Johannes, you might find this excerpt from an article by Ryan Grant instructive:
“None of the cardinals may in any way, or by pretext or reason of any excommunication, suspension, or interdict whatsoever, or of any other ecclesiastical impediment, be excluded from the active and passive election of the supreme pontiff. We hereby suspend such censures solely for the purposes of the said election; at other times they are to remain in vigor” (Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis 34).
Thus you have Pius XII (whom you would assume understands dogmatic theology) and again, whom one would assume understood cuм Ex Apostolatus Officio, teaching us that an excommunicated person can be elected Roman Pontiff. To read into this docuмent distinctions which Pius XII did not put in is to essentially redefine the law contrary to the intentions of the law giver...
This bull was abrogated by the 1917 Code of Canon Law which incorporated these penalties, but never for a pope prior to his election (let alone after). It only says:
Ob tacitam renuntiationem ab ipso jure admissam quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine ulla declaratione, si clericus A fide Catholica publice defecerit. (Can. 188.4)
And:
Omnes a christiana fide apostatae et omnes et singuli haeretici aut schismatici incurrunt ipso facto excommunicationem. (Can. 2314 1.1)
Again, none of these address what to do about the Roman Pontiff. If cuм Ex Apostolatus was still in force, the Code of Canon Law would have taken note of it. The editors of the 1917 Code did not put it in because of the problematic nature of actually enforcing cuм Ex. No dogmatic theology textbook references it, and not one work of ecclesiology from any of the authors you site (Dorsch, etc.) or other recent authors such as Billot, Franzelin, Van Noort, Palmieri or Berry.
As the Sedevacantist journal Sodalitum frankly admits:
“This task [proving an election invalid by the precepts of cuм Ex] however in the current state of affairs, shows itself doubly arduous. To begin with, it is necessary to prove the formal and notorious heresy of the errant one. Failing a (hypothetical) admission of the guilty party, an intervention of the Church and its Magisterium then takes place, in accordance with the words of St. Paul to Titus: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid.” What Paul IV perhaps did not foresee—like all the classical writers on the question of the “heretical pope”—was that no authority would arise in such a case to make the admonitions required by scripture and canons.
The second difficulty consists in the current juridical value of the Constitution of Paul VI. The sixth canon of the Code of Canon Law prescribes that what is not taken up again in the 1917 Code should be considered as abrogated, unless the law is evidently by divine right. Now the prescriptions of Paul IV are only partially resumed by the Code (Can. 188.4 and 2314.1) without any mention of the case of the supreme pontiff. Doubt therefore remains about the character of Paul IV’s proclamation—whether it belongs to divine law, and thus is always valid, or to ecclesiastical law.” (Sodalitium, no. 14 pp. 9-10)
Why would the major Sedevacantist journal in Europe not consider it obvious that the bull of Paul IV still applies if it was so evident that it is of divine right and still in force? For the simple reason that it does not.
There is still one more point to consider. What does the 1917 Code of Canon Law say about the loss of office?
“Actus jurisdictionis tam fori externi quam fori interni positus ab excommunicato est illicitus; et, si lata fuerit sententia condemnatoria vel declaratoria etiam invalidus, salvo praescripto can. 2261.3 secus est validus.” (2264)
“An act of jurisdiction carried out by an excommunicated person, whether in the internal or external forum is illicit; and if a condemnatory or declaratory sentence has been pronounced, it is also invalid, without prejudice to Canon 2261.3; otherwise it is valid.”
[Ryan is arguing here against a sedevacantist]:
This is a major problem for your argument. You assert that “a heretic can not conduct his office” to be dogmatic fact. Yet the Church’s law tells us something entirely different: where the Church has failed to declare someone a formal heretic, the powers and uses of his office are still considered valid, though illicit. Thus, if a pope had lapsed into heresy, and he received no correction from the Church (rebuke), his acts would continue to be valid but gravely illicit. Only once the Church had made a judgment of some kind, or better, a rebuke (as in the case of John XXII) could we consider the pope a formal heretic.
Even then, however, there is the question of the right to judge. Either way this is not the case of the last five popes. This is because you refuse (or else are entirely ignorant of canonical distinctions) to admit the difference between a formal heretic—one who has been condemned by the Church and is obstinate—and someone who has not been officially condemned by the Church. If you are going to maintain that ipso facto a heretic is unable to exercise his office, you are going to have to square with the fact that the 1917 Code of Canon law takes the opposite approach. Unless you want to adopt the line from the guy I referenced in a previous refutation who denies that Benedict XV was a true pope, which would then allow you to deny the 1917 Code.
Finally, the Code of Canon Law grants jurisdiction to excommunicated of all classes (vitandi and tolerati) in order to hear confessions if the penitent is in danger of death (Can. 2261). Thus it is inherently possible for the Church to grant jurisdiction to the excommunicated, which means again, it is by no means certain beyond a reasonable doubt that a material heretic could not remain pope, or even a formal one.