BCP: Was Francis Bergoglio a public heretic or not? Part 2

Statements by the Fathers of the Church, Popes, and Councils

St. Robert Bellarmine: “The Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church.”

Fathers of the Church

St. Jerome: “The other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ… The non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope… he cannot be head of what he is not a member.” (Dial. contra Lucif.)

St. Cyprian: “He who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian.” (lib. 4, epist. 2)

St. Augustine: “A manifest heretic is not a Christian; therefore the manifest heretic cannot be Pope.” (lib. De grat. Christ. cap. 20)

St. Athanasius: “A manifest heretic is not a Christian…” (Ser. 2 cont. Arian.)

Statements by Popes and Councils that a heretical pope can be judged

Pope Innocent III (1198): “The Roman Pontiff can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy, because he who does not believe is already judged. In such a case it should be said of him: ‘If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under foot by men.’” (Can. Si Papa dist. 40, serm. 2 de consec. pontif.)

The Sixth General Council (678-680) posthumously condemned Pope Honorius as a heretic and excommunicated him. The Council was approved by Pope Leo II.

The Eighth General Council (869-870) confirmed that Pope Honorius was justly anathematized, because he had been convicted of heresy. The Council was approved by Pope Hadrian II.

The dogmatic bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio (Pope Paul IV, 1559):

“If ever at any time it shall appear that any Bishop, … or any Cardinal of the Roman Church, or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy: the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless.”

(Such promotion or elevation) “… are without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone.”

“… to any (heretics) so promoted to be Bishops, or Archbishops, or Patriarchs, or Primates or elevated as Cardinals, or as Roman Pontiff, no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted.”

(The faithful) “…shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to them … and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs.” (see §6 and §7)

At the end of his Bull, Paul IV declares: “No one at all may infringe this document of our approbation or by rash presumption contradict it. If anyone, however, should presume to attempt this, let him know that he is destined to incur the wrath of Almighty God…”

Fathers of the Church

Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine: “The Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church.” (De Romano Pontifice, Book II, Chapter 30)

“It is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is ‘ipso facto’ deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus, c. 3), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate – which means before any excommunication or judicial sentence.”

“It would be the most miserable condition of the Church, if she would be compelled to acknowledge a manifestly tearing wolf for a shepherd.”

“Therefore, the true opinion is the one according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction, and outstandingly that of St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2)…”

St. Antoninus of Florence: “In the case in which the Pope would become a heretic, he would find himself, by that very fact alone and without any other sentence, separated from the Church. A head separated from a body cannot be head of the same body from which it was cut off.”

St. Francis de Sales: “When the Pope is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church …”

St. Alphonsus of Liguori: “If God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the apostolic chair would be vacant (sede vacante).”

Canon law

Wernz-Vidal’s Ius Canonicum (1943): “Through notorious and openly divulged heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into heresy, by that very fact [ipso facto] is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction even before any declaratory judgment by the Church…”

Udalricus Beste, Introductio in Codicem (1946): “Not a few canonists teach that, outside of death and abdication, the pontifical dignity can also be lost by falling into certain insanity, which is legally equivalent to death, as well as through manifest and notorious heresy. In the latter case, a pope would automatically fall from his power, and this indeed without the issuance of any sentence, for the first See [i.e. the See of Peter] is judged by no one. … The reason is that, by falling into heresy, the pope ceases to be a member of the Church. He who is not a member of a society, obviously cannot be its head.”

Matthaeus Conte a Coronata, Institutiones Iuris Canonici (1950): “He who openly professes heresy places himself outside the Church, and it is not likely that Christ would preserve the Primacy of His Church in one so unworthy. Wherefore, if the Roman Pontiff were to profess heresy, before any condemnatory sentence he would lose his authority.”

The Catholic Church now faces its most important duty: to make public whether Pope Francis was or was not a manifest heretic. This duty cannot be evaded through silence or mere platitudes.

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