Quite frankly, this is what cuм Ex sounds like to me--a moral unanimity. I don't believe it means that every last person in the Church will be subject and obedient to a heretic.
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I agree, even if for no other reason than the fact that it never
could be such a measure-- even in theory it would require some natural man-made tool like the Internet to measure these types of things, and still then the Internet isn't even worldwide yet. So no, it's not a mathematical measure.
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That being the case we can argue what does and doesn't suffice to establish moral unanimity, but we needn't do so for our purposes since I would say that the traditionalist reaction of clergy and faithful, while a minority, was hardly an
insignificant one, and was large enough to disturb any morally unanimous acceptance of Paul VI and his successors.
No amount of consent can turn a heretic into a Catholic and the opinions of theologians (even many) do not make a dogma. If this were true, we would all be practicing Novus Ordites. Also, according to this theory, heretic Paul VI would have to be considered a true Pope infallibly. Sorry, but I'm just not buying Billots fallible opinion, no matter how many theologians agreed with him.
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1) Billot is not arguing, not even by logical extension, that a man who is a heretic would be pope if he was universally accepted
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2) Ironically, you
need Billot (i.e., you need the theologians) to figure out what parts of
cuм Ex are
dogma, and what parts are
legislation (which can be reformed). So don't go throwing them out just yet, since
cuм Ex won't make those distinctions for you, and neither will
any other Church law. That's what we have
lawyers for.
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3) If Billot were the only author who says this, you'd have more leverage to dissent from him, but given that it's the common teaching of theologians, it isn't the sort of thing that is anymore just "some theologian's opinion," but what the Church is teaching in her ordinary magisterium. It's what's incorporated into all of her training material for her priests, who alone (either as priests in the service of their bishop, or eventually as priests who've been appointed bishops) administer to the faithful and execute the Church's ministry.
If they all go this wrong, the logic leads out to defection.
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4) If you read Billot (or any who repeat what he says here), you'll find that they simply
refuse the possibility of a heretic being universally accepted as pope. You can reduce it to a matter of providence. It's like refusing in principle, the possibility of a true pope falling into error (which many sedevacantists
do so refuse, when arguing that non of the post-conciliar claimants were ever pope
in the first place).
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5) To better appreciate why Billot et al. are
right, we need to consider the logic of why they say that universal acceptance is an infallible sign of the truth of a papal claim. The pope is the fountain of infallibility for the Church, and all "other" infallibility springs forth from him. If a man pretends to be pope (and isn't) and the Universal Church doesn't notice, then the universal Church, in principle, may learn false doctrine from him, and in principle, may defect. Which is an impossibility per the Divine Law. So it follows, given her indefectibility, that the universal Church will
never accept a false pope. And to this day, she hasn't. And never will.