More stupidity. If he's pope until he gets judged, then they're judging the pope. It's that simple. Logic 101, for which you must have been asleep in seminary.
Moron:
"It cannot be held that the pope, by the very fact of being a heretic, would cease to be pope antecedently [prior] to a declaration of the Church. It is true that some seem to hold this position; but we will discuss this in the next article. What is truly a matter of debate, is whether the pope, after he is declared by the Church to be a heretic, is deposed ipso facto by Christ the Lord, or if the Church ought to depose him. In any case, as long as the Church has not issued a juridical declaration, he must always be considered the pope, as we will make more clear in the next article."
[...]
I respond that such a Council can be convoked by the authority of the Church, which is in the bishops, or the greater part of them; for by Divine Law the Church has the right to segregate herself from a heretical Pope, and consequently she has the right to apply all the means that of their very nature are necessary for this segregation; but one such means, which is necessary of its very nature, is that she acquire juridical certainty about the crime; but the crime cannot be juridically certified unless she form a competent judgment; and in so grave a matter a competent judgment cannot be issued by any except a general Council, for we are dealing with the universal head of the Church, wherefore the matter belongs to the judgment of the universal Church, which is had in a general Council. And therefore I do not agree with Fr. Suarez, who thinks that this matter could be handled by provincial Councils; for a provincial Council does not represent the universal Church, and therefore it does not have the authority of the universal Church, in order to be able to decide the matter; and even if many provincial Councils were gathered they would neither represent the universal Church nor have her authority.But if we speak, not of the authority by which the judgment is rendered, but of that by which the Council is convoked, I do not think that its convocation has been entrusted to anyone in a determinate manner; but I think that it could be done either by the Cardinals, who would be able to give the bishops knowledge of what is going on; or else the bishops who are nearer [geographically to the Pope] could denounce the matter to the others, so that all would come; or again, it could even happen at the insistence of the [Catholic] princes—in which case the summons would not, indeed, have any coercive force, as it has when the Pope convokes a Council; rather, it would be denunciative in nature, notifying the bishops of the [alleged] crime and making it manifest that they should come to remedy the situation.
The Pope, therefore, cannot annul such a Council, since he himself is a part [of the Church], and the Church by Divine Law has the power to gather a Council for this end, because she has the right to segregate herself from a heretic.
However, concerning the second point—namely, by whose authority the declaration and deposition are to be accomplished—there is disagreement among theologians, for it is not apparent who should effect the deposition, since it is an act of judgment and jurisdiction, and no one can exercise these in relation to the Pope. Cajetan (in opusculo de potestate papae, capite 20) relates two explanations that are extreme opposites, and two others that are in the middle. One of the extremes is that the Pope, by the very fact [ipso facto] that he is a heretic, is deposed without any human judgment. The other extreme is that there is a power that is superior to the Pope without any qualification, and this power is able to judge him. Of the two intermediate opinions, the one holds that the pope does not recognize anyone as superior absolutely, but only in the case of heresy. The other holds that there is no power on earth that is superior to the Pope, whether absolutely or in the case of heresy; but there is a ministerial power.
Even as the Church has a ministerial power in the election of a Pope—not as to the conferring of power, since this is done immediately by Christ, as we have said in the first article; but in the designation of the person—so, too, in the deposition (which is the destruction of the bond by which the papacy is joined to this particular person) the Church has a ministerial power and deposes the Pope ministerially, while it is Christ who deprives him of the papacy authoritatively.
Of these two [intermediate] explanations, Azorius (2, tom. 2, cap. 7) adopts the first, which holds that the Church is superior to the Pope in the case of heresy; while Cajetan adopts the latter and treats of it at length. Bellarmine, however, reports his opinion and attacks it in his work de Romano pontifice, bk. 2, ch. 30, objecting especially to these two points: namely, that Cajetan says that the Pope who is a manifest heretic [according to the Church's human judgment] is not ipso facto deposed; and also that the Church deposes the Pope in a real and authoritative manner. Suarez also, in the disputation that we have frequently cited, sect. 6, num. 7, attacks Cajetan for saying that, in the case of heresy, the Church is superior to the Pope, not insofar as he is Pope, but insofar as he is a private individual. Cajetan, however, did not say this; he only said that, even in the case of heresy, the Church is not absolutely superior to the Pope, but instead is superior to the bond between the papacy and the person, dissolving it in the same way that she forged it at his election; and this power of the Church is ministerial, for only Christ our Lord is superior to the Pope without qualification. Hence, Bellarmine and Suarez are of the opinion that, by the very fact that the Pope is a manifest heretic and declared to be incorrigible, he is deposed [ipso facto] by Christ our Lord without any intermediary, and not by any authority of the Church.
The opinion of Cajetan, then, is contained in these three propositions:
1) The first is that it is not precisely the fact of heresy, as such, that deprives a heretical Pope of the papacy and deposes him.
2) The second is that, even in the case of heresy, the Church has no power or superiority over the Pope in relation to his papal power (as if there were a power superior to that one, even in such a case), for the power of the Church is in no way superior to that of the Pope; and consequently her power is not superior to the Pope [himself] without qualification.
3) The third is that the power of the Church has as its object the application of the papal power to the person, both in designating that person [as Pope] by electing him, and also in separating this power from the same person by declaring that he is a heretic and must be avoided by the faithful [Vitandus]. For, although the declaration of the crime is like an antecedent disposition and is related in a ministerial way to the deposition itself; nevertheless, in a dispositive and ministerial way it [i.e., the declaration] attains even to the form, inasmuch as, by acting upon the disposition, it acts mediately upon the form; even as, in the generation or corruption of a man, the one who generates him does not produce or educe the form; nor does the one who corrupts a man destroy the form, but only the bond or separation of the form—and this is done by acting immediately upon the dispositions of the matter in relation to the form; and, with those dispositions as a medium, the agent’s activity reaches the form itself.
That Cajetan’s first proposition is true is evident from what we have already said; nor does Bellarmine attack it legitimately. And the truth of it is certain, both because the Pope, no matter how truly and publicly he be a heretic, cannot be deposed if he is ready to be corrected, as we have said above; nor does Divine Law give the Church the power to depose him, for she neither can nor ought to avoid him [until he be proven incorrigible]; for the Apostle says, “Avoid a heretic after the first and second admonition”; consequently, before he has been admonished a first and second time, he is not to be avoided by the Church; neither, then, is he to be deposed. So it is false to say that the Pope is deposed by the very fact [ipso facto] that he is a public heretic; for it is possible for him to be a public heretic while he has not yet been admonished by the Church, nor declared to be incorrigible; and also because, as Azorius notes well in the place referenced above, no bishop loses his jurisdiction and episcopal power ipso facto, no matter how much of an external heretic he may be, until the Church declares him such and deposes him; and this is true despite the fact that he incurs excommunication ipso facto; for only those who are excommunicated as non tolerati [i.e., vitandi] lose their jurisdiction—which is to say, those who have been excommunicated by name, or who are manifest strikers of the clergy; so, if no bishop (or any other prelate) loses his power ipso facto solely from external heresy, why would the Pope lose it before a declaration is given by the Church—especially because the Pope cannot incur excommunication? For, as I presume, there is no excommunication that is immediately incurred because of Divine Law; but the Pope cannot be excommunicated by any human law, since he is above all human law.
Cajetan’s second proposition is proved from the fact that the power of the Pope, without any qualification, is a power derived from Christ our Lord, and not from the Church; and to that power Christ subjected the whole Church, that is, all the faithful without any restriction—as is certain de fide, and has been proven at length already; therefore, in no case can the Church have a power superior to that of the pope—unless there is a case in which the Pope’s power becomes dependent upon the Church and inferior to her; but, by the very fact that it becomes inferior in such a case, it is already altered and is not the same power as before—since beforehand it was superior to the whole Church and independent of her, and yet in this [supposed] case becomes dependent and inferior. It is never verified, then, that the Church has a power that is formally superior to that of the Pope [this shows that neither John of St. Thomas nor Cajetan were Conciliarists]; for it is necessary, in order for the Church to have, in some case, a power superior to the Pope’s, that the Pope’s power be formally different from what it had been previously, for [in such a hypothetical case] it is not full and supreme in the way that it was before. Nor does any authority give us certainty that Christ our Lord gave a power to the Church in this way, so that her power would be superior to the Pope’s; for the things that are said about the case of heresy do not indicate any formal superiority over the power of the Pope, but only that the Church avoids him, separates herself from him, refuses to communicate with him, etc.
Nor can any foundation be construed to the contrary by saying that Christ our Lord (who gave, without any restriction, supreme and independent power to Peter and to his See) determined that, in the case of heresy, the Pope’s power would be dependent upon, and inferior to, the power of the Church formally as such, so that his power would be subordinated to that of the Church, and not superior as before [this is the heresy of Conciliarism].
As to Cajetan’s second proposition, namely, that the Church does not have any power superior to the Pope; if it be taken without qualification, it has already been proved at length; for the Church ought to be subject to the Pope; nor is the Pope’s power derived from the Church, as political power [is derived from the people]; but it comes immediately from Christ, whom the Pope represents. But it is also evident that, even in the case of heresy, the power of the Church is not superior to the Pope, inasmuch as we are concerned with the papal power; firstly, because the power of the Pope is in no case derived from and originating from the Church, but from Christ; therefore in no case is the power of the Church superior; also, because the power of the Pope, inasmuch as it is derived from Christ, was instituted as being supreme over all the power of the Church that is on earth (as was proven above from many authorities); but Christ our Lord did not make any exception, as if there were a case in which that power would be limited and subjected to another; but always and in respect to all He speaks of it as supreme and monarchical. But when He mentions the case of heresy He does not attribute to the Church any superiority over the Pope, but only commands her to avoid, separate herself from, and not communicate with one who is a heretic; but none of these indicate any superiority, and they can be observed without claiming anything of the sort. The power of the Church, therefore, is not superior to the power of the Pope, even in the case of heresy. Even the canons confirm this: for they say that the first See is judged by no one; and this holds true even in the case of infidelity, since the Fathers who were gathered in the case of Pope Marcellinus said to him: “You must judge yourself.”
The third proposition follows from the two preceding. For the Church can declare the crime of the Pope and propose him to the faithful as one who is to be avoided, according to Divine Law, which commands that heretics be avoided. And the Pope who is to be avoided, as a consequence of this disposition, is necessarily rendered incapable of being the head of the Church, since he is a member to be avoided by her, and consequently unable to exercise an influx on her; therefore, by reason of this power [of declaring the Pope to be a heretic whom the Church must avoid], the Church dissolves, in a ministerial and dispositive way, the bond between the papacy and that person. The consequence is clear: for when an agent has the power to induce a disposition in a subject, and the disposition is such that the separation of the form necessarily follows from it (since the form cannot remain with this disposition in the subject), the agent has power over the dissolution of the form, and mediately touches the form itself as having to be separated from the subject—not as having to be destroyed in itself, as is evident in the agent that corrupts a man; for the agent does not destroy the form of the man, but induces the dissolution of the form by placing in the matter a disposition that is incompatible with the form. Therefore, because the Church has the power to declare that the Pope is to be avoided, she is able to introduce into his person a disposition that is incompatible with the papacy; and thus the papacy is dissolved ministerially and dispositively by the Church, but authoritatively by Christ; even as, in designating him through his election, she gives him the last disposition needed for him to receive the papacy that Christ our Lord bestows upon him, and thus she creates a Pope in a ministerial way.
And if Cajetan sometimes says that the Church has power authoritatively over the conjunction of the papacy with the person, and its separation from him, but that she has power ministerially over the papacy itself, he is to be understood in this way: he means that the Church has the authority to declare the crime of the Pope, even as she has the authority to designate him as Pope [by papal election]; and what is authoritative in respect to the declaration is dispositive and ministerial in relation to the form as having to be joined to him or separated from him; for, absolutely and of herself, the Church has no power over the form itself [of the papacy], since the power [of the papacy] is not subordinated to her.
By understanding things in this way, we can reconcile the different canons, which sometimes say that the deposition of the Pope pertains to God alone, and sometimes that he can be judged by his inferiors in the case of heresy; for it is true both that the ejection or deposition of the Pope is reserved to God alone, as the authoritative and principal agent, as is said expressly in the chapter Ejectionem, distinction 79, and in many other canons cited above, which say that God has reserved the judgment of the Apostolic See to himself alone; and also that the Church judges the Pope ministerially and dispositively by declaring the crime and proposing the Pope as someone who is to be avoided, as we read in the chapter Si papa, distinction 40, and the chapter Oves, 2 question 7.
The arguments of Bellarmine and Suarez against the foregoing opinion [of Cajetan] are easily refuted. For Bellarmine objects that the Apostle says that a heretic is to be avoided after two corrections, that is, after he manifestly appears to be pertinacious; and that happens before any excommunication or judicial sentence, as Jerome comments, for heretics depart from the body of Christ of their own accord [per se]. And his reasoning is this: a non-Christian cannot be Pope (for he cannot be the head who is not a member); but the heretic is not a Christian, as the Fathers commonly teach; therefore, the manifest heretic cannot be Pope. Nor can one respond that he still has the [baptismal] character; for, if he remained Pope because of this character, it will never be possible to depose him, as this character is indelible. Wherefore, the Fathers—such as Cyprian, Jerome, and Ambrose—teach with one accord that heretics lack all jurisdiction and power by reason of their heresy, and that this is so independently of any excommunication.
I respond that the heretic is to be avoided after two admonitions; that is, after two admonitions made juridically and by the authority of the Church, and not according to private judgment; for, if it sufficed for this admonition to be made by a private individual—and if, when the heresy had been made manifest [by such private admonitions], but had not [yet] been declared by the Church and proposed to all so that all might avoid the Pope, the faithful would nevertheless be obliged to avoid him, great confusion would follow in the Church; for the heresy of the Pope cannot be public in respect to all the faithful, unless others relate it to them; but such [private] reports, since they are not juridical, cannot claim everyone’s belief or oblige them to avoid the Pope: hence, just as the Church, by designating the man, proposed him juridically to all as the elected Pope, so too, it is necessary that she depose him by declaring him a heretic and proposing him as one to be avoided. Hence, we see from the practice of the Church that this is how it has been done; for, in the case of the deposition of a Pope, his cause was handled in a general Council before he was considered not to be Pope, as we have related above. It is not true, then, that the Pope ceases to be Pope by the very fact [ipso facto] that he is a heretic, even a public one, before any sentence of the Church and before she proposes him to the faithful as one who is to be avoided. Nor does Jerome exclude the judgment of the Church (especially in so grave a matter as the deposition of a Pope) when he says that a heretic departs from the body of Christ of his own accord [per se]; rather, he is judging the quality of the crime, which of its very nature [per se] excludes one from the Church—provided that the crime is declared by the Church—without the need for any superadded censure; for, although heresy separates one from the Church by its very nature [per se], nevertheless, this separation is not thought to have been made, as far as we are concerned [quoad nos], without that declaration. Likewise, we respond to his reasoning in this way: one who is not a Christian, both in himself and in relation to us [quoad se et quoad nos], cannot be Pope; however, if in himself he is not a Christian (because he has lost the faith) but in relation to us 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 is necessary, therefore, to have the judgment of the Church, by which he is proposed to us as someone who is not a Christian, and who is to be avoided; and at that point he ceases to be Pope in relation to us [quoad nos]; and we further conclude that he had not ceased to be Pope before [the declaration], even in himself, since all of his acts were valid in themselves.Cursus Theologicus of John of St. Thomas, Tome 6. Questions 1-7 on Faith. Disputation 8. Article 2
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