« Reply #22 on: July 25, 2016, 09:04:13 AM »
0
0
Someone saw my post and sent me this via PM:
The citation is from Cardinal Billot, Tractatus De Ecclesia Christi, thesis XXIX, §3
“Finally, whatever one may think of the possibility or the impossibility of an heretical pope, there is at least one point absolutely clear which no one can put in doubt, and it is that the acceptance, the adherence, of the Universal Church to a pope will always be, by itself, the infallible sign of the legitimacy of such-and-such a pontiff; and consequently of the existence of all the conditions required for legitimacy itself. God can permit that at times a vacancy in the Apostolic See be prolonged for a long time. He can also permit that doubt arise about the legitimacy of this or that election. He cannot however permit that the whole Church accept as Pontiff him who is not so truly and legitimately. Therefore, from the moment in which the Pope is accepted by the Church and united to her as the head to the body, it is no longer permitted to raise doubts about a possible vice of election or a possible lack of any condition whatsoever necessary for legitimacy. For the aforementioned adhesion of the Church heals in the root all fault in the election and proves infallibly the existence of all the required conditions ... For this very reason, Alexander VI was not a false Pope, but a legitimate one. Therefore he was not a heretic"
I think we should read the entire final sentence from Cardinal Billot rather than cut it off in the middle:
"Therefore he was not a heretic, at least he was not in the heretical state that, in removing the essential element of membership in the Church, as a consequence of its very nature strips [a man] of pontifical power or of any other ordinary jurisdiction whatsoever."
It seems that the this provides an whole different understanding to the complete thought Cardinal Billot was trying to convey. It's easy to distort what someone says by simply ending the sound byte in the middle.
Another example of the intellectual dishonesty I have repeatedly seen in the R & R and the Feeney camps who stick to their preferred belief above that which the Church teaches.
Logged
"I receive Thee, redeeming Prince of my soul. Out of love for Thee have I studied, watched through many nights, and exerted myself: Thee did I preach and teach. I have never said aught against Thee. Nor do I persist stubbornly in my views. If I have ever expressed myself erroneously on this Sacrament, I submit to the judgement of the Holy Roman Church, in obedience of which I now part from this world." Saint Thomas Aquinas the greatest Doctor of the Church