresy sin in their abandonment of the faith.

The public crime of heresy is the public and pertinacious doubt or denial of a proposition that is known to be proposed for belief by the Catholic Church as divinely revealed and as requiring the assent of faith. Public doubt or denial occurs when a person unambiguously expresses his denial or doubt of a revealed truth to others in written or spoken words, or in other signs or actions. The pertinacity involved in the public crime of heresy is public manifestation of the pertinacity involved in the personal sin of heresy; that is, a public manifestation of knowledge that a given proposition is contrary to divine revelation as taught by the Catholic Church, and of determined adherence to that proposition. Fr. E. Mackenzie states; ‘the definition of heresy contains, as one of its essential elements, the word “pertinaciter,” and “pertinaciter” means, in D’Annibale’s phrase,[1] “sciens volens.” The very essence of heresy is that it be a knowing, deliberate, presumptuous rebellion against the authority of God and the Church in the matter of religious belief and profession.’[2]

Some commentators have drawn a distinction between material heresy and formal heresy in the case of the public crime of heresy. This distinction is more usefully applied to the personal sin of heresy. Belief in a heresy is materially but not formally heretical when the proposition believed is indeed a heresy, but the knowledge or consent of the will needed for the personal sin of heresy is lacking. This may for example occur with a Christian raised as a Protestant from birth, who never encounters any statement of the Catholic faith or any criticism of Protestant tenets that are incompatible with Catholicism. The distinction between material and formal heresy is not usefully applied to the public sin of heresy when it is committed by members of the Catholic Church.

As with any other crime, the crime of heresy requires proof of mens rea. In order for a Catholic to commit the public crime of heresy, there must be sufficient evidence establishing that the criminal is knowingly and willingly denying a truth of the Catholic faith. Such evidence need not be infallible, but it must exclude reasonable doubt. The existence of evidence sufficient to establish that the crime of heresy has been committed by a Catholic thus excludes any reasonable belief that the criminal is a material but not a formal heretic. It is true that some Catholics have been victims of a bad religious formation, and in consequence reject as false some beliefs that are part of the Catholic faith. If such Catholics publicly deny a truth of the faith, this bad formation would be a reason not only to hold that they are not formal heretics, but also that they are not guilty of the public crime of heresy. But this innocence of the crime of heresy would not persist if they are reliably informed of what the Catholic Church actually teaches, yet persist in their heretical beliefs.

In cases of extreme and unusual mental aberration it may occur that a Catholic does not formally commit the sin of heresy, despite overwhelming external evidence indicating that the crime of heresy has been committed with full consent of mind and will. In such a case the person will not be held guilty of this sin by God, but canonists and theologians agree that the external penalties for heresy will still be legally required and rightfully inflicted. This is necessary because these penalties are inflicted not only for the punishment and reformation of the criminal, but also for the good of the Church and the faithful. The common good requires that the crime of heresy be seen to be punished and that the heretic be excluded from the Church, when the external evidence of this crime has been established to the extent required by the law.

Canon law has required that in some circumstances, a person suspected of heresy be warned by ecclesiastical authority before imposing the canonical penalty for excommunication. The warning should advise the person that he is upholding a heretical position, inform him of the Catholic truth that he is denying, instruct him that he must publicly renounce his heretical views and declare his belief in the Catholic truth that the heresy in question doubts or denies, and warn him that if he does not do this he will suffer the canonical penalties for heresy. This procedure is grounded on the instructions of St. Paul to Timothy:

 

Titus 3:10. A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: 11 Knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment. [3:10 αἱρετικὸν ἄνθρωπον μετὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν νουθεσίαν παραιτοῦ, 11 εἰδὼς ὅτι ἐξέστραπται ὁ τοιοῦτος καὶ ἁμαρτάνει, ὢν αὐτοκατάκριτος.]

 

The pertinacity involved in heresy should not be identified with the disregard of these admonitions. The admonitions are a means of verifying pertinacity, rather than the means whereby pertinacity comes into being. They are not simply intended to prove guilt; they also have the pastoral purpose of teaching the person who is admonished about the nature of his actions, and inducing him if possible to desist from them. This is connected to the fact that these instructions of St. Paul to Titus describe how a superior should treat a inferior who is suspected of heresy. A superior is bound to exercise pastoral care towards his subjects, and such care is not limited to punishing them when they are verified to be guilty of a crime. He should first of all seek to turn them away from sin.

The Church has not required that in every instance, an individual must be warned to reject heresy one or more times before being found guilty of heresy. Cardinal de Lugo points this out:

 

Neither is it always demanded in the external forum that there be a warning and a reprimand as described above for somebody to be punished as heretical and pertinacious, and such a requirement is by no means always admitted in practice by the Holy Office. For if it could be established in some other way, given that the doctrine is well known, given the kind of person involved and given the other circumstances, that the accused could not have been unaware that his thesis was opposed to the Church, he would be considered as a heretic from this fact … The reason for this is clear; the exterior warning can serve only to ensure that someone who has erred understands the opposition which exists between his error and the teaching of the Church. If he knew the subject through books and conciliar definitions much better than he could know it by the declarations of someone admonishing him then there would be no reason to insist on a further warning for him to become pertinacious against the Church.[3]

 

Mackenzie remarks:

 

The very commission of any act which signifies heresy, e.g., the statement of some doctrine contrary or contradictory to a revealed and defined dogma, gives sufficient ground for juridical presumption of heretical depravity. There may however be circumstances which excuse the person either from all responsibility, or else from grave responsibility. These excusing circumstances have to be proved in the external forum, and the burden of proof is on the person whose action has given rise to the imputation of heresy. In the absence of such proof, all such excuses are presumed not to exist. When satisfactory proof is offered, the juridical presumption will yield to fact, and the person will be pronounced innocent of heresy, and not liable to censure.[4]

 

The Scriptures do not require such warnings in every instance before rejecting a person as a heretic. St. John teaches:

 

2 John 1:9. Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son. 10 If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting; 11 for he who greets him shares his wicked work. [9 πᾶς ὁ προάγων καὶ μὴ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ θεὸν οὐκ ἔχει· ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ, οὗτος καὶ τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει. 10 εἴ τις ἔρχεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ ταύτην τὴν διδαχὴν οὐ φέρει, μὴ λαμβάνετε αὐτὸν εἰς οἰκίαν καὶ χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε· 11 ὁ λέγων γὰρ αὐτῷ χαίρειν κοινωνεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς.]

2 Thess. 3:6. And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which they have received of us. [Παραγγέλλομεν δὲ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ στέλλεσθαι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ παντὸς ἀδελφοῦ ἀτάκτως περιπατοῦντος καὶ μὴ κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ἣν παρελάβοσαν παρ’ ἡμῶν.]

 

As these Scriptural passages indicate, the crime of heresy is not a creation of ecclesiastical positive law. Heresy is a crime condemned by divine revelation. The divinely revealed Scriptural teaching is that heresy is the rejection of the doctrine of Christ, that it severs the heretic from the Church, and that the faithful are required to shun the heretic (cf. Mt. 18:17, Mk. 16:16, Gal. 1:9, 2 John 10, 1 Tim. 1:18-20, Gal. 5:19-21, Jude 1, Titus 3:10-11, Heb. 3:7-17, 2 Peter 2, Rev. 22:18-19). This is the basis of the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis 23, where he states that heresy, along with schism and apostasy, is a sin that of its own nature severs a man from the Body of the Church. The ecclesiastical legislation concerning heresy is simply a way of implementing the divine law concerning heresy.

 

The case of a heretical pope

The common opinion of both canonists and theologians is that a heretical pope loses the papacy. There is moral unanimity among canonists and theologians on this point, a unanimity based on the divinely revealed teachings on heresy and its consequences. These teachings assert that a heretic ceases to be a member of the Church, and that the faithful must avoid heretics. The pope is the head of the Church on earth, so no-one who is not a member of the Church can be the pope; and the faithful are bound to honour and obey the pope, which is not compatible with shunning him.

Theologians have added to these considerations arguments based on the natural law. Suárez states: ‘It would be extremely harmful to the Church to have such a pastor and not be able to defend herself from such a grave danger; furthermore it would go against the dignity of the Church to oblige her to remain subject to a heretic Pontiff without being able to expel him from herself; for such as are the prince and the priest, so the people are accustomed to be.’[5] John of St. Thomas states:

 

Three principal situations have been given in which the deposition of a pope takes place. The first is in the case of heresy or infidelity: the second is in the case of perpetual madness: the third is in the case of doubt as to the validity of his election.

       II. There are many disputations between theologians and canonists on the case of heresy, but this is not the place to pursue these disputed questions. Catholic doctors are unanimous in holding that the pope can be deposed on the grounds of heresy. ... The reason is that we are bound to separate ourselves from heretics, according to 1 Timothy : ‘A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid’. But the man who remains in occupation of the papacy is not to be avoided; rather, the Church is bound to be united to him, and to be in communion with him as her supreme head. Therefore, if the pope is a heretic, either the Church is bound to be in communion with him, or she is bound to depose him from the pontificate. The first alternative evidently leads to the destruction of the Church, and introduces a danger of error into the interior of the entire government of the Church. Indeed since heretics are the enemies of the Church, the Church can act against him by the natural law, the is, by the right of self-defence by which we can defend ourselves against our enemies, of which a heretical pope is one. Therefore, the second alternative must always be chosen, that is, the deposition of a heretical pope.[6]

 

All canonists give the following list of causes whereby the Roman Primacy is lost by its holder: death, resignation, perpetual and incurable loss of mental faculties, and notorious and clearly divulged heresy. The word ‘notorious’ is a term of legal art here. It describes anything that is recognized to be a fact in the eyes of the law. A canonist provides the following explanation of notoriety in the law:

1. A crime is public if committed under, or accompanied by, circumstances which point to a possible and likely divulgation thereof. Canonists enumerate different degrees of publicity: almost occult (pene occultum), which is known to at least two witnesses; famosum or manifestum, which not only can be proved, but is known to many; and, finally, notorium. From this it will be seen that a real intrinsic distinction between a public crime and a crime notorious in fact can hardly be established. (We shall point out one distinctive trait below.) To fix the number of persons required for making a crime a public one is rather hazardous, though it may furnish a certain rule which will enable the judge to decide as to the secrecy or public character of a crime. Many canonists hold that at least six persons in a community, even the smallest (for instance, a religious house of 10 or 12 inmates), must know of a crime, to render it public. Nor should there be any doubt about the character of the persons who are witnesses to the crime. Furthermore, the interest they may have in the crime should be weighed.

2. A crime is notorious by notoriety of law (notorietate iuris) if it has become an adjudged matter, according to can. 1902-1904, or judicially confessed, according to can. 1750. Extrajudicial confessions do not render a crime notorious by notoriety of law. Here we must take issue with the assertion that the Code acknowledges such confessions. Thus it has been stated that it would be a notorium juris if the bishop or vicar-general would catch a clergyman in flagrante! The Code contains nothing to that effect, but requires (can. cit.) a confession before the judge sitting in court. A crime is notorious notorietate facti when it is publicly known and has been committed under such circumstances that it cannot be concealed by any artifice or be excused by any legal assumption or circumstantial evidence. ... Hence not only the fact itself must be notorious, but also its criminal character. Thus, for instance, the fact of alienation may easily be proved by a legal deed, but whether it was criminal must be ascertained by other means ; because it may be that the administrator or procurator had due permission and therefore acted lawfully. It is this element of inexcusability or of knowledge of the criminal character of the deed that appears to distinguish a public from a notorious crime. For the text manifestly lays stress on divulgation with regard to public crimes and emphasizes the criminal character as known and inexcusable.[7]

 

The canons referred to here are in the 1917 code of canon law, but the concepts of notoriety in law and notoriety in fact are basic legal notions that predate that code, and that are presumed by the 1983 code of canon law (cf. CIC 1983, canon 15 §2.)[8] No legal system can dispense with the concept of notoriety of fact, since if it did the task of establishing legal proof would be impossible. If the concept of notoriety of fact was rejected, and it was legislated that a piece of evidence could only be accepted as proof in court if there was a juridical ruling accepting it as constituting legal proof, consistent application of this law would risk an infinite regress of judicial decisions. Such a law would make the world of juridical rulings a self-sufficient world of its own, independent of the world outside the court, admitting evidence from this world only at the good pleasure of judges. This is contrary to the basic notion and purpose of the law.

Heresy in the Roman pontiff might be established by notoriety of law, if the Pope were to judge himself guilty of the crime of heresy and to depose himself for it. Such a step might be taken by a pope who had committed the crime of public heresy, repented of it, and judged that his past heresy made him unfit for the papal office despite his repentance. It is not to be expected from a pope who is obdurate in heresy.

Aside from this unlikely possibility, heresy in a pope cannot be established by notoriety of law. The pope is the head of the Church of Christ on earth. There is no authority on earth that has jurisdiction over him in religious matters (or arguably in temporal matters; but it is religious jurisdiction that we are concerned with here). No action of a pope can be the subject of legal trial or legal judgment by a higher authority on earth. Papal heresy therefore cannot be an adjudged matter or the subject of a judicial confession. The condemnation of Honorius by an ecumenical council is not a counter-example to this principle. This condemnation was only carried out when Honorius was dead, and hence no longer pope.

This impossibility rules out the opinion of John of St. Thomas, according to which the Church can and must depose the pope for heresy and command the faithful to avoid him, with the pope losing the papal office only when the faithful are commanded to avoid him by the Church. John of St. Thomas argues for this opinion, following Cajetan, in opposition to the view of Bellarmine and Suarez according to which manifest and incorrigible heresy on the part of a pope in itself causes the loss of the papal office through Christ’s immediate dismissal of the heretic.[9]

The long and involved case made by Cajetan and John of St. Thomas for their view is fundamentally vitiated by their assumption that the Church could issue warnings to the pope about heresy, could authoritatively pronounce that he is a heretic, and could authoritatively command the faithful to avoid him as a heretic. This assumption is central to their position and is necessary for its truth. It is ruled out by the teachings of the First and Second Vatican Councils on the papal primacy. The dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus of Vatican I taught:

 

By the appointment of our Lord, the Roman Church possesses a superiority of ordinary power over all other Churches, and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; to which all, of whatever rite and dignity, both pastors and faithful, both individually and collectively, are bound, by their duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, to submit, not only in matters which belong to faith and morals, but also in those that appertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world, so that the Church of Christ may be one flock under one Supreme Pastor through the preservation of unity both of communion and of profession of the same faith with the Roman Pontiff. (ch. 3)

 

The dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium of Vatican I explicated this teaching as follows in its explanatory note:

 

The [Episcopal] College, which does not exist without the head, is said “to exist also as the subject of supreme and full power in the universal Church.” This must be admitted of necessity so that the fullness of power belonging to the Roman Pontiff is not called into question. For the College, always and of necessity, includes its head, because in the college he preserves unhindered his function as Christ’s Vicar and as Pastor of the universal Church. In other words, it is not a distinction between the Roman Pontiff and the bishops taken collectively, but a distinction between the Roman Pontiff taken separately and the Roman Pontiff together with the bishops. Since the Supreme Pontiff is head of the College, he alone is able to perform certain actions which are not at all within the competence of the bishops, e.g., convoking the College and directing it, approving norms of action, etc. Cf. Modus 81. It is up to the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff, to whose care Christ’s whole flock has been entrusted, to determine, according to the needs of the Church as they change over the course of centuries, the way in which this care may best be exercised—whether in a personal or a collegial way. The Roman Pontiff, taking account of the Church’s welfare, proceeds according to his own discretion in arranging, promoting and approving the exercise of collegial activity.

       4. As Supreme Pastor of the Church, the Supreme Pontiff can always exercise his power at will, as his very office demands. Though it is always in existence, the College is not as a result permanently engaged in strictly collegial activity; the Church’s Tradition makes this clear. In other words, the College is not always “fully active [in actu pleno]”; rather, it acts as a college in the strict sense only from time to time and only with the consent of its head. The phrase “with the consent of its head” is used to avoid the idea of dependence on some kind of outsider; the term “consent” suggests rather communion between the head and the members, and implies the need for an act which belongs properly to the competence of the head.

 

Since the pope is part of the Church, and is its earthly head, the Church can only warn the pope about heresy, declare the pope a heretic, and command the faithful to avoid the pope, if the heretical pope in question actually takes part in all these ecclesial actions. If such papal cooperation is not forthcoming, these actions cannot be done by the Church. On John of St. Thomas’s theory, the steps in the deposition of a heretical pope must be carried out by the Church, not by a subordinate part of the Church. But this cannot happen if the heretical pope remains head of the Church and does not cooperate in his own deposition. The step of warning the heretic to reject his heresy is one that is carried out by an ecclesiastical superior, as with Timothy, and John of St. Thomas insists that this step has to be carried out by the Church herself. But the heretical pope who still retains the papal office has no ecclesiastical superior, and the Church cannot act without his involvement. The heretical pope would have to warn himself to avoid his own heresies for such a warning to take place. The heretical pope remains the pope until the Church commands the faithful to avoid him. The step of warning the faithful to avoid the heretical pope is an exercise of the authority of the Church over the entire body of the faithful. A subordinate part of the Church that does not include the pope is incapable of exercising authority over the entire body of the faithful in any matter. In consequence, if the heretical pope refuses to cooperate and take part in his own deposition by warning the faithful to avoid himself, he cannot lose the papal office for heresy.

The position of John of St. Thomas thus entails that a heretical pope can be be only deposed by the Church if he is repentant and co-operates in his own deposition. A pope who is obstinate in his heresy and retain chooses to retain the papal office, perhaps precisely in order to use the papal power to spread heresy, cannot be deposed. This is an absurd consequence that stultifies the good reasons given by John of St. Thomas for the necessity of a heretical pope losing the papal office. We should therefore accept the view of Bellarmine, according to which a pope loses the papacy ipso facto for committing the public crime of heresy due to his being directly deposed for this crime by Christ, the head of the Church. Since guilt for this public crime cannot be established by notoriety of law in the case of a pope, it must be established by notoriety of fact.

Some commentators have rejected this conclusion on the grounds that if the guilt of a heretical pope is not established by juridical means – which constitutes notoriety in law – it must be established by the private judgment of Catholics. They allege that it is illegitimate for Catholics to condemn a pope as a notorious and public heretic on the basis of private judgment.

This objection wrongly characterises the situations in which it is not permissible to use private judgment. The wrongness of private judgment applies to matters connected with divine revelation in itself. It is wrong and irrational to use private judgment to decide what the contents of divine revelation are, or to decide for one’s self whether or not the teachings presented by the Church as divinely revealed are in fact true. In these matters Catholics must accept the divinely guided teaching of the Church. But private judgment is not only permissible but necessary in order to put into practice the truths of the Catholic faith. We cannot exercise private judgment on the divine commands to honour our father and mother, and to not covet one’s neighbour’s wife. But we must use our private judgment in judging who our father and mother are, and who our neighbour’s wife is. Divine revelation will not enlighten us on these matters; our knowledge of them depends on our individual judgment based on natural reason. Even so, we cannot apply our private judgment to the divine teaching that heretics must be condemned and avoided. But except for cases – rare or nonexistent in practice – in which the heretical status of a given individual might be argued to be a dogmatic fact, it is private judgment that must decide if the divine teaching on heresy should be applied to a particular case. Ecclesiastical judges themselves must use their private judgment in deciding cases of heresy.

It might be replied that the term ‘private judgment’ is not being used in the sense in which it is contrasted to faith, but is rather being used to refer to individual judgment of the evidence in the absence of any external legal determination of the truth. Allowing for the exercise of individual judgment in deciding whether or not the pope has fallen from office because of heresy would, it is objected, produce chaos in the Church. But the concept of notoriety of fact does not apply to the personal judgment of individuals taken in themselves. Notoriety of fact is not merely evidence that is certain for a given individual; it is evidence of the fact that is publicly available, and establishes the fact as true for the community as a whole. Notoriety of fact exists when the community as a whole can be certain of something on the basis of public evidence. It does not require the Cartesian standard of certainty, where a truth is evident beyond doubt even to fools and ignorant persons – no legal fact except for the Last Judgment will ever meet this standard. It does not require that the general public actually possess knowledge of the notorious fact. It means that there is readily available public evidence that makes it possible for reasonable persons to verify the existence of the fact beyond a reasonable doubt.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has argued that this divine command cannot be followed in the case of a heretical pope. He gives the following reasons for his claim:

a) ‘The issue of how to handle a heretical pope, in concrete terms, has not yet been treated in a manner which approaches anything like a true general consent in the entire Catholic tradition.’

b) ‘There is no historical case of a pope losing the papacy during his term of office due to heresy or alleged heresy.’

c) ‘One can disinherit children of a family. Yet one cannot disinherit the father of a family, however guilty or monstrously he behaves himself. This is the law of the hierarchy which God has established even in creation. The same is applicable to the pope, who during the term of his office is the spiritual father of the entire family of Christ on earth. In the case of a criminal or monstrous father, the children have to withdraw themselves from him or avoid contact with him. However, they cannot say, “We will elect a new and good father of our family.”‘

d) ‘The act of deposition of a pope because of heresy or the declaration of the vacancy of the Papal chair because of the loss of the papacy ipso facto on behalf of a heretical pope would be a revolutionary novelty in the life of the Church, and this regarding a highly important issue of the constitution and the life of the Church. One has to follow in such a delicate matter – even if it is of practical and not strictly of doctrinal nature – the surer way (via tutior) of the perennial sense of the Church.’

e) ‘The theory or theological opinion allowing the deposition of a heretical pope or the loss of his office ipso facto because of heresy is in practice unworkable. If it were applied in practice, it would create a situation similar to that of the Great Schism, which the Church already experienced disastrously at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. Indeed, there will be always a part of the Cardinals’ college and a considerable part of the world’s episcopate and also of the faithful who will not agree in classifying a concrete Papal error (errors) as formal heresy (heresies) and consequently they will therefore continue to consider the current pope as the only legitimate pope. ... The Church in the very rare concrete cases of a pope committing serious theological errors or heresies could definitely live with such a pope.’ [source]

f) ‘In 1917, when the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) came into force, the Magisterium of the Church eliminated from the new legislation the remark of the Decretum Gratiani in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, which stated that a Pope, who deviates from right doctrine, can be deposed.’ [source]

These arguments are not convincing.

As to a), there is, as was observed above, a moral unanimity among Catholic theologians on the thesis that a pope guilty of the public crime of heresy cannot remain as pope. Cardinal Billot is one witness to this; ‘When it is supposed that a pope has made a profession of heresy as a private person, all accept that the bond of communion and obedience to him is broken, on account of the divine authority that expressly commands separation from heretics; Titus 3:1, 2 John 1, etc.’ (Hac igitur suppositione [sc. casus papae qui fieret personali professione haereticus] semel facta, concedunt omnes auferendum fore vinculum communionis et subiectionis, propter auctoritates divinas quae expresse iubent separationem ab haereticis, Tit. III-10, 2 loan. 10, etc.’)[10]

Only one solitary exception has been found to this unanimity; the 19th century French canonist Marie-Dominique Bouix (1808-1870).[11] The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia remarks of him that ‘he falls short of being a great canonist; he is too often a compiler rather than a genuine author, and he too frequently betrays a lack of that juridical sense which comes more from practice than from theory, and which begets the ability to pronounce justly on the lawfulness and unlawfulness of existing practices.’ Bouix was a zealous Ultramontane who combated Gallicanism during all his career, and held that the pope was incapable of falling into heresy. This latter position is worthy of note. It has been observed that no canonist or theologian who accepts that a pope can fall into heresy has denied that he would thereby lose the papal office.[12] It is easier to advance a position if one does not think that the concrete difficulties involved in it will ever have to be confronted in the real world. Bouix’s case for his position is clearly deficient.[13] He argues that the reason for holding that a heretical pope must lose the papal office is the great damage that such a pope would cause to the Church, but that any effort to remove a heretical pope would cause much more damage from the confusion and schism that would result; therefore, a pope cannot lose the papacy on the grounds of heresy. His first premise is false. As Billot states, the main reason why a heretical pope loses the papal office is the divine command to avoid heretics. There is also the basic consideration that a pope has to be a member of the Catholic Church, and public heretics are not members of the Church. Bouix’s second premise is speculative and ungrounded in evidence. Whether or not it is more damaging for the Church for a heretical pope to retain the papacy, or to be judged to have lost the papal office, will depend on concrete circumstances that cannot be evaluated ahead of time. It is easy to conceive of a situation where the removal of a heretical pope is more beneficial for the Church than his continuance in office.

As to b), a principal reason why no pope prior to Francis has been removed for heresy is that it was generally accepted that heresy would lead to the loss of the papal office. Popes wanted to remain popes, so they stopped short of openly adhering to heresy. When Pope Vigilius refused to condemn the Three Chapters, for example, the Second Council of Constantinople under pressure from the Emperor Justinian went to the length of removing his name from the diptychs – the nearest the Church has ever approached to removing a pope for heresy. When this happened, Vigilius understood that it would be better for him to do the emperor’s will in this theological matter, and he duly condemned the offending writings.

As to c), fatherhood is a natural relation that cannot be dissolved. It is based on the gift of life conferred by the father on his children, a fundamental gift for which a debt of justice is always due. The relation between a pope and the rest of the Church is a relation that can be and is dissolved. The pope ought to give the gift of supernatural life to his subjects as far as he is able, but he need not do so; he is free to do the opposite. The impossibility of severing one’s relationship and one’s duty towards one’s father does not exist with the earthly leadership of the Church. The Church on earth is not a family, but a polity that is governed by law,. No individual member of the Church on earth is irreplaceable, or free to behave in any manner at all without being held responsible. To hold that a pope can retain his post and his authority while rejecting the faith and attacking the Church is to make him a despotic ruler, and to deny that the Church is ruled by law and directed towards the good. It is a denial of the fundamental nature of the Church.

As to d), the declaration of the vacancy of the Papal chair because of the ipso facto loss of the papacy for heresy would not be a revolutionary novelty in the life of the Church, because it would be based on the immemorial law of the Church going back to the New Testament. There is a ‘revolutionary novelty’ in the current situation, but that novelty is having an openly heretical pope. Tolerating the heretical pope and treating him as the legitimate ruler of the Church would be yet another ‘revolutionary novelty’, that would violate divine law; as such it would be just as revolutionary and destructive as the openly heretical pope himself, if not more so. The claim that to leave a heretical pope in place and acknowledge his authority is to follow ‘the surer way (via tutior) of the perennial sense of the Church’ is false. The perennial sense of the Church is that an openly heretical pope ceases to be pope. In Catholic theology, the ‘via tutior’, the ‘safer way’, is the path that involves following a law that forbids some action. But the law that applies to the situation of a heretical pope is the law that commands us to shun heretics. The ‘via tutior’ is therefore to shun the heretical pope. One should not make the false assumption that doing nothing is as such the safer way.

The nature of the safer way is pertinent to the question of a heretical pope. Probabilism holds that it is licit to not follow a prohibiting law under specified circumstances, if a reasonable number of reputable theologians – say five or six - assert that it is permissible not to follow it under those circumstances; it can also be permissible for some probabilists if only one theologian of outstanding reputation, such as St. Alphonsus Liguori, says that it is permissible. To state that a law can be disregarded if there are even slight arguments against it is laxism, not probabilism. The position that a heretic can be accepted as pope rather than shunned is supported by obviously defective arguments by only one theologian of doubtful reputation, and rejected by all the other theologians and canonists of the Church. To adhere to this position is therefore laxist, and laxism has been condemned by the Church.

As to e), the claim that the theory of ipso facto loss of the papacy is unworkable because it would create a situation similar to that of the Great Schism in the 14th and 15th centuries is speculation. It cannot provide a reason for disobeying the divine command to shun heretics. The situation of a heretical pope is not analogous to conflict between rival claimants to the papacy. A pope will only lose the papal office if his heresy is publicly verifiable beyond a reasonable doubt. The claims to office of the rival popes and antipopes in the Great Schism were not verifiable in this way by bishops and the faithful. Bishop Schneider asserts that ‘there will be always a part of the Cardinals’ college and a considerable part of the world’s episcopate and also of the faithful who will not agree in classifying a concrete Papal error (errors) as formal heresy (heresies) and consequently they will therefore continue to consider the current pope as the only legitimate pope.’ If the heresies of a pope are clear enough, the bishops and faithful who refuse to accept that he is a heretic will themselves be heretics or favourers of heresy. They are themselves withdrawing from the Church by following a heretical pope, and it is right and useful for the faithful that their unbelief should be made manifest by this withdrawal. Believing Catholics ought not to put up with a heretical pope in order to keep other heretics as outward members of the Church; only disaster can come from such a policy. St. Athanasius thought it right to reject communion with the vast majority of Catholic bishops who assented to Arianism, and to be excommunicated by Pope Liberius rather than renounce his orthodoxy. Unity obtained by accommodation to heresy and communion with heretics is a purely human unity that in fact tears the garment that is the Church, and offends God.

The judgment that ‘the Church in the very rare concrete cases of a pope committing serious theological errors or heresies could definitely live with such a pope’ is rash and ungrounded speculation. A heretical pope will lead many souls to hell; is the Church supposed to be able to live with that? And what about the heretical pope himself, who is dragging his own soul to hell? The virtue of charity requires Catholics to act for the salvation of such a pope by attempting to turn him away from his heresy. The very eminence of the papal office makes this duty more grave. But it is not sufficient to simply warn the pope that he is upholding heresy. Catholics must treat the pope as a heretic to attempt to turn him away from heresy. That means following the divine law concerning heretics in his case, and shunning him for impenitent heresy. If they do not do this, they are denying by their actions that the pope is a heretic, regardless of what they may say, and are thus violating their duty of charity towards him.

As to f): The fact that the 1917 Code of Canon Law did not include the canon in the Decretals of Gratian which states that a heretical pope loses the papal office cannot be interpreted as a magisterial decision abrogating or rejecting the content of this canon. The 1917 Code of Canon Law was developed to provide a formulation of canon law that was shorter, clearer, and more accessible to priests than the former Corpus iuris canonici. This purpose did not require, and did not involve, the complete abrogation of every part of the former canon law. If something in the former collections of canons was omitted from the 1917 code, we cannot therefore conclude that it has lost its juridical force; this is stated in canon 6 of the 1917 code (a similar statement is made in canon 6 §2 of the 1983 code). The 1917 and 1983 codes do not give lists of the causes by which a pope loses the papal office. They do not mention death or perpetual incurable loss of mental functions, and they assume the possibility of papal resignation rather than stating that a pope can resign from office (see canons 218-221 of the 1917 code and canon 331 of the 1983 code). This does not mean that these causes no longer have legal force in bringing about the loss of the papacy, and that the canonical commentary that lists them as causes for the loss of the papacy must now be rejected. It simply means that these causes were not included in the 1917 and 1983 codes because they were not a part of the ordinary legal functioning of the Church that needed to be given legal codification. This is recognised by all the canonists who comment on both the 1917 and 1983 codes, and who all agree that these causes – including papal heresy – lead to the loss of the papal office.

The question of whether or not the canon of Gratian on the loss of the papacy due to heresy retains its legal force after the promulgation of the 1917 code depends on the legal basis for this canon. The canon states that the pope judges all and is judged by no-one, unless he is found to have departed from the faith: ‘Hujus culpas redarguere præsumit mortalium nullus, quia cunctos ipse judicaturus a nemine est judicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide devius (dist. XL, C. 6)’. The statement about papal heresy in the canon must be based either on ecclesiastical positive law or on divine law. It cannot be based on ecclesiastical positive law, because the Church does not have the authority to make regulations for the removal of her earthy head. It can only be based on divine law. And in fact it is based on divine law, the law concerning heretics that is stated in the Scriptural passages cited above; and it was always understood by canonists and by the Church as a whole to be based on this divine law.[14]

The canon is sometimes claimed to be spurious and lacking in authority. This misunderstands its content and purpose. The canon was formulated and included in the Decretals to express its positive content, which was the assertion that the pope judges all and is judged by no-one. This positive content is based on divine revelation and on centuries of prior papal teaching concerning papal authority. The limiting clause about papal heresy is added to clarify that the canon does not contradict the divine teaching concerning heresy; if such a clarification were absent, the positive content would have been called into question as exalting the pope above God.

Our examination of the question of a heretical pope has established the following conclusions:

1. If a pope is guilty of the public crime of heresy, he ceases to be pope. This happens because a public heretic is not a member of the Church, and the pope must be a member of the Church; and also because a public heretic must be shunned by Catholics, and the pope cannot be shunned by Catholics. The pope cannot be dismissed from office by any earthly authority, because he has no superior on earth. He therefore loses the papal office by being directly removed from the papacy by Christ, the head of the Church, who is his immediate superior. Since the reason for this removal is his committing the crime of heresy, he loses the papacy as soon as he commits this crime, with no further action required by himself or by the rest of the Church.

2. Since he ceases to be pope, he no longer possesses papal authority. Catholics are not bound to believe or obey him, and the Church must proceed to elect another pope.

3. The heretical former pope does not just become another member of the Catholic Church as a result of losing office. He is excommunicated as a result of his heresy.

4. Since the pope cannot be judged guilty of heresy by any earthly tribunal, he cannot be a public heretic by notoriety of law. He can only be guilty of this crime by notoriety of fact.

The question to be answered is therefore: is Francis a public and notorious heretic through notoriety of fact? Is there publicly available evidence that confirms beyond a reasonable doubt that he pertinaciously rejects one or more teachings that he knows to be taught by the Church as divinely revealed?

Applying the concept of notoriety of fact to the case of Francis

It is not possible to simply apply current canon law to the case of a heretical pope. The specific features of canon law that apply to the crime of heresy include elements of positive ecclesiastical law. No positive ecclesiastical law can inflict a punishment or loss of office on a pope, since he is the supreme earthly authority over the Church. Only the law concerning heresy that is given in divine revelation can cause a heretical pope to lose the papacy.

This divine law on heresy includes both specific commands and general principles. The specific command is that heretics must be shunned by Christians and expelled from the Church. This is clearly stated in Mt. 18:17, 2 John 10, Gal. 1:9, 1 Tim. 1:18-20, Jude 1, Titus 3:10-1, and 2 Thess. 3:6, and admits of no exceptions.

The underlying general principle that motivates this command is the fact that heretics sever themselves from the church by their heresy, and sin against the truth and against charity by their open doubt or denial of the faith. The general principles that guide Christians in their dealings with heretics are that the heresy must be established by solid evidence, that the faith being traduced by the heretic should be taught and confessed through his rejection and condemnation, that the faithful must be protected against attacks on faith by the heretic, and that steps must be taken to persuade the heretic to renounce his heresy. The latter two principles are required by charity towards the faithful and towards the heretic himself. In the case of religious superiors, they are also required by pastoral duty. The command to admonish the heretic serves the purposes of establishing the heresy and inducing the heretic to renounce his heresy. The command to separate from the heretic serves the purpose of protecting the faithful and confessing and teaching the faith, and also provides a more severe inducement to renounce heresy. This command and these principles govern the situation of a pope who commits the crime of heresy.

Roberto de Mattei has argued, not for the impossibility of a pope losing office for heresy in itself, but for the impossibility of Francis losing the papacy for heresy under the current circumstances of the Church. He reasons as follows:

The pope can separate himself from the Church, but only by means of a widely known heresy, manifest to the Catholic people and professed with obstinacy. The loss of the pontificate, in this case, would be the result not of a dismissal by someone else, but of an act of the pope himself, who in becoming a formal and widely known heretic would have excluded himself from the visible Church, tacitly resigning from the pontificate.

       But an outwardly professed heresy can be defined as public without necessarily being widely known. The famous canonist Franz Xaver Wernz, in his Ius Decretalium (volume VI, 1913, pp 19–23), makes an important distinction between a public crime and a widely known crime. A crime is publicum when, although common knowledge, it is not recognised as a crime by all people. “Widely known” means moreover that the crime is recognised as evident by all: “Widely known facts do not need proof” (can 1747). Its being widely known presupposes the awareness, on the part of the one who hears heretical words, of the intrinsic malice of the one who speaks them. If the one who speaks them is a pontiff, as long as this realisation is lacking and the pope is tolerated and accepted by the universal Church, the heretic will remain a true pope and, in principle, his acts will be valid.

       Today, the large majority of Catholics, starting with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, interpret pro bono the words and actions of Pope Francis. So we cannot say that his loss of faith is evident and manifest. Nor does it seem possible to prove his obstinacy. Therefore the correct guidelines of the great classical theologians are difficult to follow in practice. When St Robert Bellarmine or Fr Wernz wrote their books, society was still Catholic, the sensus fidei was developed, and it was easy to discern the heresy of a priest, a bishop or even a pope. Today, the large majority of the baptised — ordinary faithful, priests, bishops — live immersed in heresy, and few are able to distinguish between the truth and the error that has penetrated within the Temple of God. [source]

 

Grant for the sake of argument that Prof. de Mattei is correct in his evaluation of the large majority of Catholics as immersed in heresy, and therefore unable to discern that Francis is himself a heretic -  unfortunately, this evaluation is a plausible one. His argument has the paradoxical consequence that Francis can be legally innocent of a crime – the crime of heresy – because of the ignorance and corruption of Catholics, although he would be guilty of it were Catholics to be better informed and more faithful. This paradox is a consequence of Prof. de Mattei’s mistaken assertion that a crime’s being ‘widely known’ requires that it be recognised as evident by all. To correct this assertion, it is necessary to clarify what notoriety in fact consists in.

The canons referred to by Prof. de Mattei are the following canons from the 1917 code:

Canon 1747. Requiring no legal proof are: 1. Notorious facts, according to the norm of Canon 2197, nn. 2 and 3 ...

Canon 2197. A delict is: (1) Public, if it is already known or is in such circumstances that it can be and must be prudently judged that it will easily become known; (2) Notorious by notoriety of law, after a sentence by a competent judge that determines that the delict has been legally judged to have been committed, or after a juridical confession of the delict by the offender made in court in accordance with Canon 1750; (3) Notorious by notoriety of fact, if it is publicly known and was committed under such circumstances that it cannot be concealed by any clever subterfuge or excused by any legal argument ...

[Canon 1747. Non indigent probatione : 1° Facta notoria, ad normam c. 2197, nn. 2, 3 ...

Canon 2197. Delictum est : 1° Publicum, si iam divulgatum est aut talibus contigit seu versatur in adiunctis ut prudenter iudicari possit et debeat facile divulgatum iri ; 2° Notorium notorietate iuris, post sententiam iudicis competentis quae in rem iudicatam transierit aut post confessionem delinquentis in iudicio factam ad normam ; 3° Notorium notorietate facti, si publice notum sit et in talibus adiunctis commissum, ut nulla tergiversatione celari nulloque iuris suffragio excusari possit. ...]

 

As we saw above, the concepts of notoriety of law and notoriety of fact are not described in the 1983 code, but are presumed by it and required for its functioning; it is therefore legitimate to look at the 1917 code for an account of them.

The complete description of notoriety of fact given by Fr. Wernz, the canonist to whom Prof. de Mattei refers, is as follows:

Ecclesiastical delicts or crimes can be divided as follows: ...

V. On the basis of degree of knowability, delicts can be divided into occult, public, and notorious. ‘Notorious’ means that which is so certain from the very evidence of the act itself that it cannot be concealed by any subterfuge. A notorious delict is one where not only the act itself, but the criminal character of the act, is so evident that it cannot be concealed by any subterfuge. For example, the open killing of a man before the eyes of the greater part of the community may be notorious, but if there is a doubt whether or not the killing was done in self-defence, it is not a notorious delict.

       If the notoriety of the offense is based on the character of the offence itself, or on actions done in a public place before a large number of people in daylight and regularly, it is termed notorious in fact, whether it is committed permanently, in passing, or sporadically. If notoriety results from a spontaneous confession made in court and not retracted, or from full judicial evidence to which nothing can further be opposed, or from a sentence condemning to punishment or declaratory of a crime which is legally established and not open to appeal, it is considered notorious in law. Notoriety in law is not simply identical with notoriety in fact, because it is possible to object to notoriety in law on the basis not only of the falsification of the evidence upon which a judgment is based, but also on the basis of solid legal proof.

[Delicta seu crimina ecclesiastica dividi possunt: ...

V. Ratione notitiae, in occulta, publica et notoria. Notorium dicitur illud quod ipsa evidentia rei ita certum est, ut nulla possit tergiversatione celari. Quare delictum notorium est factum criminosum ipsa evidentia rei non solum ut factum sed etiam ut delictum ita certum, ut nulla tergiversatione possit celari: v. gr. occisio hominis in oculis hominum puta maioris partis communitatis facta potest esse factum notorium, at si dubitetur num facta sit in iusta defensione, occisio hominis tamquam delictum minime est notoria.

       Quae notorietas delicti si nititur ipsa evidentia rei sive operis publice perpetrati in loco publico et adstante hominum multitudine et regulariter tempore diurno, dicitur notorietas facti sive permanentis sive transeuntis, sive interpolati; quod si inducitur per spontaneam confessionem rei in iudicio factam nec revocatam aut per plenas probationes iudiciales, quibus nihil amplius opponi potest, aut per sententiam condemnatoriam ad poenam vel declaratoriam criminis quae transiit in rem iudicatam, habetur notorietas iuris. Quare notorietas iuris non simpliciter aequiparatur notorietati facti, cum interdum contra notorietatem iuris non tantum tergiversatio, sed solida probatio opponi possit.][15]

           

Fr. Wernz’s account of notoriety of fact substantially agrees with the account given by Fr. Bachofen and cited above. A crime is notorious in fact when not only the criminal act itself, but the fact that the act constitutes a crime, are public and cannot be concealed or excused. But what does this publicity consist in?

As for publicity of the fact itself, no-one holds that its notoriety consists in being actually known by the vast majority. There are myriads of facts that possess notoriety of fact, and of necessity most of them are not known to the majority of the public. A public fact is a fact that is known to a number of people, and that is capable of being known to the public if they care to find out about it. The acts of Francis that have been claimed to be heretical are all in the public sphere and are readily accessible through the internet – most of them are on the Vatican website. There is no difficulty in claiming that these acts themselves are public, and Prof. de Mattei does not deny this. He claims that the criminality of these facts is not public because the guilt of Francis’s heretical statements will not be recognised by the great majority of Catholics. He appeals to this majority to deny that the heretical character of Francis’s words and actions can be known by notoriety of fact. He does not use this argument against the claim that Francis’s pertinacity in heresy is known by notoriety of fact; he asserts that evidence of this pertinacity is genuinely lacking.

Why would a failure by the majority of Catholics to recognise the heretical character of Francis’s words and actions prevent their heretical character being notorious in fact?

We cannot claim that the criminal character of an act is notorious in fact if the great majority would take it to be a crime if they knew about it, and is not notorious in fact if the great majority would not take it to be a crime if they knew about it. In some circumstances, the great majority would wrongly take something to be a crime, or wrongly deny that something is a crime. In many places during the witch craze in Europe, for example, the death of the village bull from disease would immediately have been accepted by the great majority of the village as proof of the criminality of the old woman in the village who was believed to be a witch, and she would have been drowned in the pond without delay. These majority beliefs might have been shared by the entire population of the rather backwards principality in which the village was located. But these majority beliefs would not constitute public knowledge of a crime in the case of the old woman. They would simply be irrelevant to the questions of her guilt or innocence.

No doubt Prof. de Mattei would not take such an unreasonable view. To defend his claim, he would thus have to assert that the guilt of a crime is public if this guilt is apparent both to reasonable people and to the majority of people. Both these groups would have to be satisfied for the guilt to exist. Thus, in the case of the supposed witch the guilt would be accepted by the majority of the people, but not by the reasonable minority; it would therefore not be public. In the case of Pope Francis, the guilt might be public to reasonable people – where ‘reasonable’ includes both being correctly informed and being willing and able to reason accurately on the matter at hand – but it is not public to the great majority, regardless of what the reasonable people might think; it is therefore not public, ad his criem is not notorious in fact.

This conception of notoriety of fact is unsustainable. Notoriety of fact by its nature is a completely reliable way of determining the truth. If it were not, it could not perform its function in the law. It should be pointed out that although the current discussion addresses notoriety of fact as applied to crime, such notoriety has a broader function in the law. Innocence can be established by notoriety of fact; for example, a two month old infant can be judged to be innocent of the crime of assault and battery of an adult by notoriety of fact, without any need for a contentious trial and a legal verdict. Personal identity, ownership of property, and other kinds of fact that enter in to the legal process can also be established by notoriety of fact. In all of these different cases, notoriety of fact identifies the truth. It can only do this if it is defined as consisting in evidence that is readily available to the general public and that makes the truth clear beyond a reasonable doubt to reasonable persons – that is, to persons who are correctly informed about the matter and are willing and able to reason accurately about it. If notoriety of fact requires the consent of the great majority regardless of whether or not that majority is knowledgeable and rational, then it will not be a reliable way of determining the truth. Such a majority will often be mistaken. If both the consent of the majority and the consent of the rational is required for notoriety of fact, then the conditions for notoriety of fact will not admit any false claims, but will reject many verifiably true ones. There will be evidence that conclusively proves innocence, guilt, identity, ownership, and other legal claims, but that is not admitted by the law as doing so because a majority rejects it. But only a factor that reliably indicates the truth can be given evidential weight in the law. To reject information because a majority does not accept it would be an offence against justice. It would run contrary to the nature and goal of the law and the legal system, which is to truthfully determine and act according to what is just regardless of public opinion. ‘Fiat justitia, ruat coelum’.

Moreover, Prof. de Mattei asserts that Francis cannot be a public heretic through notoriety of fact precisely because the great majority of Catholics have false views about what constitutes heresy. Here there is not only a wrong conception of notoriety of fact – as requiring the power to command the assent of the majority of persons, not just of all rational and informed persons – but a specification that the majority whose agreement is required for notoriety of fact would withhold this agreement because they are in error. This specification leads to the paradox noted above. It is allows a factor that reliably produces falsehood – a majority opinion that exists because of ignorance, error, and corruption, and is a manifestation of error and corruption – to trump evidence, even if that evidence is irrefutable in rational terms. This is clearly inadmissible in law.

The evidence for Francis being a public heretic by notoriety of fact

As we have seen, the words and actions of Francis that serve as the basis for the claim that he is a heretic are all publicly available and not in need of proof. What needs to be established is whether or not the heretical character of these words and actions, and Francis’s pertinacity in maintaining them, are evident beyond a reasonable doubt to informed persons who are willing and able to reason accurately about them.

The information and the reasoning capacities required need to be specified. They cannot be set at too high a level. If the heresy and pertinacity of Francis is only evident to first-rate theologians, that would seem insufficient for notoriety of fact. The criteria for notoriety of fact can be set at whatever is obvious beyond a reasonable doubt to believing Catholics who have a good grasp of the main teachings of the faith, and the intelligence and objectivity to discern when a position is obviously incompatible with these teachings. This is the largest category that can reasonably be specified as a condition for notoriety of fact, since it includes everyone who is not ignorant or irrational to some degree.

Prof. de Mattei asserts that it does not seem possible to prove Francis’s obstinacy. It is hard to see why he would say this. It is not possible for Francis to reject warnings from a superior requiring him to renounce heresy, because he has no superior on earth. But these warnings are not necessary to prove pertinacity, which is the condition that must be fulfilled for the crime of heresy. Heresy is not a crime against obedience, but a crime against belief. As noted above, pertinacity means publicly denying or doubting a truth of the Catholic faith ‘sciens volens’, knowing that this truth is taught by the Church as divinely revealed, and willing to express a doubt or a denial of it. There are many ways of proving pertinacity besides rejecting the admonition of a superior.

In the case of Francis, it can be presumed that he knows that the truths he is accused of denying have been taught by the Church as divinely revealed. The presumption of knowledge varies with the situation of the individual. In the case of a poorly educated layman, knowledge of all but the most basic  truths of the faith cannot be presumed. In the case of a priest who has been given a proper theological formation, however, it can be presumed; even more so for a theologian and for a bishop. Francis was ordained as a Jesuit, a theological order with high intellectual standards whose formation includes rigorous and continuing theological training. He obtained a licentiate in philosophy and a licentiate in theology, and became a university professor in theology at the Facultades de Filosofía y Teología de San Miguel, a Jesuit university and seminary in Argentina. He subsequently became the Rector of these faculties. The truths of the faith he is accused of denying are central teachings that in many cases were the subjects of widely publicised magisterial pronouncements by John Paul II while Francis was a bishop. Indeed, statements by Francis can be identified before and even after his election to the papacy that mention these truths as Catholic teachings. It would be humanly impossible for him to have been ignorant of the fact that the Catholic Church teaches these truths to be divinely revealed.

His pertinacity can thus be treated as a publicly established fact even in the absence of any public warnings made to him advising him that he was denying divinely revealed truths. However, there have been many such warnings. These include ‘Theological Censures of Amoris Laetitia’, issued June 29^th 2016; the Dubia presented to the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 19 September 2016 by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner; the Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis, addressed to Pope Francis on 11 August 2017; the  ‘Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church’, published in Easter Week, 2019; ‘An Appeal to the Cardinals of the Catholic Church,’ issued August 15^th, 2018; ‘The Teaching of the Catholic Faith on the Reception of the Holy Eucharist’, issued September 16, 2022; ‘Contra Recentia Sacrilegia: Protest against Pope Francis’s sacrilegious acts’, issued November 9th, 2019; the dubia submitted by Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Sandoval, Sarah, and Zen on July 10, 2023; the dubia submitted by Cardinal Dominik Duka on July 13, 2023; and the ‘Call for the Resignation of Pope Francis’, issued May 2, 2024. These statements, signed by eminent churchmen and large numbers of qualified theologians and distinguished priests and religious, document very numerous heretical statements and acts on the part of Francis, establish that they are heretical, and ask Francis to withdraw them; failing such a withdrawal, some of these statements ask the bishops of the Catholic Church to make the same request to Francis, and to declare that he is a heretic and has fallen from the papal office if he does not comply with this request. Francis has ignored most of these statements and publicly repeated the heretical positions that they describe.

The documentation provided by these statements is very considerable and is subjected to careful analysis by the authors. This analysis has been supported and defended at length by some of their authors and signatories. Anyone seriously interested in the question of whether or not Pope Francis is a heretic should study these documents with the commentary that has been made on them.[16] They have not been refuted or subjected to serious criticism. It is not claimed that Francis is ignorant of the Catholic teachings that he denies; instead, his statements are given a pious and orthodox reading in response to the charge of heresy. These readings often lack any shred of plausibility, since many of these statements, even taken in isolation, cannot reasonably be taken in an orthodox sense. Even if every individual statement made by Francis could somehow be given a strained interpretation that does not disagree with the faith, the cumulative evidence of all the statements taken together is decisive. Francis could not have made such a large number of heretical statements without some of them being truly and knowingly meant by him in a heretical sense.

It is not feasible to document here all the heresies that Francis has upheld and all the occasions on which he has upheld them. But it is sufficient to establish that Francis has knowingly and willingly asserted a single heresy in order to show that he is a heretic, so it is only necessary to describe one heresy that he has publicly and pertinaciously espoused. This heresy was described in the ‘Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church’ as follows:

VII. God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.

 

The open letter points out that this proposition contradicts the following Scriptural and magisterial teachings:

 

John 14:6; “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.”

       Acts 4:11-12; “This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.”

       See also Exodus 22:20; Exodus 23:24; 2 Chronicles 34:25; Psalm 95:5; Jeremiah 10:11; 1 Corinthians 8:5-6; Gregory XVI, Mirari vos, 13-14; Pius XI, Qui pluribus, 15; Singulari quidem, 3-5; First Vatican Council, Profession of Faith; Leo XIII, Immortale dei, 31; Satis cognitum, 3-9; Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, 1-2, 6.

 

The letter lists these events as constituting Francis’s adherence to the heresy:

 

On June 9, 2014, Pope Francis received the leaders of the militantly pro-homosexual Tupac Amaru organisation from Argentina at the Vatican, and blessed their coca leaves for use in their pagan religious rituals, which involve recognition of the coca plant as sacred.

       On February 4th, 2019, Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, publicly signed and issued a statement entitled ‘Document on Human Fraternity’. In it, they made the following assertions: "Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives."

 

Some defenders of Francis claimed that the assertion that God wills the diversity of human religions referred to God’s permissive will, which allows evils for the sake of a good without willing them in themselves, and did not state that God wills the existence of non-Christian religions as a positive good. In the light of the fact that the statement was jointly issued with a Muslim imam, this interpretation is absurd. In a subsequent audience address of April 3, 2019, Francis, answering the question ‘Why does God permit that there are so many religions?’, referred in passing to the ‘permissive will of God’ as explained by Scholastic theology, but gave the concept a positive meaning that differed from the meaning used by theologians. He declared that ‘God wanted to permit this’ because while ‘there are so many religions’ they ‘always look to heaven, they look to God.’

This pious interpretation is belied by the actions taken by Francis to follow up on this document. In order to implement the contents of the Document on Human Fraternity, Francis cooperated in the founding of the Higher Committee on Human Fraternity, whose website can be seen here: https://www.forhumanfraternity.org/. This Higher Commitee has begun the construction of a large ‘multi faith complex’, the Abrahamic Family House, where multireligious events will take place.

Further evidence of Francis’s adhesion to this heresy was given in the ‘Protest against Pope Francis’s sacrilegious acts’, which denounced the following actions on the part of Francis:

 

On October 4 [2019], Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama.

       He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity of the graves of the martyrs and of the church of the Apostle Peter.

       He participated in this act of idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama.

       On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall. Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this procession.

       When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where they had been sacrilegiously placed, and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this profanation of the church, Pope Francis, on October 25, apologized for their removal and another wooden image of Pachamama was returned to the church. Thus, a new profanation was initiated.

       On October 27, in the closing Mass for the synod, he accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama and placed it on the altar.

       Pope Francis himself confirmed that these wooden images were pagan idols. In his apology for the removal of these idols from a Catholic church, he specifically called them Pachamama, a name for a false goddess of mother earth according to pagan religious belief in South America.

       Different features of these proceedings have been condemned as idolatrous or sacrilegious by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Bishop José Luis Azcona Hermoso, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer, and Bishop Marian Eleganti. Lastly, Card. Raymond Burke has given the same assessment of this cult in an interview.

 

This protest did not receive a response from Francis and he did not in any way withdraw or apologize for his statements and actions.

In an address to a Catholic junior college in Singapore on Sept. 13^Th 2024, Francis said:

 

One of the things that has impressed me most about the young people here is your capacity for interfaith dialogue. This is very important because if you start arguing, “My religion is more important than yours...,” or “Mine is the true one, yours is not true....,” where does this lead? Somebody answer. [A young person answers, “Destruction”.] That is correct. All religions are paths to God. I will use an analogy, they are like different languages that express the divine. But God is for everyone, and therefore, we are all God’s children. “But my God is more important than yours!”. Is this true? There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian.[17]

 

This message was placed on the Vatican website with an accompanying video of the talk, so that there could be absolutely no doubt about Francis’s words. In a video message on Sept. 17^Th 2024 to participants in the Med24 Meeting, a meeting of young people from all the coasts of the Mediterranean that included both Muslims and Christians, Francis said:

 

Contemplate the difference of your traditions like a richness, a richness God wants to be. Unity is not uniformity, and the diversity of your cultural and religious identities is a gift of God. Unity in diversity. Let mutual esteem grow among you, following the witness of your forefathers.[18]

 

These statements are absolutely clear and unambiguous denials of the Catholic faith. We should note that in the Singapore address, Francis states not just that some non-Christian religions are paths to God, but that all religions are paths to God. ‘All religions’ includes devil worship, idolatry, Scientology, and every crazed and immoral cult.

This heresy is not original to Francis. It has been expressed by many influential theologians, notably by Jacques Dupuis S.J. in his Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism and his Christianity and the Religions. Dupuis’s position was rejected in a ‘Notification’ issued by the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith[19], which asserted that ‘It is contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the different religions of the world as ways of salvation complementary to the Church (fn.: Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, 36; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus, 21-22.).’ Fr. Peter C. Phan, writing in America magazine, described Fr. Dupuis’ position as follows:

 

Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, with scholarly discussions omitted and footnotes reduced to a minimum, it is not a mere summary of its predecessor but also offers several new chapters. It deals with three basic questions: (1) Can the members of other religions be saved? (2) If yes, can these religions be said to contain “elements of truth and grace” so that their adherents, if they are saved, are saved in them and somehow through them? (3) If yes, can it be said that these religions have a positive meaning in God’s single overall plan of salvation? Dupuis gives an affirmative answer to these three questions, and coins the expression “inclusive pluralism” to describe his position. ... It must however be frankly acknowledged, with all due respect to Dupuis’s theological achievements, that inclusive pluralism is anything but avant-garde, much less beyond the pale of orthodoxy. Indeed, Dupuis acknowledges that the substance of his thesis has been affirmed by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences as far back as 1987. ...[Editor’s Note: This title (Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism) is a selection of the Catholic Book Club.] [20]

 

Fr. Phan is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. His evaluation of Fr, Dupuis’s position as ‘not beyond the pale of orthodoxy’ is of course not theologically tenable, but is very informative about the present climate of opinion among persons employed in Catholic institutions to teach theology. The rejection of Fr. Dupuis’ theses by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was attacked by many of these persons as unjustified, and his theses were upheld by them as true. In adhering to the heresy given above, Francis is thus simply accepting and stating a theological position that is widely held – even taken for granted as true – by a large and influential group holding posts in theology in the Catholic Church. It is the majority position in the Society of Jesus, Francis’s own religious order. There is thus nothing surprising or improbable about his accepting it; in fact, it would be rather surprising if he did not accept it, given his ecclesiastical and theological background.

Some commentators have tried to defend Francis from the charges of heresy or apostasy by pointing out that he continues to make statements emphasizing the importance and uniqueness of Christianity. One example is the following, made on Sept. 26th 2024 in the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg:

 

I am here to testify that the Gospel is the life source and the ever fresh force of personal and social renewal. It brings about harmony among all nations, among all peoples; harmony, and the ability to experience and suffer together. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone that is capable of profoundly transforming the human soul, making it capable of doing good even in the most difficult situations, of extinguishing hatred and reconciling parties engaged in conflict. May everyone, every man and woman, in full freedom, know the Gospel of Jesus, who has reconciled God and humanity in his Person, and who, knowing what is in the human heart, can heal its wounds.[21]

 

It could be that Francis experienced a sudden conversion to the faith between Sept. 17^th and Sept. 24th 2024. Alternatively, this message could be a purely disingenuous statement that contradicts his actual beliefs, and that is intended to protect him from attacks on his orthodoxy. Francis does not have a record of spotless honesty, so the accusation of denying his real position is not an incredible one. But to those who are familiar with the theology of religious pluralism, a different interpretation of this statement is more plausible. Notice that the statement does not say that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is only accessible in the Catholic faith, or that non-Christian religions are false and provide no salvation, or that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ himself are not accessible in non-Christian religions. 

These positions are all denied by Karl Rahner S.J.’s conception of the ‘anonymous Christian’, a conception that is an essential component of the theology of inclusive pluralism. According to this conception, the grace of Christ is accessible through non-Christian religions without any need for explicit Christian belief. Adherents of non-Christian religions can thereby be saved by and through these religions. Francis, who is openly committed to this theology, is therefore not contradicting his prior endorsement of all religions as means to salvation by this statement in Luxembourg. To do this, he would have to deny that non-Christian religions are paths to God and are positively willed to exist by God. He has never done this.

The idea that such a statement can be taken as proof that Francis is not a heretic and should not suffer the legal consequences of heresy also fails to distinguish between the personal sin of heresy and the crime of heresy. One ceases to commit the personal sin of heresy if one accepts the divinely revealed character of the Catholic faith, and no longer doubts or denies any of the teachings of this faith. In doing so, one recovers the theological virtue of faith, although confession, contrition and satisfaction for one’s former sin against the faith will still have to be carried out. The public crime of heresy is different. This crime is an offence against the good of the Church as well as a direct offence against God. One ceases to sin against the virtue of faith as soon as one begins to believe again, but one does not cease to be guilty of the crime of heresy as soon as one begins to believe again. The sin of heresy is incompatible with belief; one cannot both have faith in divine revelation as presented by the Church, and disbelieve any part of this revelation. But being guilty of the crime of heresy is compatible with professing the faith. If one denies sciens et volens a truth of the faith, one has committed the crime of heresy, and one is subject to trial and punishment for this guilt regardless of whether or not one then withdraws the heretical statement and affirms the faith. Such withdrawal is grounds for clemency or for remission of some of the punishment of heresy, but it does not make the crime and resultant guilt cease to exist. Some legal consequences of heresy remain even when one openly renounces heresy. Cajetan acknowledges this in the case of a heretical pope:

 

Because, therefore, the apostle commanded that a heretical man who offends against the faith after two admonitions should not be tolerated but shunned, the consequence is, first, that, no matter how ready a heretic pope relapsed after two admonitions may be to be corrected, he not only can but ought to be deposed – and rightly, lest human judgment be protracted infinitely; it should rather be brought to an end at some prescribed point. A reasonable limit is defined as a threefold offence with a twofold admonition.[22]

 

John of St. Thomas holds a similar view, maintaining that if a pope rejects two admonitions then he should lose the papacy regardless of whether or not he subsequently repents of his heresy and returns to the Catholic faith.[23] The justice of this limit is not only based on the difficulty of trusting a relapsed heretic. The public crime of heresy is a grave one, and a punishment for it can and should be imposed in justice if that is required for the public good, even if the criminal has repented of his heresy.

Cajetan and John of St. Thomas of course hold the erroneous view that a heretical pope only loses the papacy when the Church commands the faithful to avoid him. On the correct view, a pope loses the papacy as soon as he is guilty of the crime of heresy. If Francis has committed this crime, and is a public heretic through notoriety of fact, then he ceased to be pope as soon as the crime was notoriously committed. The public crime itself causes this, regardless of what the rest of the Church believes or wants to be the case. If he were to publicly repent of this heretical words and actions, denounce them, do penance for them, and confess the faith in its entirety, that would be grounds for readmitting him to the communion of the Catholic Church, but it would not turn him back into the pope. The public crime itself has deprived him of the papal office, and left the papal see vacant. In order to recover the papal office, he would have to not only renounce heresy in the most unambiguous way, but actually be re-elected pope again.

We are now in a position to answer the question: Is Francis a public and notorious heretic through notoriety of fact? An affirmative answer to this question requires that there be public evidence that makes it obvious beyond a reasonable doubt to believing Catholics who have a good grasp of the main teachings of the faith, and the intelligence and objectivity to discern when a position is undoubtedly incompatible with these teachings, that Francis has publicly, clearly, and voluntarily denied a truth of the Catholic faith, while knowing full well that the Catholic Church teaches this truth to be divinely revealed.

The evidence provided above shows that this is the case. Francis has publicly asserted that God positively wills the existence of non-Christian religions and that these religions are paths to salvation. He has left no doubt that he believes this by repeated words and actions over a number of years. These words and actions have indeed been so clear that he has shown that he intends Catholics to be left in no doubt about his belief. This is not the same as asserting that some non-Christians can under certain circumstances be saved; this is a permissible theological opinion. What is not permissible is to say that they can be saved by their non-Christian religions. This is contrary to the Catholic faith. The truth that Francis denies is a basic part of the faith, that is plainly stated throughout the Scriptures and known to any Catholic with an understanding of the basics of the faith. It is humanly impossible that Francis, a well educated priest and former academic theologian, would not know that it is taught by the Church as divinely revealed. In any case he has been told that it is divinely revealed on many occasions by qualified theologians, bishops, and cardinals. The publicly available evidence for his knowingly and willingly denying the faith establishes that Francis is a public and notorious heretic. The evidence is so strong that it is irrational to contest this. This is the case with this heresy alone, entirely leaving out the seven other well documented heresies of which he has been credibly accused and warned about. This single public and notorious heresy suffices to establish that he is no longer the pope.

This conclusion should not be a startling one for those that have examined his words and actions. As Prof. de Mattei says, his public rejection of the faith amounts to a tacit resignation from the pontificate. He clearly does not believe the Catholic faith, and refuses to profess it; how can he possibly function as the pope or make a claim on Catholics to believe and obey him? Such claims are sheer impudence on his part. An honest man would state that he could not believe the Catholic faith and that he was resigning the papacy in consequence.

What is startling is the refusal of Catholics to acknowledge this obvious fact. One cannot say that Francis has been deceitful about his beliefs. He shows some tact and guile in putting them across, but he is basically above board about his views. In response to this straightforwardness, almost all bishops and cardinals have ignored his departure from the faith, and acted as if they belong to a cult where blind obedience and mindless adoration of an evil leader is praiseworthy and compulsory. This is a betrayal of their duty to God, and it has to end. All believing bishops and cardinals should publicly state that Francis has clearly ceased to accept the Catholic faith. For pastoral reasons they might begin by asking him to retire from the papacy because of his unbelief, rather than bluntly and immediately stating that he is no longer the pope. But it is not permissible to continue treating him as the legitimate ruler of the Church. 

NOTES

[1] In constitutionem Apostolicae Sedis: qua censurae latae sententiae limitantur; commentarii. Cardinal Joseph D’Annibale, (Prati : Giachetti, 1894), n.31.

[2] Rev. Eric F. Mackenzie, The Delict of Heresy in its Commission, Penalization, and Absolution, Catholic University of America Canon Law Studies no. 77, (Catholic University of America: Washington, D.C., 1932,) p. 40.

[3] Cardinal Juan de Lugo, Disputationes scholasticae et morales; de virtute fidei divina, disp. XX, sect. V, 157-158 (Lyon, 1546), p. 769.

[4] Rev. Eric F. Mackenzie, The Delict of Heresy in its Commission, Penalization, and Absolution, Catholic University of America Canon Law Studies no. 77, (Catholic University of America: Washington, D.C., 1932,) pp. 35-36.

[5] Francisco Suarez S.J., Tractatus de fide divina, disp. 10, sect. 6, in R. P. Francisci Suarez opera omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1857) vol. 12, p. 317, §7.

[6] ‘... Et quoad primum tres praecipui casus numerantur, in quibus deposition papae locum habet. Primus est, in casu haeresis, seu, infidelitatis: secundus, in casu perpetuat amentiae: tertius, in casu dubii de valore electionis.

1. Circa casum haeresis multa disputant theologi, et jurisperiti, quae ad longum prosequi locus non est: est autem concors doctorum sententia propter haeresim posse papam deponim ... Ratio est, quia a haereticis tenemur nos segregare I ad Timoth., III: ‘Haereticum hominum post primam, et secundam correptionem devita.’ At vero qui manet in pontificatu non est vitandus, sed potius illi uniri, et communicare tenetur Ecclesia tamquam supremo capiti suo; ergo si papa est haereticus, vel tenetur Ecclesia illi communicare, vel debet a pontificati deponi. Primum autem est in evidentem Ecclesiae destructionem, et importans intrinsece periculum errandi in toto regimine ecclesiastico, si Ecclesia teneatur sequi caput haereticum: imo cum haereticis sit Ecclesiae hostis, hoc jure naturali potest Ecclesia agere contra papam, scilicet jure defensionis, quia defendere se potest ab inimico suo, qualis est papa haereticus; ergo et agere contra illum; ergo secundum omnino debet fieri scilicet, quod talis papa deponatur.’. John of St. Thomas, Tractatus de Auctoritate Summi Pontificis, quaest, 1, disp. II, art. 3, sect. II.

[7] Fr. Charles Augustine [Bachofen], A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law, vol. VIII, book V (B. Herder: St. Louis, Mo., 1922., pp. 15-17.

[8] CIC 1983, canon 15 §2: ‘Ignorantia vel error circa legem aut poenam aut circa factum proprium aut circa factum alienum notorium non praesumitur; circa factum alienum non notorium praesumitur, donec contrarium probetur.’

[9] The author of this article formerly accepted the position of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, but has come to reject it for the reasons given here.

[10] Cardinal Louis Billot, Tractatus de ecclesia christi, 3^rd ed., vol, 1 (Prati: Giacchetti, 1909), p. 615.

[11] Arnaldo da Silveira reports that of the 136 Catholic theologians and canonists that he consulted on this subject, only Bouix defended this opinion; see da Silveira, The Theological Hypothesis of a Heretical Pope, tr. John Russell Spann [https://archive.org/details/arnaldo-xavier-da-silveira-new-mass-analysis-1970-heretic-pope-theological-hypothesis-english/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater], p. 160. 

[12] This was observed by Cardinal Camillo Mazzella, S. J., De Relig. et Eccl., p. 817.

[13] See da Silveira, pp. 158-60, for a discussion of this case.

[14] See John Lamont ‘The SSPX, the Open Letter, and the Heresies of Pope Francis’, for further development of this point; https://onepeterfive.com/sspx-open-letter/.

[15] F. X. Wernz, Ius decretalium tom. VI (Prati: Giacchetti, 1913), pp. 19-21.

[16] See e.g. Defending the faith against present heresies: letters and statements addressed to Pope Francis, the cardinals, and the bishops, with a collection of related articles and interviews (Waterloo, ON.: Arouca Press, 2021), John R. T. Lamont and Claudio Pierantoni eds.; John Lamont, ‘Lamont responds to Harrison & Fastiggi on the Eucharistic teaching of Pope Francis’, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/12/pope-franciss-heresy-concerning.html#more, and ‘Lamont Responds to Fastiggi (et al.): Pope Francis’s “wedding garment of faith” is not “formed faith”‘, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/12/pope-franciss-heresy-concerning.html#more.

[17]https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/events/event.dir.html/content/vaticanevents/en/2024/9/13/singapore-giovani.html.

[18] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/09/17/240917a.html.

[19] Https://.www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html

[20] https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/culture/inclusive-pluralism. The editor in question was Rev. Thomas J. Reese S.J.

[21] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/09/26/240926c.html

[22] Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, pp. 102-103 (emphasis added); quoted in John Salza and Robert Siscoe, True or False Pope (St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 2015), p. 244.

[23] John of St. Thomas, Tractatus de Auctoritate Summi Pontificis, quaest, 1, disp. II, art. 3, sect. VII.