In the article, “The True Meaning of Bellarmine’s Ipso Facto Lossof Office Theory,” we showed that Bellarmine maintained that if a Pope fell
into formal heresy, but did not publicly separate himself from the Church, he would
retain his jurisdiction, dignity, and title as head of the Church, unless and
until he was “convicted of heresy,” which is exactly how we interpreted his
teaching in True or False Pope?
For that, we were accused by Fr. Kramer (and others) of heresy for allegedly
denying that the Pope is immune from all human coercive judgment.
To counter that erroneous accusation, in the recent article we
showed how it is possible for the Church to render a legal judgment/conviction
(discretionary judgment) that a Pope has fallen into heresy, without exercising
any coercive force or jurisdiction over him. We showed that
Bellarmine himself taught that a true Pope can be judged with a discretionary
judgment (but not a coercive judgment), while he remained Pope, and he proved
it by citing the cases of Popes Leo III, Leo IX, and other Popes, who submitted to a
discretionary judgment by ecclesiastical or secular tribunals.
Fr. Kramer has always maintained that an antecedent judgment is neither required, nor permitted, before a heretical Pope is deprived of his jurisdiction, and insisted Bellarmine taught the same. Rather than admitting that he's been proven wrong, Fr. Kramer raised specious objections to our recent article as a diversionary tactic. We respond to each of these objections below.
Objection 1: “An
imperfect council is incapable of judging on a matter of faith infallibly, and
therefore cannot definitively judge with finality whether a pope’s opinion is
heresy, and from there determine that the pope is indeed a contumacious
heretic.” (Fr. Kramer)
Answer: That is why theologians and canonists distinguish between a
“new heresy,” and one that has already been the subject of an infallibly
judgment by a Pope or council, and teach that a Pope can only be declared
a heretic for contumaciously denying the latter. Once the
Church has defined a dogma, everyone - including future Popes - are bound to
believe it; and anyone who denies a defined dogma – including a future Pope –
will be a heretic.
We
should also note that denying a revealed truth that the Church has not yet
pronounced with a final and definitive (infallible) judgment, would not constitute heresy,
properly so-called, since pertinacious heresy is directly against the infallible
authority of the Church, and only indirectly a denial of revealed truth. As Garrigou-Lagrange explains, “Heretical
pertinacity is not directed immediately against God’s word, or truth in
revealing. Its target is the infallibility of the Church’s authority.”
(Lagrange, The Theological Virtues: I On Faith, p. 433). Billuart teaches the same: “Pertinacious
heresy, therefore, is immediately and directly opposed to the
infallible authority that the Church enjoys in proposing revealed truths …
heresy is mediately and indirectly opposed to these truths, and
consequently to revelation itself, and finally to the First Truth who is the
source of revelation. (Billuart, Summa S. Thomae, II-II, 4th Diss., art. 1, On
the Nature and Divisions of Heresy.)
If
the Church has not yet proposed a revealed truth with her infallible authority, denying it would not constitute pertinacious heresy, nor would the doctrine in question require the assent of Divine and Catholic faith.
Objection 2: “The Pope
could preempt the judgment of the council by defining that the teaching he was
accused of heresy for professing is true.” (Fr. Kramer)
Answer: Only if the teaching he is professing is true, since the charism of infallibility would prevent even a
heretical Pope from erring when he defined a doctrine. If the Pope denied a dogma that had already been the subject of an infallible pronouncement by a Pope or council, the charism of infallibility would prevent him from defining the contrary.
Objection 3: “If an
‘imperfect council’ presumes to judge a true and validly reigning pope guilty
of heresy, the pope as supreme judge possesses the right and the power to
overrule the council and judge the matter with infallibility and finality.”
(Fr. Kramer)
Answer: Not if his jurisdiction were “removed by God” (i.e. he is ipso facto deposed), the moment the council convicted him of heresy. At that point, he would
no longer be Pope, and hence would no longer be the "supreme judge" with “the right and power to
overrule the council.”
Objection 4: “No council
can arrogate the power to itself (1) to nullify or suppress the pope’s right of
primacy to judge the case as the supreme, final, and infallible judge, and then
(2) presume to arrogate to itself the supreme power to judge the pope’s opinion
heretical with finality, and (3) command the pope with coercive juridical
force to submit to the judgment of the Council.” (Fr. Kramer)
Answer: In reply to (1), the council does not suppress the
Pope’s right to judge matters of faith; it “convicts him of heresy” for denying
an already defined dogma, and Christ strips him
of his supreme jurisdiction. Regarding (2), according to Bellarmine
(and that's whose opinion we are discussing), bishops – who are competent
to judge cases of heresy – can indeed gather at council to judge whether the
Pope has denied a defined dogma.
In reply to (3), the bishops cannot command a Pope with coercive force to submit to their judgment, but they can present him with evidence that a previous Pope or council has infallibly defined the dogma he denies, and then publicly and solemnly warn him that by persisting in his denial of the dogma, he will reveal himself to be a heretic. If the Pope persisted in his heresy after a public and solemn warning, he would thereby manifest his pertinacity and contumacy, not for resisting the any authority of the bishops who merely presented the teaching of the Church to him, but for rejecting the infallible authority of the Church that previously defined the dogma.
Objection 5: “There
exists no possibility for canonical warnings to be administered to a pope”
(Kramer).
Answer: In
the case of a Pope, the warning is not an act of jurisdiction, but an act of charity
(fraternal correction), which is permitted. Bellarmine explains:
Bellarmine: “Peter allowed himself to be reprimanded by Paul
because that was not a juridical censure, but a fraternal correction. For, as
Augustine says in letter 19 to Jerome, and Gregory in homily 18 on Ezekiel,
Paul does not reprimand Peter, as a superior judges inferiors with authority,
but as inferiors sometimes correct their superiors out of charity.” (De Romano
Pontifice, lib. 2, cap. xxvii).
Objection 6: “Even a point that has already been solemnly
defined can be misinterpreted in such a manner that it would necessarily
require an additional exercise of the supreme magisterium to resolve it — and
until then it would be argued back and forth with one side saying that the new
interpretation is heretical and the other claiming it is not — and such a
dispute could only be judged with finality by that one priest who is the judge
in the place of Christ.” (Fr. Kramer).
Answer: This didn’t stop
Fr. Kramer, back in 2013, from judging and declaring that Francis – who he
believed to be Pope while he was judging him – was a heretic, and then
announcing on social media that the papal see was “vacant.” Nor did it stop him, in May of 2019, from
judging and declaring on his Facebook page that Benedict – who he also believed
to be Pope while he was judging him – was a heretic, and then exhorting “the few remaining Catholic prelates and clergy” to consider the see vacant!
Fr.
Kramer even insists that the laity – most of whom don’t know the difference
between heresy and lesser errors – can judge that the Pope is a “manifest
heretic” using their “conscience,” and claims that doing so is “a basic right
of natural law.”[1]
Apparently,
Fr. Kramer believes that everyone except bishops at a council can judge if
the Pope has fallen into heresy.
Objection 7: “In matters
of faith, the judgment of an imperfect council is binding neither on the pope
nor the rest of the Church, since, as Bellarmine explains: “For it is
necessary, that all the faithful hold the same in matters of faith: ‘There is
one God, one Faith, one Baptism. (Ephes. 4) But there cannot be one Faith in
the Church, if there is not one supreme Judge, to whom all are bound to
acquiesce’.” [De Romano Pontifice lib. i. cap. ix]. (Fr. Kramer)
Answer: An imperfect council does not judge a matter of faith,
but a matter of fact; that is, the bishops don’t define doctrines, they
judge if the Pope pertinaciously denies a dogma that has already been
defined. As Bellarmine explains, bishops
at an imperfect council only have the authority needed to provide for the
head:
Bellarmine:
“The second [question], whether or not it is lawful for a Council to be
summoned by someone other than the Pope, when the Pope should not summon it,
because he is a heretic or schismatic. …
“I
respond that in no case can a true and perfect Council (such as we make out
disputation on here) be convoked without the authority of the Pope, because it
is he who has the authority to define questions of faith. For the chief (praecipua)
authority is in the head, in Peter; to whom it was commanded to confirm the
brethren, and therefore for whom the Lord himself prayed that his faith would
fail not (Luke 22). Still in those
two cases an imperfect Council could be gathered, which would suffice for the
Church to provide for the head. For the
Church, without a doubt, has the authority of itself to provide for the head,
although it cannot, without the head, make determinations on many things that
it can with the head, as Cajetan rightly teaches in his little work, de
potestate Papae, c. 15 and 16, and much earlier on the priests of the Roman
Church in their epistle to Cyprian (which is the 7th in the second book on the
works of Cyprian). Hence, an imperfect
Council can happen, if it is summoned by the College of Cardinals, or by the
Bishops who come together in one place of themselves.” (De Conciliis, bk. 1,
ch. XIV.)
Objection 8: “A discretionary judgment can have no juridical effect on a pope, and
the simple act of discretion which establishes a crime in the minds of men is
not a juridical act, but is a natural personal act of private persons
exercising the human faculty of judgment, which, when expressed as a
discretionary judgment of an arbiter, is not in the nature of a judgment
of the Church.” (Fr. Kramer)
Answer: A discretionary
judgment is not the judgment of a private person. It is the legitimate judgment
of those who possesses the discretionary power (clavis scientiae) needed to
render it. The discretionary power is
the “authority to judge,” as St. Thomas explains (Suppl, q. 17, a. 3, ad
2). Hence, it is not the judgment of private persons, but of public persons acting in their official capacity.
The effect of the “conviction” (discretionary judgment) is that the Pope
is recognized as a heretic by a body of bishops who are competent to judge
cases of heresy. He becomes a “manifest heretic” (i.e., a notorious heretic),
according to their judgment.
Now, Fr.
Kramer’s public declarations that Francis and Benedict are heretics, and that
the papal see fell vacant in 2013, and again in 2019, is an act of private
judgment. And since it involves a matter of the universal Church that Fr.
Kramer has no right to judge and declare, his public declarations constitute a judgment by
usurpation, which, as St. Thomas teaches, is an unlawful judgment, and
a mortal sin.
In
the Summa, the Angelic doctor explains what is required for a judgment to be
lawful, and who alone has the right to pronounce it:
St. Thomas: “Since judgment should be
pronounced according to the written law, as stated above, he that pronounces
judgment, interprets, in a way, the letter of the law, by applying it to some
particular case. Now since it belongs to the same authority to interpret and to
make a law, just as a law cannot be made except by public authority, so neither
can a judgment be pronounced except by public authority, which extends over
those who are subject to the community.[2] (…)
“Judgment is lawful in so far as
it is an act of justice. Now it follows from what has been stated above (1,
ad 1,3) that three conditions are requisite for a judgment to be an act of
justice: first, that it proceed from
the inclination of justice; secondly,
that it come from one who is in authority; thirdly, that it be pronounced according to the right ruling of
prudence. If any one of these be lacking, the judgment will be faulty and
unlawful. First, when it is
contrary to the rectitude of justice, and then it is called ‘perverted’ or
‘unjust’: secondly, when a man
judges about matters wherein he has no authority, and this is called judgment
‘by usurpation’; thirdly, when
the reason lacks certainty, as when a man, without any solid motive, forms a
judgment on some doubtful or hidden matter, and then it is called judgment by
‘suspicion’ or ‘rash’ judgment.[3]
(…)
“Whatever
is contrary to the law of God is a mortal sin. Now whoever does an injustice
does that which is contrary to the law of God… Therefore whoever does an
injustice sins mortally.”[4]
Objection 9: “to be a
valid judgment of the Church, the judgment must be a juridically declared act —
and to be juridically declared it must be pronounced by one who possesses the jurisdiction
to issue a judgment (even if the judgment is not pronounced in the judicial
forum) — and only then would such a declaration be a judgment of the Church.”
Answer: The conviction
would be a legitimate judgment of the Church, since it would be rendered
by a body of bishops who possess the competency and legal authority
(discretionary power) needed to render and declare it. According to the manuals published after
Vatican I, a council can licitly declare a Pope heretical. For example, in Sacrae Theologiae Summa
(1955), Joachim Salaverri writes:
“Theologians
concede that a general Council can licitly declare a Pope heretical, if
this case [of a Pope falling into heresy] is possible, but it cannot depose him
authoritatively since he is superior to the Council … see Suarez, De fide
d.10 s.6.” (Salaverri, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 1955, p. 217, No. 5).
The
fact that Salaverri is referring to a sitting Pope (not a former Pope who
already lost his office), is proven from the teaching of Suarez that he
referenced. Here is what Suarez wrote:
“I
say thirdly, if a Pope were a heretic and incorrigible, when first,
through the legitimate jurisdiction of the Church, a declaratory sentence of
the crime is pronounced against him, he ceases to be Pope. This is the common
opinion among the doctors.” (Suarez, De Fide, disp 10, sect. 6.)
In
Tractatus De Romano Pontifice (1891), Palmieri says teaches the
same. He says in the case of a heretical
Pope, the Church declares him a heretic, and then God deprives him of his
jurisdiction. And he too references the
great Francisco Suarez as the authority for his position:
“If a
Pope is obstinate in his heresy—obstinate, I say: for, if he heeds the Church’s
admonitions, nothing further is necessary—such a Pope is deposed, not by man,
but by God himself, who takes away the jurisdiction that He had given him; the
Church, for her part, only declares the man to be a heretic, and then (ideoque)
God deprives him of his jurisdiction.” (cf. Suarez, Defensio Fidei Catholicae, lib.
iv c. 7 n. 5).
If
there is any doubt that Palmieri means God deprives the Pope of his
jurisdiction after the Church has declared him a heretic, the following quotation
he referenced from Suarez to support his position removes it:
“[T]he
Pontiff can in no case, even if he wished to subject himself to another, be
compelled through censure, as commonly taught by the theologians on [The
Sentences] 4, dd. 18 & 19, and as we said at large in the tractate De
Censuris. … For although in the case of heresy he could be deposed, he is in
truth not deposed by man but by God himself, after the declaration of a
legitimate Council has preceded.” (Defensio Fidei Catholicae, lib. v c 7 n.
5).
In
Summa Apologetica de Ecclesia Catholica (1890), Vincent Groot also
teaches that a heretical Pope is deprived by God after “a declaratory sentence,
by which the fact of heresy is juridically established.”
“In the case of a Pope who is publicly and
juridically, a notorious and contumacious heretic, if indeed it could ever
happen that the Roman Pontiff - considered as a private person - could be
contumaciously heretical, such a heretical Pope would have to be deposed by a
council of bishops. But that deposition would not be an act of
jurisdiction, as if there could be a jurisdictional power greater than the
power of the Pope, but only a declaratory sentence, by which the fact of heresy
is juridically established; and once established, the Pope is believed to
lose his dignity by divine law.
"I
would refer the deposition to the elective power; for in this hypothetical case
the [council] fathers declare that the body of the Church has separated itself
from a heretical man; and when this has been done, the seat being vacant, those
who by law have the right to elect [a new Pope] can safely proceed to do so. This seems to
be the opinion of Cajetan, De author. Papae et Concilii cap. XXI —
XXIII.; Cano, De loc. theol. lib. VI. cap. VIII, and of others.” (Summa
Apologetica de Ecclesia Catholica, Mans, 1890, Q. XII, art IV, arg iii).
The
former rector of the Gregorian University, Fr. Ghirlanda, explains that in the
case of a notoriously heretical Pope, the papal see becomes vacant the moment
the Cardinals issue a declaratory sentence:
“The vacancy of the Roman
See occurs in case of the cessation of the office on the part of the Roman
Pontiff, which happens for four reasons: 1) Death, 2) Sure and perpetual
insanity or complete mental infirmity; 3) Notorious apostasy, heresy,
schism; 4) Resignation. In the first case, the Apostolic See is
vacant from the moment of death of the Roman Pontiff; in the second
and in the third from the moment of the declaration on the
part of the cardinals; in the fourth from the moment of the renunciation.
(…)
“There is the case, admitted by doctrine, of notorious apostasy,
heresy and schism, into which the Roman Pontiff could fall, but as a ‘private
doctor,’ that does not demand the assent of the faithful (…) However, in such
cases, because ‘the first see is judged by no one’ (Canon 1404) no one could
depose the Roman Pontiff, but only a declaration of the fact would
be had, which would have to be done by the Cardinals, at least of those present
in Rome.” (Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Cessazione dall’ufficio di Romano Pontifice,
"La Civiltà Cattolica" q. n 3905 March, 2, 2013, p. 445)
Many more post Vatican I authorities could be cited, confirming that a heretical Pope remains Pope until he is declared a heretic by the Church.
So,
Fr. Kramer’s personal opinion that the Church cannot declare that a Pope is a
heretic (but he can), is directly contradicted by the theologians who possess
the competency and authority to speak on the matters, and whose manuals
were written and received an imprimatur after Vatican I.
Objection 10: “Ballerini, who
famously followed Bellarmine’s “Fifth Opinion”…
Answer: Since Fr. Kramer admits that Ballerini held the 5th opinion, let’s read Ballerini's teaching on the loss of office for a heretical Pope, in context, including the part that Fr. Kramer conveniently omitted, to see when he believed a heretical Pope would be deprived of his jurisdiction.
In the follow quotation, Ballerini explaining how he
believes the Church can remedy the case of a heretical Pope, without having to
wait for a general council to be convened.
“In
the case of the Pope’s falling into heresy, the remedy is more promptly and
easily supplied. Now, when we speak of
heresy with reference to the Supreme Pontiffs, we do not mean the kind of
heresy by which any of them, defining ex
officio a dogma of faith, would define an error; for this cannot happen, as
we have established in the book on their infallibility in defining controverted
matters of faith. Nor do we speak of a
case in which the popes err in a matter of faith by their opinion on a subject
that has not yet been defined [i.e., a new heresy]; for opinions that, before
the Church has defined anything, men are free to embrace, cannot be stigmatized
as heresy. The present question,
then, pertains only to the case in which the Pope, deceived in his private
judgment, believes and pertinaciously asserts something contrary to an evident
or defined article of faith, for this is what constitutes heresy. …
"But why, we ask, in such a case, where the faith is
imperiled by the most imminent and the gravest of all dangers … should we await
a remedy from a general council, which is not at all easy to convene? When the faith
is so endangered, cannot inferiors of whatever rank admonish their superior
with a fraternal correction, resist him to the face, confront him, and, if it
is necessary, rebuke him and impel him to come to his senses? The cardinals could do this, for they are the
counselors of the Pope; so could the Roman clergy; or, if it is judged
expedient, a Roman synod could be convened for that purpose. For the words of Paul to Titus: ‘Avoid a
heretic after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a one is
perverse and sins, being condemned by his own judgment” (Tit. 13:10), are
addressed to any man whatsoever, even a private individual. For
he who, after a first and second correction, does not return to his
senses, but persists in an opinion contrary to a manifest or defined
dogma, cannot, by the very fact of this public pertinacity, be excused by any
pretext from heresy in the strict sense, which requires pertinacity, but rather declares himself plainly
to be a heretic; in other words, he declares that he has departed from the
Catholic faith and from the Church of his own accord, in such wise that no
declaration or sentence of any man is necessary to cut him off from the body of
the Church. St. Jerome’s perspicacious
commentary on the above-quoted words of St. Paul affords us insight into the matter:
“It is for this reason that [the heretic] is said to be self-condemned: whereas
the fornicator, the adulterer, the murderer, and those guilty of other sins are
cast out of the Church by her ministers [sacerdotes],
heretics, for their part, pronounce sentence against themselves, leaving the
Church of their own accord; and their departure is considered as a condemnation
issued by their own conscience.” Therefore,
the Pope who, after a solemn and public warning given by the cardinals, the
Roman clergy, or even a synod, would harden himself in his heresy, and thus
would have departed plainly from the Church, would, according to the precept of
St. Paul, have to be avoided; and, lest
he bring destruction upon others, his heresy and contumacy would have to
be brought forth into the public, so that all might similarly beware of him;
and in this way the sentence that he passed against himself, being
proposed to the whole Church, would declare that he has departed of his own
accord, and has been cut off from the Body of the Church, and has in certain manner abdicated the Papacy, which no
one possesses, nor can possess, who is not in the Church.”
Comment: The reason he said “no declaration or
sentence of any man is necessary to cut him off from the body of the
Church,” is because cutting someone off from the Church requires the use of
coercive power, which the Church cannot exercise against a Pope. Therefore, he says the Pope cuts himself
off from the Church, by remaining hardened in heresy in the face of public and
solemn warnings. Pay close attention to
what he says next:
“You see,
then, that in the case of a heresy to which the Pope adheres in his personal
judgment, there is a prompt and efficacious remedy apart from the convocation
of a general council; and in this hypothetical case whatever would be done against him to bring him to his senses before
the declaration of his heresy and contumacy would be the exercise of
charity, not of jurisdiction; but
afterwards, when his departure from the Church has been made manifest, whatever
sentence would be passed against him by a council would be passed against one
who is no longer Pope, nor superior to a council.”
Notice, he
says whatever would be done to call the Pope to reason, before he was declared
a heretic by the Church (e.g., warnings, etc.), would be acts of charity, not
of jurisdiction. The reason they would
be acts of charity, of course, is because as long as he remains Pope the Church cannot
exercise any jurisdiction over him.
What
does this last paragraph, which Fr. Kramer conveniently omitted, tell us? What it tells us is that Bellarini believes
the heretical Pope would remain Pope until he was declared a heretic by
the Church. Only then would his
jurisdiction be “removed by God.” So Ballerini does indeed hold the 5th opinion of Bellarmine! And unlike Fr. Kramer, he also understands
it!
Related articles:
* Fr. Kramer's Canonical Confusion (Siscoe vs. Kramer Debate)
[1] https://gloria.tv/post/kmEKAXtVxVD13e2386VekgSAr.
[2] ST, II-II, q. 60,
a. 6 (emphasis added).
[3] ST, II-II, q. 60,
a. 2 (emphasis added).
[4] ST, II-II, q. 59,
a. 4.
