Papal Heresy and Loss of Office - SSPX Interview Series

welcome to the sspx podcast and to the sspx interview series today we're speaking with father william mcgilvery on a topic that has gained renewed attention in recent days the question of a possibility of a heretical pope what happens if a pope speaks heresy this has been a topic of controversy over the course of the pontificate of pope francis and it has only grown following a recent audience given by the holy father so we're going to look at the statement he made during this general audience was it heretical and if it was then what does that mean does it mean he loses the papacy automatically many saints and theologians have discussed this issue over the centuries but only in a theoretical manner so is there a theological or a legal basis for the pope losing his office this is the longest interview we've done because it is such a complex topic but father mcgilvery has put together a comprehensive overview so we can determine once and for all how catholics should view the possibility of a heretical pope let's join father now well father mcgilvery thank you for joining us on this special episode of the sspx podcast um how are things going up in the school around this time of year father very well thanks we're still in the middle of winter so it was a good negative 20 degrees out this morning celsius of course um when i went to get into the car to drive to st peters and say mass but um we are heading towards the end of the third quarter and the finish line is in sight great great well it's always good to have that last little bit set absolutely something to look forward to that's right uh well father we wanted to have you on to talk about something that has been in the news recently um there was a general audience of pope francis uh where he said some surprising things about the communion of saints and it has caused some controversy it has caused a lot of discussion especially online shocking among uh traditional catholics among conservative catholics um and this is just one more in kind of a long line of some of these statements from pope francis that leave many people scratching their heads maybe even doubting the papacy um bottom line it has come out and it is something that has caused a lot of people to start to move further along the line of being said of a contest uh if they weren't already there um so we wanted to have this discussion with you father and and basically asked the question how do we understand these sorts of statements and in particular this statement recently made by pope francis so i don't know if you want to read it father if you'd like me to yeah so i'd be happy to um just read the essential parts of the quotation which i think we're all familiar with um it's from a general audience that pope francis gave on the second of february of this year and he made some rather shocking statements he said for example that the church is the community of saved sinners this is a beautiful definition no one can exclude themselves from the church we are all saved sinners so that seems to be denying the truth taught by the the ordinary and universal magisterium that not everyone belongs to the church of christ but rather only the baptized who continue to profess the catholic faith and submit themselves to the authority of the roman pontiff and those those bishops in communion with him um so that would be this seemed to be a denial of of the um you know the common and universal teaching of the church regarding membership um and then pope francis goes on to say certain other troublesome things such as that um so he says let us consider dear brothers and sisters that in christ no one can ever truly separate us from those we love because the bond is an existential bond a strong bond that is in our very nature um only the manner of being together which each of them changes but nothing and no one can break this bond and then he poses a a rhetorical question to himself the question is father let us think about those who have denied the faith who are apostates who are persecutors of the church those who have denied their baptism are these also at home meaning at home in the church and he responds to this rhetorical question uh yes these two even the blasphemers everyone we are brothers this is the communion of saints so those are statements and and once again they seem to be openly heretical we can recall for example a definition of the council of florence that those not living within the catholic church not only pagans but also jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life but will depart into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock and that statement of the council of florence a solemn definition does seem to make very clear that heretics and schizomatics are outside the church and that's precisely what pope francis seems to be denying here so it does seem uh certainly on face value to be heresy yes i was just going to say i mean we we have some of these we have some of these statements and this is not like i mentioned at the very beginning this is not the first sort of statement uh made by pope francis that is troublesome is that correct absolutely so we've already seen uh various things including his his uh well-known document amorius latizia that motu proprio in which many men of the church saw various heresies we can mention for example the correctio filialis that was signed by by various um you know priests and even bishops in the church including bishop filet and the authors of that document the correctiophilalis identified at least seven heretical propositions in in pope francis's motu proprio amoris litizia um so no this is not new to the pontificate of pope francis and that's one initial observation that i would make is that the most recent statements of his that have shocked some people um they're not necessarily that much worse than other things he's already said so and and what we're doing just just to kind of give a guideline here we're looking at this statement we're looking at some of the other statements we're looking at some other statements from other pontificates as well and then we're going to kind of try and understand what does this mean just to kind of give you a guideline of where we're going with this exactly so i wanted to point out what andrew is is already hinting at is that um if we want to be logically consistent with ourselves you know now does not seem like the time to say okay that's it um we've lost the papacy um because we can even look back at statements that pope francis's predecessors have have made which are apparently just as as heretical as these last ones um even on this this topic of you know membership in the church and you know hope of eternal salvation we can mention certain statements by pope john paul ii um in which he seems very clearly to be attributing some kind of you know participation in christ a state of sanctifying grace hope of eternal life not only to the just or the members of the church but to all men whatsoever from the first moment of their conception he's very explicit so for example i would quote for you his encyclical redemptor ominis in which he says that um each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one with each man christ has united himself forever through this mystery man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in jesus christ the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sheriff from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother and uh so there you know we may well ask in what way is every person from his conception already a share in jesus christ and and forever um in what way are the damned for example sharers in jesus christ it's hard to see how how that could apply to the damned and so is as pope john paul ii uh denying that the the doctrine that hell exists and and yes there are some people in it um so that that's a problem um and if we're in doubt as well as to his meaning we find an even more explicit statement in his message to the peoples of asia um which he gave on the 21st of february the year 1981 in which he said that in the holy spirit each person and all peoples have become by the cross and the resurrection of christ children of god participants in the divine nature and heirs of eternal life so he says that of each person and all peoples and when you say participants in the divine nature you mean in the state of grace because that's always been those two have always been inseparably associated it's by sanctifying grace that we become partakers of the divine nature and so effectively what what pope john paul ii seems to be saying there is that everyone um everyone who who who is alive who has ever lived um is in a state of grace um and and will go to heaven that seems to be the clear implication have there been any other popes besides pope john paul ii and pope francis who have said things that are that are troubling like this father well i think the the list could go on and on and we won't quote from every single conciliar or post-conciliar pope um we could mention just in passing that pope benedict xvi in some of his writings seems pretty clearly to deny our lord's historical resurrection um for example he writes in his principles of catholic theology that the resurrection cannot be a historical event in the same sense as the crucifixion is so there is an ambiguity there but you know to you and to me i think an event either is historical or it's not and so if you say the resurrection is not historical in the way that the crucifixion is what i read there is that it's not historical period um and i think he makes it clear as well in certain other statements for example his book jesus of nazareth he writes that empirical physicality has been transcended by the resurrection jesus appears suddenly in the midst of the disciples in a physicality that is no longer subject to the laws of space and time now when you say no longer subject to the laws of space and time i say well outside of history not real history um so you know there pope benedict xvi is regarded as as you know the most conservative and doctrinally sound of all the pope since vatican do there he seems quite clearly and on more than one occasion to be denying the historicity of our lord's resurrection um so so the bottom line here is that i don't think that we can consistently um or coherently single out pope francis alone and say he is the problem the others his predecessors were okay no that's not true so it what we're doing today father is is looking at this from a from the stance of it seems to be that many people are looking at these statements and saying there's no other option other than the pope is a heretic um there is no pope we are in a period of cerebeconte meaning the seat is empty there is no pope because as soon as the pope is saying this stuff it's heretical he cannot be the pope anymore um and and what that does is it does solve a problem and it solves the problem meaning it makes it so that we don't have to be scandalized by these very concerning statements from the papacy whether from john paul ii benedict the 16th or pope francis it solves that problem we don't have to worry because he's not the real pope and he's not saying that exactly um but does it cause any other problems well for sure um so what follows immediately from this if we apply um this kind of principle not only to pope francis which is what i might call jokingly a kind of micro set of econotisms so said of the contest i'm applied you know to one pope in isolation but if we apply on a large scale what i might call macro set of economism i'm going all the way back to paul vi or john the 23rd there are a lot of of big problems that result from that which i argue um would be even let's say a greater challenge to face up against than than simply the problem of of popes who say heretical things in public um okay so you know we can immediately infer a number of things which which we can go through and prove from certain magisterial texts um but the main problems that arise are that um there seems to be um if there hasn't been a pope since john the 23rd so i'm sorry or since pius xii who died in 1958 then that's uh 63 years since then that we've had no valid pope and what would follow would be a loss or interruption in what we call apostolic succession we'll get into that um and this would lead to the total disappearance of the visible hierarchy and the living magisterium and these things are essential to the constitution of the church that jesus christ our lord it and and so there's no question that those consequences are are inadmissible as catholics we can't we can't say that father what do you mean by the living magisterium and why is that so important well it's a term which is very much abused nowadays but but nevertheless in itself it's a traditional term um pope leo the 13th in fact in his encyclical on the on the church satisf wrote that christ instituted in the church a living authoritative and permanent magisterium and the word permanent means permanent it means that at all times the church will have a living magisterium and by living we mean that the magisterium of the church is not just a you know the collection of of council documents and texts um it's not a stack of books but rather um the magisterium is as well uh living men who here and now teach the faith um and so if we say that right now there are no popes there is no pope and there are no bishops who have been legitimately validly appointed to their seas then we do not have a permanent living magisterium okay we can also mention of course um pius the the eleventh i'm sorry uh in his encyclical mortalium animos says that the teaching authority of the church is daily exercised through the roman pontiff and the bishops who are in communion with him which emphasizes that this is something which is supposed to be without interruption okay so that's the first part of the statement that you said earlier there are three things that are three problems with going into the set of a contest argument or camp or taking this position we have the the loss of the living magisterium next we have the loss of the visible and perpetual succession of of the papacy um can we go into that a little bit father absolutely so so that's referring back to apostolic which is a document of the first vatican council and i just want to read for you a few lines from that which make clear the problem that we're dealing with so so vatican 1 decreed that it was the will of christ that in his church there should be shepherds and teachers until the end of time so that that would kind of coincide with what we just said about a living magisterium you don't have that without shepherds and teachers which is to say you know men who have been legitimately appointed to feed the flock of christ and that appointment as we'll soon see must come from from a pope but then to continue with the council text in order then that the whole episcopal office should be won and undivided and that by the union of the clergy the whole multitude of believers should be held together in the unity of faith and communion our lord jesus christ set blessed peter over the rest of the apostles and instituted in him the permanent principle of both unities meaning the unity of faith and communion and their visible foundation so pop peter and and then uh sorry saint peter and his successors the popes are the permanent principle of the church's two-fold unity and and their visible foundation um and there's a canon that follows this the canon reads if anyone says that it is not by the institution of christ the lord himself that is to say by divine law that blessed peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole church or that the roman pontiff is not the successor of blessed peter in his primacy let him be anathema so immediately we're confronted by by several problems here first of all how is the papacy the visible foundation of the church's unity as as we read in the text just quoted if the papacy can disappear without anyone realizing it and this would certainly be the case if we if we bring our set of a contest theory to apply all the way back to john the 23rd since after all so so here i'm following um what the authors of the book said of akantism a false solution to real problem priests of our italian district they wrote they claimed that the first public declaration of a set of a contest kind was that of the mexican jesuit hawkins ariaga who in 1973 published a work entitled sede vicante so in other words from the death of pius xii uh in 1958 all the way to 1973 which is a span of 15 years the entire church publicly adhered to a false head to john the 23rd paul vi um um so so that that seems to be absurd we can no longer call the papacy the visible foundation of the church's unity if the pope can cease to be pope and nobody realizes that's not a visible foundation okay and then the other obvious problem is how can we say that peter has perpetual successors if there's been an entering of more than 30 years with no validly elected pope um that that's a real problem as well in history there have been some um periods of sediment conte that have lasted you know two or maybe three years at the most um and then that's conceivable but 63 years just just it doesn't um jive well with the idea of perpetual successors right all right so that's the that's the second problem with um set of economism and the last one that we're going to look at is uh apostolic succession um if there is a certificante there's basically no apostolic succession is that true that's right um and this flows from the the fact that um as pope pius xii taught in his encyclical odds the power of jurisdiction uh which is conferred upon the supreme pontiff directly by divine right flows to the bishops by the same right but only through the successor of saint peter so in other words bishops um the bishops who are appointed over dioceses are appointed by the pope and receive their jurisdiction over their diocese from the pope and uh this is the meaning of apostolic succession is that well the pope succeeds to saint peter in his office of of the supreme pastor or shepherd of the church but then the bishops the residential bishops who who govern dioceses succeed to the college of the apostles however they don't succeed um let's say by by being directly appointed by god but rather it's through the appointment that the pope gives them that they receive their episcopal jurisdiction over their flock and thus pertain to this this ongoing um reality of apostolic succession they succeed the college of apostles precisely by being appointed over a diocese by by the decree of the pope so what happens is if you don't have um let's say one valid pope in a whole succession of popes uh you you will still have probably some bishops who received their jurisdiction from the previous pope and um so you know one one vacancy of the throne of saint peter may not of itself extinguish apostolic succession entirely but once you have a whole series of anti-popes with no real pope then all of the appointments of new residential bishops are invalid those bishops do not receive jurisdiction over their diocese and so eventually you have no validly appointed residential bishops no diocesan bishops who actually have true authority or jurisdiction over their flock and thus the the entire visible hierarchy of the church is destroyed and apostolic succession is broken all right so those are the flaws in the solution to uh instead of a cautism which you know again at first glance it seems like a it seems like a solution it seems like something that must happen um let's i guess take a look back or go back to the beginning of this episode father and we're talking about some of these statements um the one just recently from pope francis but then you know other statements and what we're looking at today essentially is statements that are heretical or seem heretical to you and i father um what does that mean for the person stating them um does it basically remove the pope automatically from office does it remove a bishop from office so these are kind of the questions that we're going to be looking at here in this next section so um where do we start with looking at this father okay well uh great question so first of all all i've done so far is is just to point out the absurd consequences of what happens if we take a certain uh thesis or a belief we'll say that the thesis here is that as soon as um a a prelate a leader in the church bishop or the pope himself as soon as he starts to make uh heretical statements publicly then he loses his office without need of any you know canonical warnings on the part of his legitimate ecclesiastical superiors without need of of a sentence um you know declaring to the church that he's a heretic boom as soon as he's he said some publicly heretical things he loses his office ipso focto or automatically um that's the that's the thesis um that we're we're dealing with here and and so far we've just shown that if we apply it in strict rigor to you know the last um however many number of popes we end up with absurd uh conclu absurd consequences and so this this is just an initial kind of warning sign that we have to to say wait a moment um are we really sure of this thesis and and now that we have this doubt about it we're going to go and examine um the arguments that set up a contest usually bring forward in favor of this thesis of automatic or ipso facto loss of office upon publicly preaching or saying heretical things and we're going to say first of all we're going to break down the arguments of sort of a consciousness two major categories they argue for this thesis by by canonical arguments as well as by more strictly theological arguments and so i think will be helpful to deal with with these one at a time first of all the canonical ones then then getting into the theology itself of what heresy is and what kind of heresy would separate you from the church or make you lose your office okay so the the first argument then is that uh just make sure i have this right and so i'm i'm following you along for sure the first argument is that a a heretic someone who speaks heresy is excommunicated automatically as soon as they say this statement uh is that is that the argument yes exactly now um in fairness to sort of a contest most of them know this argument is is not good it doesn't hold water but some still do put it out so i think it's it's worth addressing um so this is they usually refer to canon 2314 of the 1917 code of canon law um which stipulates yes that that um as soon as a a heretic says something heretical publicly or or let's say not even publicly um this could even be something done privately you in in the secrecy of your bedroom you write out um the sentence you know mary is not the mother of god and and you actually mean it you understand that you're contradicting a dogma of faith a dogma taught by the church infallibly and as soon as you express your heresy externally whether in speech or writing you incur according to canon law um in automatic excommunication and this at first glance it would seem to have the implication that oh you must be now outside the church because that's the meaning of excommunication right is that is that you're deprived of um the ability to participate in in the sacraments and the worship of the church um you're put out of communion and so some people would point to this this cannon and say well look as soon as you become a heretic externally in any way um that's it you're no longer part of the church and so you must also lose your your office or your power of jurisdiction of teaching and governing um and so we've got to uh immediately clarify a few things here the first is that theologians commonly teach that excommunication puts a person outside the body of the church only after he has been denounced by name as someone to be avoided this is what we call in the 1917 code of canon law and ex-communicators vitandus someone who has been excommunicated and and declared by name um there's been a statement issued by competent authorities saying um this person is is a heretic and all must avoid him um or or even if it's for some other reason the point being is that for next communication to actually put you out outside the church you have to be indicated by name and there has to be this command avoid this person because he's no longer a member of the church and he'll corrupt you if you associate with him okay so not every excommunication puts you outside the body of the church and this is made abundantly clear as well by canon 2264 which speaks of acts of jurisdiction that are carried out by an excommunicated person and this canon says that these acts of jurisdiction continue to be valid even though the person has been excommunicated for as long as there hasn't yet been a condemnatory or declaratory sentence passed against him as long as sentence has not been pronounced by competent authority his acts of jurisdiction continue to be valid um finally uh last point here is that we we can point out that this argument we've just given ignores what immediately follows in in the same canon that appeals to so this is canon 2314 um which deals with the the the penalties incurred by heretics and schismatics and um immediately so uh i'll just read to you the canon these first two points so so this is canon two three one four and it says all apostates from the christian faith and each and every heretic or schizomatic number one incur ipso focto excommunication that's what we've just discussed and then number two if they do not repent after a warning they are deprived of benefits dignity pension office or other duty that they have in the church they're declared infamous and if they're clerics then with the warning being repeated they're deposed now what's important here is that first of all you have a warning a canonical warning and there's a certain procedure for that it's delivered by you know the person's competent uh superior and then if they do not repent after receiving that warning then they are deprived of office that's the wording of the canon and it's clearly the once again the competent superior who who declares that they're deprived of office only after having given a canonical warning and that warning has been ignored um so so to use this this canon two three one four as an argument at all um you'd have to basically just read point number one and ignore everything that follows because what follows is clearly in contradiction with this this argument that we've just dealt with okay so in order for this again just to sum up in order for this to to actually happen then someone the the person uttering the heresy must be warned and warned again and then there's a formal procedure where the person is then removed it doesn't happen automatically as is claimed at the beginning that's correct there has to be well certainly at least one warning and then it's up to the superior to intervene and remove that person from office yes okay all right uh then there's a second argument that that is uh commonly used by by this head of a contest uh what is that one father um yeah so they'll appeal to canon 188 um which says that any office um so just to be clear clear here when we're talking about office we're talking about let's say a duty or responsibility that someone has in the church such as you know the office of a um of a residential bishop is is his his duty and the authority that he has to to govern uh the diocese that he's appointed over that's his office and so if you lose office what that means is that you lose also um the authority the the jurisdiction which corresponds to your office and so this is why we're concerned about this this idea of loss of office um right and and this canon 188 says that any office becomes vacant upon the fact and without any declaration by tacit resignation recognized by the law itself if a cleric and and it lists a number of things that could happen number four is if a cleric publicly defects from the catholic faith then as the canon says his office becomes vacant upon the fact and without any declaration and so certificates will point to that and say well look these these popes they have already by their their publicly heretical statements they've they have publicly defected from the catholic faith and therefore there's no need of it of a declaration they they automatically lose office without a declaration according to this cannon okay seems compelling well yes it does at first glance um but we have to first of all recognize that um to publicly defect from the catholic faith does not mean merely to say heretical things publicly um this this means really to leave the church um usually by joining a heretical sect or at least to renounce the catholic faith directly as such um to say you know i i'm no longer catholic i no longer believe what the church teaches um and we can find some indications of this first of all in the fact that this is a form of of tacit resignation as canon 188 says um and tacit means you know silence not not being said expressly tacit resignation implies though that there's no longer a will to hold office that's what it means when you resign so this is a way of of resigning from office without explicitly saying that um and someone who expressly renounces the faith of the church does make it clear without necessarily saying so explicitly um he makes it clear to all that he's no longer interested in acting as a representative of the church and teaching in the church's name and everyone's going to be able to recognize this i mean that's why no declaration of loss of office is needed because the intention to abandon the office is manifest and this has certainly not been the case with the conciliar popes pope francis still claims to represent the catholic church he still claims to believe the catholic faith and to teach it even if many of his utterances do contradict church doctrine he still does claim to to represent the church to teach the catholic faith and to believe it himself he claims that and so we can't say that he's publicly defected from the catholic faith the other um the other point here is that we have to interpret canon 188 in the light of the other canon that we've already mentioned the one that deals specifically with heretics and the process of dealing with with their heresy and this canon 2314 is much more explicit about the steps that should be taken and so we ought to interpret what is ambiguous in canon 188 in the light of what is very clear in canon 2314 and if any public heretical statement resulted automatically in loss of office there would be no need for the canonical warnings that are foreseen in canon 2314 um first for section number two um and it would not be necessary for the competent superior to deprive the heretic after a warning of his office if he's already forfeited it automatically so so that that just doesn't make sense we have to reconcile these two cannons and we should interpret the one that has some some ambiguity in the light of the one which is very clear moreover the same cannon two three one four in in number three explicitly mentions canon 188 and gives a kind of interpretation of it um so so number three of this canon is if they have given their name to a non-catholic sect or publicly adhered to it then they are ipsofacto infamous and in accordance with canon 188.4 clerics if a warning proves fruitless are to be degraded um so in other words this this canon 2314 gives an interpretation to canon 188 and it says that if the cleric or if the heretic has given his name to a non-catholic sect or publicly adhered to it then canon 188 applies but if not the implication is if not if he hasn't publicly joined the heretical sect then we have to still go through this whole process of you know canonical admonitions and then and then the competent authority has to remove him from office because it's not clear that he has tacitly resigned that's not clear at all so basically just just to sum up again we we have to look at both of these we can't just look at canon 188 and ignore canon 2314 that just doesn't work exactly that's right and i think that for those who are listening following along um it will be helpful i'm sure we'll have the the text of these canons on on the screen for them to look at because um to be fair this is legal language it's very complicated uh hard to follow um but but the bottom line is that if you're using canon 188 um in such a way that you ignore or cancel out canon 2314 um which calls for a warning before a person loses office um then then you're kind of you're using canon law against itself that's not a proper way of interpreting canon law all right um let's move on to another argument of the set of akanta's father and that is something that was stated by paul iv which again seems to be fairly compelling right um so so paul iv uh formerly cardinal karafa he was um a man of great severity and very paranoid about the possibility of um someone possibly succeeding him as pope who would be heretical a protestant for example he was afraid that someone with who was a protestant or at least with protestant ideas would become pope after him and so he passed this this bull called uh ex apostolatus um in which he declares that anyone who has ever been a heretic is ineligible to be elected pope and his election is null even if all the cardinals agreed upon it um and and so certificates will throw this out and say well look um maybe our other canonical arguments aren't good but but look at this one this seems to be very clear anyone who's ever been a heritage can't be pope um and so even if we can't prove that you know pope francis has lost the heresy uh sorry the papacy now for for his current heresy um we can probably prove that he was a heretic even before he was elected and so his election was was null that's another common uh argument of side of a contest um and i mean there's a lot of things that we could say about this argument we could discuss the correct interpretation of the bull say what do they mean by heretic but we don't even have to get into that because um canonically speaking this this bull um as a part of church discipline has been abrogated by the 1917 code of canon law and yes uh there is a reference to it in the footnotes under canon 188 what we just discussed this idea of tacit resignation from office um but but to be included in the footnotes as a reference does not mean that that kumex apostologis is still in force as a part of church discipline you need more than just to be you know mentioned in the footnotes so so this this legislation this historical legislation um has been abrogated and so on the disciplinary level it's no longer a valid argument if it ever was um the only way that this this um papal bull could be used is as a theological argument you could say well it teaches something about you know the incompatibility of of being a heretic and holding office in the church and they're fine but then we'll get into the theological argument and i would just just first of all mention that if this bull is meant to be used as a theological argument um we can look at all the discussion that classic theologians have had about this this problem of a heretical pope and to my knowledge none of them and i've read a lot none of them has ever invoked this bull of paul the fourth comex apostolatus as a theological argument it's never been done until you know recently by by present-day said of a contest okay so this is these are the three canonical arguments that the set of economists will commonly use or some again we're sort of painting with a broad brush here there's really no way to say you know this is what everyone says who you know is a set of a contest etc but we're just being as general as we can because there are there are many different flavors of set of economism as you and i have talked about in previous episodes in the crisis series sure um so then father let's dive into the theological side of things that's the legal side of things let's go into the theological side of things um and the most compelling argument in my mind on this father is simply that heresy puts you outside of the church this is something that has been stated that's right so um you know pius the the twelfth and his encyclical mr g corporis on the mystical body of christ did did state that so not every sin however grave it may be is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the body of the church as does schism or heresy or apostasy so the teaching of the pope there is that heresy of its nature severs a man from the body of the church so yes that that statement is is well backed by by the authority of the magisterium heresy does put you outside of the church um and so that would be like the major of the syllogism here the minor premise would be no one who's outside of the church can have jurisdiction um and and this is clear enough as well um commonly the one is quoted here as leo the 13th who says in satisf that it is absurd to imagine that he is who is outside can command in the church so you're outside the church you can't have authority within the church um that that makes sense and the conclusion that follows from these two premises is that heretics must lose their jurisdiction um by the the very fact of becoming heretics there's nothing further that needs to be done and this appears to be backed up by a quotation from saint thomas aquinas who says that the power of jurisdiction does not remain in heretics and schismatics so it seems like upon becoming a heretic you lose your jurisdiction without need for any intervention of the church authorities okay again seems fairly clear but heresy and the word heretic the word heresy the word heretic those have very specific meanings so let's dive into that a little bit father how do we understand what this term means and are we talking about the same thing if we talk about someone who says something again like in the privacy of their own bedroom like we talked about or the pope saying something from a general audience does that mean he is a capital h heretic or he has pronounced capital h heresy right so great question and ultimately the the whole controversy is going to boil down to this question of um you know what does it take to be a heretic and also the fact that there are different senses of the word heretic and being a heretic in different senses will have different repercussions on your membership in the church and your ability to hold office so i think we need to break down this this idea of heresy first of all giving a general definition um and then and then giving some distinctions which are are absolutely necessary to understand the subject matter at hand first of all i would give a definition of heresy which is based on canon law itself so canon 13 25 paragraph two heresy is the pertinacious denial or doubting by a baptized person of a truth that must be believed with divine and catholic faith when we say divine and catholic faith that's referring to the ascent that we must give to truths that are directly revealed by god and sufficiently proposed as such by the church either through a psalm definition or through her ordinary and universal magisterium so two conditions there the truth has to be one directly revealed by god not simply a deduction that you make from a revealed truth but but the revealed truth itself and it has to be sufficiently proposed as a revealed truth by the church and sufficient proposal means an infallible proposal um so that that true truth will be proposed infallibly either in a psalm definition or else if it's been taught everywhere always and by all you know if it belongs to the ordinary universal magister so that's the first thing is is we have to be clear um what is what is the object of heresy um heresy is not the rejection of a theological opinion which may happen to be favored at the time um or even of a magisterial teaching that has not yet been proposed infallibly um that has not yet been you know um taught universally in time um or not yet been uh the object of a solemn definition um the other point though in this definition of heresy is the idea of pertinacity since heresy is the pertinacious denial or doubting of one of these truths and pertinacity means here a contempt of the church's magisterium as an infallible rule of faith it means that you realize this truth has been proposed infallibly by the church as an article of faith uh something divinely revealed and nevertheless i say no i i call it into doubt or i deny it that's pretenacity all right um there are different kinds of heresy as well there's what's called material heresy and formal heresy what are the distinctions there father right so that's based upon whether there is pretenacity or not because it's possible to deny a truth of faith without realizing it and then you're a material heretic whereas formal heresy is when you deny the truth of the faith and you know that you're doing it but then this is subject to a further subdivision because we can speak of this person at pertinacity or formal heresy um insofar as it's it's known in the internal forum um meaning you know in the conscious conscience of the person himself was a heretic um and and in so far as his conscience is manifested um in the tribunal of confession now the church her governing authority her hierarchy does not judge the internal matters of the soul it's only the confessor the the minister of the sacrament of confession who upon hearing confession judges if you know this soul um is guilty of formal heresy or not um but the church doesn't enter into the internal form in her you know in her regular governing of the church um then there's person per tenacity when it's brought to the external forum that is to say you know the um the governing of of the church um in what we can see and observe of people's actions and their words and so on um and this kind of person that per tenacity in the external form is manifested especially by being stubborn or obstinate in the face of canonical warnings and it's this this pertinacity manifested in this way in the external form which is the last disposition on the part of the heretic that is required um for the church to be able to rightly deprive him of of office and cut him off from her juridical structure by a declaratory or condemnatory sentence that's anticipating a little bit though our our conclusion that we're going to argue for the um i'll just sorry just jump ahead then uh the last uh division of heresy and the most relevant one here in this this question of jurisdiction loss of office is the division of heresy into occult or manifest and heresy is divided this way depending on whether um the fact of heresy that is the the existence of a heretical statement um and the pertinacity of the heretic his obstinacy his ill will whether these things have been sufficiently established in the external forum if they have not yet been sufficiently established then the heresy is a cult but if they have it's it's manifest and we have a little bit of help here from canon law canon law specifies that a crime is considered to be materially occult or hidden if the dialects meaning that the bad deed itself is hidden but it's formally a cult if imputability is not known in other words if i say let's say i say in public mary is not the mother of god um then certainly the delic the bad statement itself is is public it's well known um particularly if it's broadcasted by the media or something but it may still remain um the the crime itself of heresy may still remain formally occult um if it's not clear people that that i'm actually guilty of rejecting the church's teaching authority because maybe um i'm a catechumen or i was never properly instructed in the faith um sorry category let's forget that example because you have to be baptized to to be a heretic um but let's say i've never been properly formed in the faith and so i don't realize that i'm contradicting church teaching then then in fact i don't have that that formal um heresy or i don't have pertinacity and so it's possible for the fact of a heretical statement to be well known um that's that's public or even manifest but the the culpability the imputability of the crime may still be hidden and much of the controversy um that we have within the contest surrounds um this question of what conditions are required for the crime of heresy to be manifest not only materially as to the fact itself of an objectively heretical statement but formally as to its imputability in the external form okay so so bottom line we don't if if someone is saying that in the public sphere that mary is not the mother of god we we don't we we may not know specifically that their intention what their intention is by by saying that that we may not know whether or not they're they have this uh hatred for the magisterium of the church just to put it in in simpler terms sure i mean and and with the that example it's pretty hard to think of a way that they could be ignorant of the fact this is this is official church teaching um it probably would have been better to choose something else which is not as as obvious but it is possible that someone could deny a dogma of the church without realizing that it's actually a dogma they could think that it's just a theological opinion they could be completely unaware of the fact that the church has definitively taught this thing that they're denying and that would be material heresy all right so we've looked at material and formal heresy we've looked at occult and manifest heresy uh if someone were to be one of these um types of heretics um what effect does that have on any sort of membership that they may have in the catholic church yes good question well um what theologians normally talk about here is is the distinction between a cult or secret heretics and then manifest ones which is what we were just discussing um and while it's true that a cult heresy does put you outside of the church in some sense um you know we we gather that from the words of pius the ninth in his bowl any fabulous days when he's defining the immaculate conception he says if anyone dares to think otherwise than has been defined by us let him know and understand that he's he's condemned by his own judgment he has suffered shipwreck in the faith and that he is separated from the unity of the church so that's even if you just think something contrary to what you know has been defined by the church you are in some sense separated from the unity of the church but theologians will immediately add that this separation is not understood to be a juridical or canonical separation from the church and here i can just quote saint robert bellarmine himself who who as many of you know is probably the the favorite theologian of said of a contest st robert bellarmine says it is certain whatever one or another may think that an occult heretic if he be a bishop or even the supreme pontiff does not lose his jurisdiction or dignity or the title of head in the church until either he publicly separates himself from the church or being convicted of heresy is unwillingly separated that's from his his work on the church militant book 3 chapter 10. so it's clear from that that quotation as well as we could cite many theologians that being a secret or a cult heretic is not sufficient for you to separate yourself from the church in terms of her juridical structure the whole um you know the visible hierarchy of the church um so so if a bishop or even the pope himself internally or secretly disbelieves truths of faith um he still remains a member of the church juridically and is still capable of holding office and exercising acts of jurisdiction okay that's occult heretic what about someone who's a manifest heretic what does that do right well here we have to distinguish different senses of the word manifest heretic and the whole controversy in fact centers around whether we should understand someone to be a manifest heretic as soon as he publicly makes radical statements especially if it's in a way that leads good catholics to vehemently suspect that that the person is is malicious that he's proteinaceous um even if no canonical warnings have been given um or should we understand manifest heresy in a more restricted sense that is to say that the um the canonical warnings have been given and even a sentence has been issued by the authority of the church declaring the person a heretic then there's no question that that man is a manifest heretic once one sentence has been given by proper authority and all theologians would certainly concede at that point that the man is outside of the church juridically that he is no longer capable of holding office but the whole point of contention here is whether a man before a sentence has been given by the church before even canonical warnings have been given can he be considered a manifest heretic simply because his own conduct his statements in public um bring about this suspicion in the minds of people and um well uh to return to saint robert bellarmine this this does appear to be his position um he says for example and in his work on the roman pontiff he says that a manifest heretic would be ipso facto deposed would automatically lose his office before any excommunication or sentence of a judge and so he seems to be taking the word manifest heretic um in in the sense that um you know he's made publicly heretical statements there doesn't seem to be any way of excusing him it's a kind of notoriety of of fact as opposed to notoriety of law um which is which is when something has been declared by competent authority um this is without a declaration of competent authority it's just you know um you and i looking at the man it seems obvious to us that he's a heretic from what he said and saint robert bellarmine seems to be saying um that that's enough for him to be separated from the church and lose his office and we can find you know the same thing repeated um and by many other theologians some of them even canonized saints saint alphonsus de la guardia saint francis de sales i would point also to the catholic encyclopedia which summarizes this position by saying we're a pope to become a public heretic that is if he were publicly and officially to teach some doctrine clearly opposed to what has been defined as de fide catholica um so of catholic faith many theologians hold that no formal sentence of deposition would be required as by becoming a public heretic the pope would ipso facto ceased to be pope so in other words this this is a position which has been held not only by saint robert bellarmine but by many many theologians um but at the same time we can note from this article of of the catholic encyclopedia so published in 1913 um we can note that it it was and it continues to be a an issue which is debated by theologians um is it true that the pope would lose his office automatically without a sentence of deposition um the the encyclopedia says many theologians hold that but what is implied is that others do not others don't so that's precisely what we have to look into especially since if you say yes he he does lose his office before a sentence of deposition is given then we have this doubt well what about all these popes that have said publicly heretical things um have they lost their dignity um and and so so we already noted that that certain uh theologians of great authority have have said yes but on the other side of this um we find other very very important very influential theologians we can cite among many others kajaten john of st thomas bilawah who who are all um you know famous commentators of saint thomas they are they belong to the school of thomas those who strictly follow the thought of saint thomas aquinas and all of these authors and others like them hold that a sentence of the church would be required for the crime of heresy to be canonically manifest and to separate a man from the church and this would be true not only of the pope but but with even greater reason um of bishops and priests who who say heretical things so yeah this is the big separation this is kind of the in my mind correct me if i'm wrong father but this seems to be kind of where the rubber meets the road on the set of the contest argument you have uh saint robert bellarmine you have saint alphonsus saint francis of sales saying one thing and then you have others saying another um exactly are we and maybe we'll get into this and tell me just to hold on if i'm asking a question ahead of time but it seems like we're picking and choosing the position that we want um or am i well do you see what i'm saying sure absolutely so uh in all fairness to the side of the contest um their their theory in principle is supported by a good number of theologians um what i don't think any theologian would support is the conclusions that they draw from it and that's why we dealt with that already earlier on in in the podcast so in other words either of these two opinions um if you just looked at the number of theologians on each side the weight of authority either of them could be could be chosen freely by a catholic um because it is it is a matter of controversy that has not been decided in a definitive way by any magisterial pronouncement um and so my aim here is simply to point out first of all um the the theological opinion that the cytoplacantis prefer um it doesn't seem like we can hold it in practice at least in the way that they do by applying it to all these popes knocking them down saying that they are you know they're anti-popes they lost the papacy they lost their church membership for manifest heresy um we certainly cannot apply this this um this opinion this theological opinion in the way that they do that is clear um and so we're going to discuss you know should we reject it all together is there a way of understanding it which is more acceptable and what arguments are there for the other side what about the theologians who say you need a sentence of the church first um so i think i think we'll have to look at that seriously um and i'm gonna argue in in some of what follows um that that their opinion um does seem to be more probable and seems to have its basis in even some of the the writings of saint thomas aquinas um some things that haven't really been brought very much into the discussion until now um but but it's enough for us to say um you know our opinion that the that the pope does not lose his office before um a declaration um is supported by by many theologians with with great authority um it has good reasons behind it and um you know uh to answer in advance the objection that follows on that well um side of the conscious will say your opinion is no good it's not acceptable because um it it involves some kind of conciliarism or galcanism how can the church pass a sentence on the pope and that's that was the opinion of these authors um and so to be very clear um we the society of saint pius the tenth if we uh tend to follow this opinion it's not necessarily embracing that further statement that yes the church can pass a sentence upon the pope and declare him a heretic in such a way that he loses his office not necessarily um but the point is that um for for the crime of heresy to be canonically manifest there must be a sentence and so if in the case of the pope no sentence is possible because the highest see is judged by no one then what follows is that the heresy of the pope remains always canonically occult or hidden it's impossible there is no process no legitimate legal process that can bring sufficiently um to light his his per tenacity in the external form because if he's given canonical admonitions there's no one with authority to do that and he has no obligation to respond so we're always left with this doubt well um is is he really a heretic or not and in the absence of authoritative you know warnings or admonitions his heresy remains canonically hidden occult so there's there's no one to judge the pope he is he is a supreme pontiff so there is there is no mechanism in the church by which he can be judged not even by a council not by bishops not by dubia not by father mcgilvery well um yes it would seem it would seem not now these these authors that uh we're going to be quoting um who who established the necessity of a declaratory sentence for heresy manifest these authors they hold that it is possible for the church to pass a sentence on the pope for heresy and they have their own ways of explaining how this is not in conflict with the doctrine of of of the pope's primacy because in fact all these authors cadgetin john of st thomas and the rest they accept the primacy of the pope um but they'll point to for example certain ancient canons such as there's a canon in medieval canon law called si papa which talks about how if the pope becomes a heretic then in that one case he can be judged by the church so so there are some you know juridical precedents for this opinion and the opinion i would add further has not been condemned um it has not been abandoned by theologians even after the the definition of papal primacy given at vatican one um just to cite one author of great authority father prumer father dominic prumer who is a great moral theologian of the 20th century um and who wrote a book on on canon law um in his in his manual of canon law he says that um you know in the case of a publicly heretical pope um different opinions have been brought forth as to how he would lose his his office how he would cease to be pope for heresy um and prumer cites both bellarmine whose opinion we're going to discuss and and and then also cadgetin who's representing this other opinion that you need a sentence and that a sentence could be passed on the pope and prumer continues by saying that in fact none of these opinions surpass the limits of probability in other words it's none of these is is certain um and and they still are you know valid opinions um if the opinion of cadgetin were contrary to the definitions of vatican one were a denial papal primacy if that were clear um then prumer who's writing well after vatican one could not give any probability to that opinion but the fact is that he and other authors as well have continued to uphold that this is this is an acceptable opinion even the catholic encyclopedia that i quoted for you it's article on infallibility which which touches on this matter tangentially uh the catholic encyclopedia says many authors think that um the pope would lose his office ipso facto before a sentence of of deposition um but the implication is that there are others even well after vatican one who still continue to say nope a sentence of deposition is necessary and even even they hold that it's possible for us we don't necessarily hold that it's possible because it's not clear how to reconcile it with vatican one um but what's important is that um so so what's fundamental to the the argument of cadgetin john of st thomas and the other people that that will quote is that without a sentence um declaring the crime the crime remains canonically occult canonically hidden and so um that means that um if a sentence is possible if it's possible for the church let's say an imperfect ecumenical council a council of bishops who come together in opposition to the pope if it's possible for them um to give a sentence um to pass a sentence of heresy on the pope to declare him a heretic um then he loses office fine but if that is impossible if their sentence would be without any authority without any effect then what what what results is that the pope remains the pope and he does not lose his office for making these these heretical statements so that all makes sense what you're saying but i am a bit concerned because it seems like we are we're taking the opinion of some theologians who are very learned follow saint thomas aquinas et cetera but we are dismissing saint robert bellerin saying robert bellermann is a doctor of the church he's a canonized saint his his opinions father have to take some weight so i'm going to push back on you a little bit how do you how do you just dismiss an argument that seems very well founded from saint robert bellerin a great question and this is something that you know said of a contest will often object to us precisely this um you know cadgetin john of st thomas bor um you know dominic banyas and others other theologians that you quote they're not saints they're not doctors of the church we have to go on the side of the saints and doctors of the church um but i'm going to point out first of all um this is not true we can't say that just because someone is a saint or even a doctor of the church that all of their teachings must be accepted and followed by us as good catholics um a very easy example to give of this would be um saint anselm who who is a doctor of the church and he has an argument for the existence of god called the ontological argument in which basically he says you know god is the most perfect being that we could imagine or conceive of um but it's more perfect to exist than not to exist therefore god must exist it's like a shortcut to proving the existence of god and he proposed this he was very serious about it he thought you know how can i prove to unbelievers the existence of god and this is what he came up with and he is a canine saint he's a doctor of the church and nevertheless hardly anyone hardly any catholic theologian takes this argument seriously and saint thomas aquinas himself um without mentioning saint anselm by name he he takes care to refute this argument to show that it's invalid um he does that in his his own summa theologica um uh where he treats of the existence of god so in other words it is possible for saint and doctor the church to propose an argument or establish a thesis which is which is false which is invalid um and so no be being a canonized saint or a doctor of the church does not make one infallible does not mean that that catholics are obliged to accept each and every one of that person's thesis um regarding saint robert bellarmine himself it may be helpful to point out that um he does have some other theses which are commonly rejected or at least which are very controversial um regarding the holy sacrifice of the mass for example saint robert bellarmine taught what's called destruction theory um in which well uh basically he holds that the priest's communion is an essential part of the sacrifice of the mass because it's by the priest's communion that the victim is destroyed and the destruction of the of the victim is is an essential part of sacrifice um and well this this theory that the priest communion is is the act by which the victim is destroyed it's it's by and large rejected by theologians in fact it seems even to be implicitly rejected by pope pius xii himself in his encyclical mediator day where he teaches that the essence of the sacrifice of the mass consists in the double consecration alone that the separate consecration of the of of the bread into the body of christ and the the the wine into the blood of christ um is already a mystical immolation or mystical destruction of the victim and that the priest's communion is not essential um it isn't an integral part of the sacrifice it's required for its wholeness but it's not part of its essence um forgive me if that's a little bit of strews but um this is to point out that there are other theories of saint robert bellarmine that um were wrong and and have been rejected by the church um we can point as well to certain others um his abduction theory as to how the the blessed sacrament how our lord jesus christ comes to be really present under the sacramental species um it's it's opposed by the the thomas who favor instead the production or the reproduction theory um and their their opinion is more commonly accepted in the church it's more in harmony with the teachings of the council of trent st robert bellarmine also has a theory on how to reconcile grace and free will called congruism which is a variant of molinism um and so all these theories of his um either have been you know rejected or at least they're not uh they're not commonly embraced by by catholic theologians which is just uh to highlight to underscore the fact that just because he's a saint and doctor the church doesn't mean he's always right okay so then how do we how do we reconcile um some of these statements i mean it seems like uh we're casting some doubt on almost all the pronouncements of of the saints um by saying some of them can be wrong um well i mean i'm not calling all of his uh statements doubtful in fact if he was canonized and declared a doctor of the church that was for a reason it's because as a whole his doctrine is excellent it's very good um but it's just the truth that nobody gets it right all the time um and so it's not wrong it's not um you know irreverent or intellectually prideful to express disagreement with with a saint or doctor of the church on a particular point especially if you can you can find theologians of great weight who who agree with you in opposing him and that's in fact the case here um because if we look at the divide and theologians as to this question of manifest heresy um we find that it's practically all the thomas those who are strict followers of saint thomas aquinas are on the side of well cadgetin and john of st thomas these these great thomas who they all hold these followers of saint thomas aquinas all hold that you need a sentence of the church before a you know quote unquote manifest heretic loses office um and and on this topic i would point out well um saint pius the tenth in his moto proprio doctorius angelici when he's talking about you know the importance of following saint thomas aquinas as our guide in all matters theological as well as philosophical he says um there's a very important statement he says if the doctrine of any writer or saint has ever been approved by us or our predecessors it may easily be understood that it was commended to the extent that it agreed with the principles of aquinas or was in no way opposed to them in other words the status of saint thomas aquinas as as universal doctor the church is so high so exalted um that even if you know the popes have recommended for example saint alphonsus de la guari as a a safe guide in in areas of moral theology or saint robert bellarmine has been you know recommended especially for um these these questions concerning the church um and and the primacy of the roman pontiff and so on even if the church has recommended certain other men um according to saint paul's tenth this recommendation is only to the extent that their teaching is in agreement with the uh with the principles of saint thomas aquinas or at least doesn't oppose them so saint thomas holds a a priority over all the other doctors of the church um and that's why when you see all the thomas all those who follow saint thomas more closely than any other theologians when all the thomas follow one line of opinion in opposition to maybe saint robert bellarmine maybe saint alphonsus de la guardia or whoever just the fact that the thomas are saying what they're saying is already a strong argument of authority okay so there can be disagreements with a saint and a doctor of the church saint thomas aquinas holds the primacy got it so let's look specifically at the arguments of saint robert bellarmine father um excellent what's wrong with them okay well um let's let's dive right in so um saint robert bellarmine he argues for this idea that a manifest heretic loses his his office his authority in the church immediately upon making publicly heretical statements he argues it for in two places one is where he deals with the the ideas of a cult and manifest heresy in his treatise on the church militant another is where he talks about the case of the heretical pope and his treatise on the roman pontiff and if we collate these two you know um uh passages in saint robert bellarmine we bring them together we see that in both cases he uses the same example to prove his point he points to the example of the heretical patriarch of constantinople nestorius who preached publicly the heresy that mary was not the mother of god and that our lord jesus christ was a human person in whom the word of god dwelled as in a temple so so mary giving birth to him was was not the mother of god just the mother of this human person um that was what we called an historian heresy and the stories began to preach these things publicly um in in his uh you know cathedral of constantinople um and well um saint robert bellamy argues that as soon as he began to preach those things he lost his jurisdiction his power in the church um he became a manifest heretic right away um even before he was condemned by the council of ephesus you know two two or so years later um and his entire basis for saying this is um from certain decisions of pope saint celestine who was the pope at the time and when pope saint celestine heard of what was going on um he heard that nestorius had been excommunicating um all of his clergy who were opposing him opposing his heresy um that he was you know punishing them all and trying to force his heresy upon the church of constantinople and pope saint celestine wrote to console these these clerics these these clergy men who had been excommunicated by their patriarch nestorius he wrote to them saying you know not to take any account of these excommunications because from the moment that this man began to preach this heresy he was no longer capable of throwing anyone out of the church since he had already shown himself worthy to be deposed that those are basically the words of pope saint celestine and saint robert bellarmine looking at this example he says ah um uh the pope is saying that nestorius was unable to validly excommunicate anyone's ever since he started to preach his heresy in public therefore he must not have had his jurisdiction as as patriarch he must have lost it at the moment that he began preaching and if we want to directly respond to this historical example we can say well it actually doesn't hold water it's not the only possible explanation for why these excommunications were were declared to be null the obvious reason in fact is that they were manifestly unjust these clerics who were excommunicated by nestorius what were they doing they were opposing his heresy and if you ask any canonist um and they'll they'll say of course an excommunication which is manifestly unjust has no effect um it is nolan itself and so that's sufficient to to explain this this reply of pope saint celestine you don't have to say that the man has lost his office but he's lost his jurisdiction you can just say that these acts of of excommunication or other centers that he inflicted on his clergymen these acts themselves were null they were lacking in authority because of their injustice and that's enough you don't have to say that the man himself lost his authority as such um and in fact if we look at the historical records we look at the correspondence between all the men involved in this this great historical drama we look at the acts of the council of of ephesus it seems very clear that nestorius was considered to hold his office all the way up until the time that he was deposed by a sentence of the council in the year 431 you read through the acts and maybe we can in fact post some of these the texts which are relevant to this question and we can post them um online but um it it actually appears very clear that the stories continue to be recognized as as patriarch as having authority until the council deprived him of his authority by an official sentence declaring him a heretic and putting him outside of the church interesting okay so but did did robert bellarmine of saint robert bellamy did he i don't want to say contradict himself but did he give any other examples that are that seem to indicate he's kind of holding both both positions or both sides well yes exactly you lead me right into the next point which is that um in fact not only does this one example that he gives not really hold water it's not it's not um it's not watertight but he also has other passages in his writings that seem to contradict this position or make it less less plausible in particular i would note that when he writes on the notes of the church he brings forth example of um certain churches specifically the churches of corinth and galatia who publicly taught heresies and we we read this in fact in the epistle in the epistles of saint paul to the corinthians and to the galatians uh the corinthians denied the resurrection of the body and the galatians taught that the observance of the mosaic law is necessary for salvation and saint paul had to write to these churches and rebuke him and say what you're teaching us is heresy it's not it's not what i have given you um and in fact if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than that which i have given let him be anathema um so so these churches were teaching heresy publicly and nevertheless saint robert bellamy writes that they were still true churches they were not in other words separated from the unity of the catholic church and he gives the reason he says it is one thing to air and to be ready to receive instruction and and that's how these churches were when they were corrected by saint paul presumably they they amended their ways they they changed their teaching but it is another thing not to want to learn and so there saint robert bellarmine himself introduces this idea of um well uh formal versus material heresy is it just that the person is in ignorance when he says heretical things publicly or is he actually malicious and and this is precisely the problem how can we tell if someone is in the words of saint robert bellarmine ready to receive instruction unless he is admonished by his legitimate superior that's the problem um very interesting so so basically again we can't going back to occult versus manifest heresy we cannot determine whether or not someone is is speaking this you know what what is the intention behind their their heresy and unless we can do that right exactly and and i mean some some set of economists will say well you know if the person was is well educated you know it's a he's a bishop or or the pope he should be he should know the church's faith better than anyone else so how can we possibly give him any leeway or say well maybe he's he's in good faith right um but that's simply that's not the um that's not the procedure of the church especially in our canon law it doesn't say you know if if the cleric if the heretic is ignorant then he should be given a canonical warning but you know if you think that there's no way he he is in good faith then just go ahead and and uh you know deprive him of office right away there aren't these distinctions built into canon law it doesn't matter what the person's level of education was um always you you proceed um with what's stipulated by canon law you give the canonical admonitions to prove to test pertinacity in the external forum so this is i guess let's let's keep going on on this line of questioning father again what is if if someone is malicious or ignorant in in their preaching on on this heresy um how do we how are we supposed to think of that person well um the the truth is that we can't really judge which of the two they are it's not easy to um so in fact i think this is this is pointing to um the practical problems that are inherent in this thesis of saint robert bellarmine um which is that you know if it's sufficient for a person to say heretical things publicly um for him to lose his office in the church um then there's gonna be a lot of anxiety of conscience you know especially when there are priests or bishops or there's a pope um who says things that border on heresy but it's not 100 clear that in fact uh this is a a heresy it could just be opposed to you know the common opinion of theologians or or something that's been taught with authority but not yet infallibly there's all these different degrees of of magisterial teaching and not everything is is a truth of faith um moreover it's it's so hard to speculate about what the person actually knows whether they're aware of of the fact that they're they're contradicting church doctrine um whether they're ready to be corrected by by their legitimate superior um and so if we follow this this thesis to the letter it it fosters all kinds of anxieties um and it can even create schisms and we may see that later on when we deal with side of the consciousness history on this line i would like to quote one of the most important theologians in this controversy charles renee bilowah he was a a theologian who wrote in the um the early part of the 18th century um he he wrote a commentary on the the works of saint thomas aquinas um hisuma and his commentary was extremely influential was very widely used by the clergy and he writes on this particular subject and he takes the position of cadgetin and john and st thomas that you need um you need a statement of the church before a heretic loses office for what he said publicly and he argues this way i'll quote from him he says if manifest heretics had to be avoided before their denunciation this would endanger souls and generate anxiety of conscience since there would be uncertainty as to who are manifest heretics some persons affirming and others denying as actually happened in the case of jansenism it is very difficult for lay people to know with certainty if someone is a manifest heretic or not since in most cases the subject matter of the heresy surpasses their understanding so these are the kinds of practical difficulties that this idea um results in um even just for you know if it's a question of your your local parish priest who you suspect of heresy then you have this anxiety of conscience well you know he hasn't yet no no sentence has been passed by against him his bishop hasn't deposed him um he's still the parish priest and and goes and preaches and hears confessions can i go to him for confession or not has he lost his jurisdiction and his membership in the church because of the heretical things that he said um and so in it you know in many times in church history this if this were true there would have been a lot of confusion and anxiety but even more so when it's applied to the pope and many theologians have pointed out this difficulty which i think has been largely ignored by the partisans of saint robert bellarmine's position in fact in all the their writings that i have read so far i've never come across a direct response to this difficulty one that actually takes away the the problem that this thesis implies in practice um so to quote for example francisco suarez who's actually a jesuit who is contemporary with saint robert bellarmine um and also very influential and in the jesuit order they they tend to follow his theol his theological writings more than anyone else's and he says we would fall into doubt about exactly how great the degree of infamy ought to be for the pope to be reputed to have fallen from his dignity thence would arise schisms and everything would become perplexing especially if the pope after becoming infamous would keep possession of his sea by force or other means and exercise many acts of his office you know would these acts be valid do we have to pay heed to them or not um there would be all these disagreements in the church is the pope's heresy manifest enough for him to have lost office or not and some would say yes another would say no and just to quote one more theologian on the same line um dominic bonies who was a great tomist and actually was one of the spiritual directors of saint teresa of avila he was of the same opinion he required a declaration of the church a sentence of the church and he said that you know if the sentence of the church were not required for loss of office then in particular with regard to the papacy we would have doubtful popes and unknown popes and everything would be churned up in a kind of babylonic confusion that's what he writes and that's what not only he but so many theologians have pointed out and and i don't think that there's ever been a coherent response given to that problem so so the again it's it's looking at the practical difficulties with accepting this this conclusion that someone can lose their office immediately after becoming a heretic um and if and if you agree with that and again it's a disputed it's a disputed spot in in theology but if you hold to that you're going to open up a whole can of worms in terms of how did the faithful see a possible heretic pastor how did the faithful see a possible heretic pope it's just going to cause mass confusion and essentially rip the church apart precisely so the theory is extremely simple and and compelling um on the abstract level on on the speculative level um it seems very simple it seems to work well it also explains you know it does away with the difficulty of how could the church pass a sentence on the pope for heresy it seems to um it has a lot that is attractive in it but when you apply it in practice it's it's a disaster um and that's precisely what we've been seeing the last 50 years with all of these um various set of econ sects that have broken off and at various times and for various reasons and fight among themselves and and so on um this is a a you know living demonstration of the practical difficulties in here in this theological opinion um but i think uh what's probably the most compelling counter-argument to bellarmine's opinion is that um you know in fact it's testable in a way because we can look at the practice of the church and say well does the church behave this way does the church do the faithful act as if you know a man could lose his authority at any moment by making a heretical statement or is it the practice of the church to wait and to do make canonical admonitions and so on um and and to go back and quote once again from the theologian charles rene biowar who we've cited before he provides us a very valuable testimony as to what was the practice of the church in his era once again that's that's the earlier mid 18th century um and that's that's coming about one century after saint robert bellarmine who died i believe in the in the early 1600s early 17th century um so this is this is more than 100 years after bellarmine and so you'd think that by now you know these ideas have been aired there's been a lot of controversy surely the church would have come to some kind of at least a practical resolution as to how to deal with this issue and i think that bor gives us a very important testimony as to how the church in practice works and what what thesis what what theory is is the one which is actually followed in practice he says that the law and praxis of the church require that a heretic be denounced before he loses his jurisdiction our argument he says is confirmed by the current praxis of the entire church no one avoids his pastor even for the reception of the sacraments as long as he is allowed to remain in his benefits meaning his office even if the man is in the judgment of all or at least the of the majority a manifest jansenist and rebellious against the definitions of the church so in other words that's that's how it worked in his day um and that's more than a hundred years after st robert bellarmine um it didn't matter if someone seemed to be a manifest heretic by by rebelling against the definitions of the church by saying heretical things publicly as long as he was tolerated by the church um allowed to remain in his benefits or office and he was still considered to be a minister of the church and the faithful could with security of conscience approach him for the sacraments including those like confession that require jurisdiction and i think this testimony is very powerful it's not something that we can lightly ignore or brush aside sure this was this was the normal practice of the church and so you it's it's difficult again to take the the abstract and then compare it to the to the reality of how the church has been practicing through the ages it just and if those two disagree there's a problem well yes and and so that's why i would say that the practice of the church is in fact a very sure argument in favor of the opinion of of the thomas of cadgetin john of st thomas and others who say you need a sentence of the church before before a person can be considered a manifest heretic in the canonical sense before he can be considered to have lost his office in jurisdiction that sentence is not something optional um and i would in fact say that we can go back farther than um bor or even the contemporaries of saint robert bellarmine such as you know cadgetin john of st thomas who argued against him we can go back to saint thomas aquinas himself let's look for just a moment at the teachings of the angelic doctor because i think that in fact if we bring together a few passages of his he gives a very clear answer to this question and it and it becomes very understandable that all the thomas all those who are close followers of saint thomas have taken the position that they have so if you'll allow me just to quote a few passages from the summit theologica we we start with the article in the second second question 11 article 3 whether heretics ought to be tolerated and this is very important so just just listen to what he says saint thomas says that with regard to heretics on their side there is the sin whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the church by excommunication but also to be severed from the world by death so it was just pausing there their sin of heresy makes them deserving to be separated from the church it doesn't separate them automatically it just makes them liable to separation by excommunication is what saint thomas says to pick up with the quotation on the part of the church however there is mercy which looks for the conversion of the wander wherefore she condemns not at once but after the first and second admonition as the apostle directs after that if he is yet stubborn the church no longer hoping for his conversion looks to the salvation of others by excommunicating him and separating him from the church and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death um so that's i think very clear um it's not right away that the heretic becomes separated from the church by his own sin but rather it's the church who after warning him after being patient eventually effects makes the separation happen by her sentence of excommunication did saint thomas have it wrong i have a hard time thinking and again looking back to what uh pope saint paul's the tenth said this is you you when in doubt between two theologians you default to saint thomas aquinas follow st thomas exactly and this is not an isolated quotation i think we can we can also produce other testimonies for example he says um in speaking of you know wicked men who who administer the sacraments he says as long as a minister of the church is tolerated in his ministry he that receives a sacrament from him does not communicate in his sin whether it be this enough heresy or something else there's no distinction here but he communicates with the church from whom he has his ministry in other words for us it's enough that the man be tolerated by his superiors in his in his office in his position and it would be you know a very disorderly way of governing the church if our lord jesus christ had instituted such things in such a way that a man could you know lose his office and still be tolerated in his ministry but no for saint thomas aquinas the fact that a man is tolerated in his ministry as a sign that yes he still possesses his office validly and his his acts are are valid he's still a minister of the church um but i think the most explicit of all the statements here um would be taken from the supplement of the summa so question 19 article 6 and for those of you who may object and say well the supplement was written after the death of saint thomas aquinas this this reply of saint thomas is actually copied from his commentary on the sentences of peter lombard book four distinction 19. question one article two uh question three so it's this is saint thomas for sure this is real um and saint thomas says since it is by appointment of the church that one man has authority over another so a man may be deprived of his authority when you hear authority think jurisdiction this is the same thing so a man may be deprived of his authority over another by his ecclesiastical superiors consequently since the church deprives heretics schismatics and the like of jurisdiction by withdrawing their subjects from them either altogether or in some respect insofar as they are thus deprived they cannot have the use of the keys um which is a metaphor for this power of jurisdiction so it's very clear there that it's the role of the church to deprive these men of of their jurisdiction of their authority um any and he makes it even more clear in his reply to the third objection in which he says that sin of itself and here he this includes you know the sin of heresy the sin of schism sin of itself does not remove matter meaning the people who are subject to a person's jurisdiction as certain punishments do saint thomas is saying that the punishment that the church inflicts on the heretic um does remove from him um his flock those who he had jurisdiction over previously his sin of heresy does not do that but the punishment of the church does the last of these testimonies is regarding um well whether it's permissible to receive communion from heretical excommunicated or sinful priests and to hear mass said by them so again we're dealing specifically with with this question of heretics um st thomas replies heretics schismatics and excommunicates have been forbidden by the church's sentence to perform the eucharistic right and therefore whoever hears their mass or receives the sacraments from them commits sin but not all who are sinners are debarred by the church's sentence from using this power and so although suspended by the divine sentence yet they are not suspended in regard to others by any ecclesiastical sentence consequently until the church's sentence is pronounced it is lawful to receive communion at their hands and to hear their mass and saint thomas goes on um to quote saint augustine um or or rather yes um saint augustine who's commenting on the instruction of saint paul not to even eat with someone who is you know a bad influence or or heretic um and saint augustine quoted by st thomas here says um in saying this he st paul was unwilling for a man to be judged by his fellow man on arbitrary suspicion or even by usurped extraordinary judgment but rather by god's law according to the church's ordering whether he confess of his own accord or whether he be accused and convicted in other words if if you know you or i say well i think that that pope francis is a heretic because of things that he said there's been no sentence of the church declaring this but i think so and so i think that i have to avoid him as a heretic and consider him to be outside the church what i'm doing there is i am i'm using usurped extraordinary judgment in in the language of saint thomas that is not my judgment to make um it's the judgment of the church to pronounce on on a heretic especially if he holds office has jurisdiction in the church it's it's the it's the duty it's the the office of the church to make that judgment and not of the individual um so so this is very important in all these passages it's clear that this the sentence of the church is the decisive element in separating a heretic from the church's juridical structure and depriving him of his his office the authority that he has within the church all right that makes sense we can't judge it is up for the church up to the church to to make this official to make this pronouncement concrete absolutely absolutely um have there been we've talked about some other some other theologians who have disagreed with what st robert bellarmine has said could we go through some of those just for a minute absolutely so i did mention some of them by name already but it's good to quote some of the most relevant passages from them and we'll see that in fact they're just following the same position the same mentality of saint thomas aquinas himself so we have john of st thomas who who writes on this topic in his disputation on the authority of the supreme pontiff and he says uh responding to bellarmine he says we respond to bellarmine's reasoning in this way so say robert bellarmine said a manifest heretic is outside the church if you're outside the church you can't have jurisdiction you can't have authority you lose it automatically um and he responds one who is not a christian both in himself that is by you know having committed the sin of heresy and in relation to us cannot be pope however if he is not a christian in himself because he has lost the faith but in relation to us he has not yet been juridically declared as an infidel or heretic no matter how manifestly he be such according to private judgment he is still a member of the church as far as we are concerned and consequently he is its head it's a very clear statement and it's falling right on um the the the heels of what we just read from saint thomas that um you know um a sinner who has not yet been um and condemned by any sentence of the church although he may be suspended by the divine sentence to use the language of saint thomas yet he's not suspended in regard to others by any sentence of the church and so he remains a minister of the church and and can be lawfully approached for the sacraments um then the other quote the other authority that i want to to quote from is is father paul layman um who wrote a very important um uh basically textbook of moral theology in the the 17th uh century so this would have been around the the same time he was contemporary with st robert bellarmine and john of st thomas and his textbook was used or his um yes his textbook of moral theology was used in many seminaries for the formation of the clergy so so his his um opinion is is certainly of great authority and he wrote that the supreme pontiff insofar as he is a private person can become a heretic and by private person we understand in so far as he's not you know defining dogma's ex katudra because when the pope you know defines something infallibility will prevent him from airing let alone from from teaching heresy but insofar as he's a private person not defining truths infallibly he can become a heretic nevertheless as long as the pope is tolerated by the church and publicly recognized as the universal pastor he really continues to possess the power of the papacy so that all of his decrees have no less force and authority than if he were truly a believer the reason for this is that it is expedient for the well-governing of the church even as in any other well-constituted commonwealth that the acts of a public magistrate remain valid as long as the magistrate remains in his office and is publicly tolerated and that once again is coinciding perfectly with what was said by saint thomas aquinas where he noted that as long as a minister of the church is tolerated in his ministry he that receives a sacrament from him or who that you know considers himself to be subject to him in some way does not communicate in his sin but communicates with the church from whom he has his ministry in other words as long as the church tolerates someone in his ministry that that person even if you know he'd be guilty of the sins of heresy is still um a member of the church juridically or in relation to us and is still a lawful and invalid office holder he still has his authority in the church until um a sentence is passed against him and in the case of the pope if a sentence is impossible then that means simply that he remains always um canonically and a cult heretic and cannot lose his office for his his publicly heretical statements provided that he continues to profess to be catholic um and to you know believe let's say in theory to believe what the church teaches um then the teaching of individual heresies is not sufficient to make him a canonically manifest heretic he has to leave the church of his of his own authority uh of his own accord he has to abandon the church of his own will um and for as long as he does not and and continues to claim to be um you know the the pope and and the teacher of the catholic faith then his heresy is not uh canonically manifest it's very interesting um again for the i forget what the principle is but i think you and i spoke about it when we did the crisis series a few months back that there's this principle that whoever holds it you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they that they hold it and it is for the good of of the people is for the good of the faithful whether we're talking about a temporal ruler or uh a spiritual ruler for the good of the faithful you have to assume that that person has that authority precisely and and let's let's put it though from the perspective of our lord jesus christ who is establishing the church um would our lord want to establish the church in such a way that we could be deceived in this in this very damaging manner you know if for example um if we are simply doing what we ought to do and giving the superior the the benefit of the doubt continuing to recognize him and in fact um the church is constituted in such a way that the man has has ipso facto lost his authority um the result is that the rest of the churches is led innocently into a grave error into recognizing a man as pope or or in other cases as you know uh the the diocesan bishop or whatever when in fact he's not um and this is precisely what is so disturbing about the side of the contest thesis especially as it's applied in our day is that the these um side of the concepts are claiming that the whole church practically speaking the whole church is adhering to is recognizing a man as her head who is not in fact her head and you know if you're going to quote um authorities such as saint alphonsus de ligouri um in favor of this this thesis of ipso focus loss of office because saint alphonsus also teaches the same thing um you can't ignore the other quotations taken from the same people regarding the validity of this universal and peaceful acceptance of a pope it is saint alphonsus de la guar as well as cardinal bo who's a close follower of saint robert bellarmine saint alphonsus de la guardi teaches that when the whole church peacefully adheres to a man as pope that is an infallible sign of the validity of his election of the fact that he truly is pope because god could not permit the whole church to adhere to an anti-pope an impostor um so that's that is a clear teaching of saint alphonsus cardinal bio and other theologians which is uh either ignored or denied by by side of the contest so i guess to to wrap up this section father um how how are we to see saint robert bellamy after all of this um great question well first of all um our thesis in practice um doesn't depart too much from his own if you interpret the term manifest heretic in a strict sense um and so i'm going to quote uh cardinal beo who i said is a close follower of saint robert bellarmine and follows him in his opinion on the topic of a heretical pope and we're going to see that if we take the term manifest heretic or a cult heretic in the proper sense then in fact there's not a great divergence in these opinions when they are applied in practice so cardinal bio says those also are occult heretics who do indeed manifest their heresy by external signs but not by a public profession you will easily understand that many men of our times fall into the latter category those namely who either doubt or positively disbelieve matters of faith and do not disguise the state of their mind in the private affairs of life but who have never expressly renounced the faith of the church and when they are asked categorically about their religion declare of their own accord that they are catholics in other words um you could adopt the position of saint robert bellarmine but as long as you understand the concept of a manifest heretic in a very restricted way the person basically has to no longer identify as catholic no longer claim to be catholic then in fact we're in agreement because even um the the theologians that we've quoted who say um you know you need a sentence of the church they're talking about a man who says heretical things but still claims to be um a minister of the church still claims to have the faith of the church and there because of that you know those two claims that the same man makes which are logically in opposition to each other logically contradictory um you have this doubt and that's where a sentence of the church is needed to clarify things you know but when a man makes no longer any pretension to be catholic no longer identifies as catholic expressly renounces the faith of the church then fine you don't need a sentence of the church there and that's the way in which um you know a theologian like like um cardinal beal understands saint robert bellarmine's thesis and in fact you know there are lines in saint robert bellamy which would tend to indicate that this is how we should understand him um for example where he says as we've already quoted it is certain whatever one or another may think that an occult heretic if he'd be a bishop or even the supreme pontiff does not lose his jurisdiction until either he publicly separates himself from the church so that doesn't sound like just making a a heretical statement in public like like the post-conciliated popes have done until he either publicly separates himself from the church or being convicted of heresy is unwillingly separated and who will convict him of heresy it's not going to be you or me and the pews saying i think this man is a heretic so understood properly his thesis is acceptable uh the whole problem comes from you know where he introduces the example of of uh nestorius and and um gives the impression that just saying heretical things in public is enough to be a manifest heretic that's where we would disagree if indeed saint robert bellarmine holds that is sufficient um so so really i think we are in agreement with st robert bellarmine um as regards the more important things as regards his his more fundamental theses and specifically it was very dear to saint robert bellman's heart to defend the visible church to defend the idea that the church is hierarchical and never would he take this thesis of his to the point of concluding that a whole series of popes for 63 years have been anti-popes and that the church's hierarchy has disappeared never would he agree with that and and if he had to choose i think between saying that on the one hand and renouncing his his opinion about a heretical pope and and this you know ipso facto loss of of of office i think he would choose to renounce his own opinion on this matter because the other thing is beyond dispute there is no question that the church must always have a visible hierarchy um as we've seen from vatican one um from the you know statements of pope leo the 13th and and from others as well um and it's saint robert bellarmine himself who writes in his his work on the church militant which i recommends to any any set of econotists to read in its entirety read that whole work on the church militant he says that um the visible church is indefectible the visible church note that term um an indefectable means incapable of you know ceasing to to exist the visible church is indefectible and by the term church we understand not one person or another but a multitude gathered together in which there are prelates and subjects but if the set of economists of today are right there are no prelates in the church there are no residential bishops who have been validly appointed and so in their conclusions they contradict other other teachings of saint robert bellarmine that i think are far more fundamental to his understanding of the church and so i would say that in fact we are the ones who are in agreement with saint robert bellarmine even if we may you know um challenge this or that thesis or the way that some people have understood it we're the ones that ultimately agree with him upon his you know his fundamental principles of ecclesiology so just to just to bring this all back to where we started from father um these recent statements by pope francis they are in disagreement with previous teachings of the church they are in disagreement with previous teachings of the popes even if we can call them heretical statements we cannot use these basically as ammunition to say that pope francis is no longer the pope it just doesn't follow exactly it does not follow with necessity um even if you are are of the opinion that saint robert bellarmine holds that a manifest heretic loses his office before a formal declaration by the church um is it certain really that he's a manifest heretic that term was never defined by saint robert bellarmine exactly what is required for that um and never should we follow a particular theological opinion to a point that we end up denying basic doctrines of the church um such as what vatican one is taught about the perpetual succession of of of popes um about the you know uh permanency of the papacy as the principle of the churches you know the unity and uh the church's visible foundation these things we can't call into question um and and so if it's a question of choosing between one theological opinion and another um for sure we'll choose the opinion which is safer and which better better protects these doctrines of the church in this case i think the safe opinion is the one that holds that um for for a pope or any other person in the church to lose his his authority his jurisdiction there would need to be a sentence and without a sentence that doesn't happen the crime remains the crime of heresy remains canonically occult and we've seen support for that in in texts of saint thomas aquinas and of other theologians and some of them even arguing from the practice of the church as bor does saying that you know this is the practice of the church to wait until a sentence is given before we consider a man to have lost his jurisdiction and i think those arguments are very powerful and what they do is they prevent us from having to follow this line of reasoning which ends up in uh ultimately the defection of the visible hierarchy and and thus the the defection of the church um we don't want to go there and there's no need to because there are solid theological opinions um which which don't lead in that direction sure um as we wrap up here towards the end father just as a matter of curiosity and it would help to provide some context certification seems like kind of a new innovation within the church or a new invention so to speak um have there been periods of certification or has this been a theory that has been accepted in the past absolutely um well as for its broad acceptance this this just comes back to the the whole theological debate that we've been talking about a debate that's never been authoritatively resolved but can we point to examples of men who have tried to apply this principle and say that a certain pope has lost his office for heresy even though he had not yet been declared such yes we can find examples of individuals and even groups that have done so and in some cases have persevered in doing so for many years but without exception all of them were wrong and i think that in in fact provides a very valuable historical lesson that we too ought to be cautious it's not prudent to rush into these kinds of judgments um so there are certain councils that have set themselves in opposition to a pope and declared him a heretic and sought to depose him and have even proceeded to elect for themselves an anti-pope such as happened for example in the council of basil in the um in the 15th century if i recall correctly the date um and this council declared pope eugene iv a heretic and proceeded to elect um for itself an anti-pope felix v who was the last of the anti-popes up until the present day said of akantism um so there was that council um even much much earlier in church history there's the second council of constantinople which um under the guidance of the the eastern emperor justinian um declared pope vigilius to be a heretic and outside the church um they didn't actually issue a sentence of excommunication there were some some hesitations there but they were certainly going in that direction um we can mention savonarola who was a a very you know famous dominican friar a preacher and reformer of morals during the you know corrupt um renaissance period of church history and he was very scandalized by pope alexander vi um who was you know genuinely a scandalous pope one who was very worldly and it seems indulged in many vices and savonarola was so opposed to the pope that he declared that he was a heretic and for many for a long time he said the church has been without a pastor because i tell you he said in a circular letter to you know all the the princes of of um italy and uh other localities i believe um he said you know i i'm ready to give testimony um in a counsel to uh the fact that this man is is not a believer he's a heretic in fact he doesn't even believe in in the existence of god um and and so he was of the opinion that alexander vi had lost the papacy for heresy and other theologians have you know pointed back to this time in history and said look um you know whatever proofs of vulnera thought he may have had he should not have opposed the the consensus of the church which universally was recognizing this man is pope um that alone should have stopped him the universal recognition that the rest of the church was giving to alexander vi so these are some you know isolated examples i think though perhaps the most telling example from history is that of the fractuli um who were kind of uh let's say the the strict observance of the order of um saint francis of assisi they wanted to stick to the original rule of saint francis of assisi no matter what even though um you know the popes had grant granted certain mitigations and um so there was a certain uh monk angelo um who wanted to um kind of found a reformed um group of franciscans who would adhere to the original rule of saint francis in all of its of its original rigor but when pope john the 22nd refused to give authorization for this congregation um angelo erected it anyways and um founded in this independent franciscan order known as the fraticelli and he and his followers denied that john the 22nd was really pope since he had abrogated the rule of saint francis which according to them was was basically the gospel pure and simple i'm i'm taking this from the catholic encyclopedia their article on the throttily which is worth reading in its entirety sure and so apparently these these uh monks the fraticelli um they asserted that the decrees of john the 22nd were invalid that all other religious and prelates were damned and that the commission of mortal sin deprived priests of the sacramental dignity and powers so they fell under certain other other errors regarding this this question of you know jurisdiction and and uh the powers possessed by ministers of the church um but what's important is or what's what's interesting is that this denial was not only extended to john the 22nd but also to his successors they persisted in this in this kind of set of akantism um so so again this all began in the year 1318. um that's when the fatigue originated and we can go all the way to the year 1389 um so that would be how many years 71 i think um something like that since the founding of their congregation so that's an even longer period than what we've seen so far from from the death of pius the 12th until now and they were still holding to this this um this idea that john the 22nd and all of his successors had been anti-popes um for example one of one of their um you know most important members from michelle bertie who was a member of the ancona branch of the fraticelli after preaching the lenten uh course to his associates in florence we're told that he was arrested on the 20th of april 1389 and was condemned by the franciscan archbishop of florence to be burned at the stake um and this this man uh from michelle bertie he died uh chanting the tedeo while his followers unmolested by the authorities exhorted him to remain steadfast and to the very end he maintained that john the 22nd had become a heretic by his four decreedles that he and his and his successors had forfeited the papacy and that no priest supporting them could absolve validly so you see this this persistence of this of this schismatic group um for for it looks like more than 70 years you still have these men who are claiming that this whole succession of popes were anti-popes were involved they were heretics and had lost the papacy for their heresy i think it's a fascinating parallel and we see again you know that they were men of austerity of good intentions even the man dies you know being burned at the stake enchanting the te deum and being supported by his followers to remain steadfast um and that's precisely what i think we see in the side of a contest today it's a very dangerous position because you know history has judged the fraticelli and has has not judged them favorably and i'm afraid that those who who like the fraticelli think that they can declare a whole series of popes to be invalid anti-popes that they run the risk of being considered in the judgment of the church and in the judgment of history as schismatics it's it's a real danger right father this has been uh fascinating and this has been longer i think than any other podcast we've done but i think it's been important for us to go through it very clearly very specifically going through all these different stages because again this is you know set of economism is something that is infecting i would say the church but especially the traditional catholic movement um very strongly especially in recent years which is uh disheartening um in my opinion indeed it's it's something that we have to be on the lookout for and i think that we ought to um seek guidance in the example of archbishop lefeve who who of course himself um toyed with this idea he knew of the thesis of saint robert bellarmine and often in fact spoke about it and after events such as assisi where john john paul ii had you know allowed for this public worship of false gods even a statue of buddha to be put on top of the uh you know altar in in assisi um you know uh archbishop very understandably was shaken by this and said is it possible that this man be pope um but but always with his his customary prudence he understood that in fact the visibility of the church and other hierarchy is something too fundamental for us to call into question and in fact there is nothing obliging us to embrace this theological opinion that as soon as a man um you know says something heretical in public that he's lost his office there are many reasons to think that that's not true and most of all if it leads us into dangerous waters where we find ourselves um rejecting much more fundamental teachings of the church considering concerning her own you know divine constitution her visible hierarchy we can't go there right that makes sense father thank you again so much and uh look forward to having you on it uh at another time i know this was a big one so we'll let you relax for a little bit so thank you so much for your time thank you andrew it's always a pleasure you too god bless thank you for listening to and watching the sspx podcast in the meantime if you like what you've been seeing and hearing please consider a small donation to help support this work it is free for you to listen to view and share but you can imagine the resources these take please visit sspxpodcast.com click on the support link and consider a small monthly or a one-time donation five or ten or twenty dollars if you're not able to support this apostolate monetarily you can help by sharing these episodes with friends and family members and by rating and reviewing this podcast on apple podcasts or wherever you listen and of course the best thing to do is to help with your prayers this project would be nothing without the priests who take their time to share their experiences and knowledge with us so please pray for your priests thank you for listening and until next time god bless you

Channel: SSPX News - English

Views: 91,917

Keywords: sspx, fsspx, catholic, catholic church, trad catholic, traditional catholic, catholic seminary, fsspx.news, sspx news, catholic mass, roman catholic mass, society of st pius x, archbishop marcel lefebvre, conservative catholic, tradcatholic, sspx podcast, crisis in the church, crisis series, modernist catholics, vatican ii, vatican council, liberal catholics, catholic priest, sspx chapel, latin mass, novus ordo, traditional mass

Id: 04oN_23onHs

Length: 125min 27sec (7527 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022