The first edition of “True
or False Pope?” exposed many of the errors and false accusations of the
Sedevacantist apologist, John Lane, one of which was accusing Fr. Boulet (SSPX) of citing a fraudulent and “invented” quote. In "True or False Pope?", we proved that the quotation in question was entirely authentic, and requested that, in justice, Mr. Lane retract his false accusation and publicly apologize denigrating the good priest.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lane adamantly refused and instead attempted to shift the blame to the
authors of “True or False Pope?”.
Because Mr. Lane of this, and in order to clear up
the good name of Fr. Boulet, we are citing the section of “True or False Pope?” (second edition) in which Mr. Lane’s false accusation is exposed.
Defending
Fr. Boulet Fromt the False Accusation Of John Lane
Before proceeding, permit us a brief
detour. We have already noted the deference that Sedevacantists give to the
ecclesiology of St. Robert Bellarmine. As we will further demonstrate in the
next chapter, their deference is based upon a misunderstanding of Bellarmine’s
teaching that “a manifestly heretical Pope is ipso facto deposed,” which they interpret as meaning that a Pope
whom they personally judge to be a heretic must
have lost his office (more on this later). However, as we saw above, Bellarmine
indicated that he also held to the opinion that a Pope could not fall into heresy,
even as a private individual, even though Popes Innocent III and Adrian VI
expressly taught against this view and Bellarmine himself admitted that the
common opinion was the contrary. Nevertheless, the Sedevacantists generally
side with Bellarmine, rather than the common opinion held by Popes Innocent and
Adrian. Why?
Perhaps the Sedevacantists side with
Bellarmine because this position (that a Pope cannot fall into heresy) makes
their case much easier to “prove,” since a “hereticizing” Pope could certainly
be considered by a reasonable person to have lost interior faith. And this is,
in fact, a common opinion among many traditional Catholics, to whom it seems likely
that the post-conciliar Popes lost the faith internally, due to their
many words and actions which render them suspect of heresy. Therefore, since many traditional Catholics
believe the recent Popes lacked the interior virtue of faith, if the
Sedevacantist can convince these Catholics that a true Pope cannot lose the
faith, it makes it that much easier to draw them into the Sedevacantist sect.[1] And there is no question that many Catholics
have been deceived by this line of argumentation.
Further, because Sedevacantists base
their thesis primarily upon the teaching of Bellarmine (that a manifestly
heretical Pope is ipso facto deposed),
many of them exalt Bellarmine to a “super-Magisterial” status, and thus follow
his position (that a Pope cannot be a heretic) over that of Popes Innocent and
Adrian (who said a Pope can be a heretic). And they defend this opinion almost
as if it were a dogma, even though, as we have seen, Bellarmine himself
admitted that the common opinion was contrary to his own.
To show the extent to which
Sedevacantists go in defending Bellarmine, we can look to the example of the
lay Sedevacantist apologist John Lane, who went so far as to publicly declare
that the quote from Pope Adrian VI, who taught that a Pope can “teach heresy,”
is a fabrication. Lane even impugned the good name of Fr. Dominique Boulet who
used this citation from Pope Adrian in his article “Is That Chair Vacant? A SSPX Dossier on Sedevacantism.” In response to the article, Lane
rashly accused Fr. Boulet of being “deceived
by fraudulent quotes which he has carelessly
lifted from some place unknown.”[2]
On his website, Lane further denigrates the priest with his smug comment: “Poor
Fr. Boulet - he literally grabbed quotes from the Net, it seems, and cobbled
them together.”[3]
When Lane himself later discovered that
the “unknown” sixteenth century citation was not simply grabbed from the internet,
but quoted in an early twentieth century book (published in 1904),[4]
Lane, with no evidence whatsoever, claimed that the quotation included in the
book had been “invented” by the author (another rash and baseless accusation). And
because the 1904 book had been placed on the Index, Mr. Lane used this fact to
support his assertion that the quotation was “invented” by the author, as if
the book being on the Index in any way implies that the quote was invented. When
the same quotation was later cited by Robert Siscoe in an article published in The Remnant newspaper,[5]
Mr. Lane referred to it on his website as the “invented quote from Pope Adrian
VI, taken from a book [the 1904 book] which St. Pius X put on the Index.” Then,
based on his own groundless assertion that the quotation was “invented,” Lane went
on to accuse the non-Sedevacantist authors who have cited the quotation of
being “complete charlatans without the slightest affection for the moral law or
truth itself.”[6]
In order to recover the
good name of Fr. Boulet, and any others tarnished by the false accusations of
John Lane, we provide a longer version of the quotation, taken from the
original Latin of Adrian VI’s work Quaestiones
in Quartum Sententiarum Praesertim Circa Sacramenta, which was published in
1516 – five centuries before Mr. Lane
claims the quote was “invented”.
“Ad secundum principale de facto
Gregorii, dico primo quod si per Ecclesiam Romanam intelligatur caput ejus,
puta Pontifex, Certum est quod possit errare, etiam in his, quae tangent fidem,
haeresim per suam determinationem aut Decretalem asserendo; plures enim fuere Pontifices Romani
haeretici. Item et novissime fertur de Joanne XXII, quod publice docuit,
declaravit, et ab omnibus teneri mandavit, quod animas purgatae ante finale
judicium non habent stolam, quae est clara et facialis visio Dei.”[7]
The above citation was also quoted by
Bishop Bossuet (1627-1704) in his Complete
Works, edited and published in Paris in 1841, [8]
and was even referenced by St. Robert Bellarmine himself in De Romano Pontifice.[9]
Since Mr. Lane did not hesitate to
accuse those who have cited the authentic
quotation of being “complete charlatans” who lack “the slightest affection for
the moral law or truth itself,” we hope he offers them a public apology - at least to Fr. Boulet, since denigrating the good
name of a priest is no minor offense - now that he realizes the quotation is,
in fact, genuine. If he fails to do so, one might be tempted to believe that it
is public detractor[10]
himself (Mr. Lane) who lacks “the slightest affection for the moral law or
truth itself.” Making false and baseless accusations, and then using them as a
means to denigrate those who oppose their errors and heresy, is, unfortunately,
a very common tactic employed by
Sedevacantist apologists.
Having cleared up this point, we now
return to our consideration of whether a Pope can, in fact, fall into heresy.
[1] The
reasoning is as follows: A Pope cannot lose the faith interiorly (major); but
the recent Popes “obviously” lacked interior faith (minor); therefore, they
could not have been true Popes (conclusion).
[2]
Lane, “Concerning a SSPX Dossier on Sedevacantism, By Rev. Dominique Boulet,
SSPX” (emphasis added), which may be found at http://www.novusordowatch.org
/sspx_dossier_sede. pdf.
[3] See http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1387&view =
previous.
[4]
Book: L’Infaillibilité du pape et le
Syllabus, (Besançon: Jacquin; Paris: P.
Lethielleux, 1904).
[5]
Robert Siscoe, “Can the Church Depose an Heretical Pope?,” The Remnant newspaper (published online November 18, 2014), http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php
/articles/item/1284-can-the-church-depose-an-heretical-pope.
[6]
http://sedevacantist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1771.
[7]
Hadrianus , Quaestiones in Quartum Sententiarum Praesertim Circa Sacramenta
(Louvain, Belgium: 1516), Confirmationes, XXIII, p. 42. The underlined portion was cited earlier in
English.
[8] “Dico primo quod si per Ecclesiam
Romanam intelligatur caput ejus, puta Pontifex, Certum est quod possit errare,
etiam in his, quae tangent fidem, haeresim per suam determinationem aut
Decretalem asserendo; plures enim fuere
Pontifices Romani haeretici. Item et novissime fertur de Joanne XXII, quod
publice docuit, declaravit, et ab omnibus teneri mandavit, quod animas purgatae
ante finale judicium non habent stolam, quae est clara et facialis visio Dei” (De
Bossuet, ‘Oeuvres Complètes’, Tome XVI, Paris: Adrien Le Clère,
imprimeur-libraire, rue; Lille: L. Lefort, imprimeur-libraire, 1841, p. 686.
[9] Book 4, Ch. 2, in Opera Omnia, Book 1 [Naples: J. Giuliano, 1856], p. 478;
[10]
Calling Mr. Lane’s offense the sin of detraction is giving him the benefit of
the doubt, since “the detractor narrates what he at least honestly thinks is
true.” But even so, “detraction in a
general sense is a mortal sin, as being a violation of the virtue not only of
charity but also of justice.” Catholic
Encyclopedia (1913), vol. IV, p. 757.
