http://www.novusordowatch.org/wire/epic-fail-salza-siscoe-188.htm

Epic Fail...

Salza and Siscoe’s Errors on Canon 188

In a new post on his blog Speray’s Catholicism in a Nutshell, sedevacantist blogger and author Steven Speray has posted a rebuttal to John Salza and Robert Siscoe’s arguments about Canon 188 n.4, the part in the Code of Canon Law that says that any cleric automatically loses his office by the very fact of publicly defecting from the Faith, without the need for a declaration.

Speray, who is one of the named direct targets of True or False Pope?, identifies four main errors made by the authors, Salza and Siscoe, which he then proceeds to refute, based on expert commentaries on the matter. They are:

•Error 1: Loss of office as mentioned in Canon 188 n.4 is a severe vindictive penalty

•Error 2: “Public defection” means formally joining another religion, public heresy alone doesn’t qualify

•Error 3: Canonical warnings are necessary before the loss of office of Canon 188 n.4 takes effect

•Error 4: Professing public heresy is not openly and publicly leaving the Church

Speray’s refutation of these errors is not too long and well worth a read. You can access it here:

Canon 188.4 and Defection of Faith
– Why John Salza and Robert Siscoe Get It Wrong (Part III)

by Steve Speray

In conjunction with Speray’s rebuttal, we also wish to draw your attention to another recent post which refutes Salza and Sicoe on the idea of judging and/or deposing a Pope:

•The Impossibility of Judging or Deposing a True Pope

Further related links and recommended posts can be found just below. While the authors of True or False Pope? have been foaming at the mouth because they are not being given as much attention by us as they would like, and have been perpetrating an insanely ridiculous and unworthy ad hominem spectacle on their web site in the meantime, we will continue to focus on the issues instead and offer well-researched, well-argued rebuttals in due time so that you, the reader, can form a correct judgment about which side is right and which side is wrong. It seems pretty clear which of the two sides has a lawyer arguing for it.

So… lots more to come — stay tuned!

Related Links:

•Have the Gates of Hell Prevailed against the Church?

•Sedevacantism: Refuting the Accusation of “Private Judgment”

•True or False Pope? Sedevacantism Vindicated

•The SSPX and Bitter Fruit: Look Who’s Talking

•PR Disaster for the SSPX: Bishop Fellay’s Epic Interview Fail

•Twelve Inconvenient Questions for the Society of St. Pius X

•12 Ways you can help the Mission of Novus Ordo Watch

•Culpable Ignorance and the Great Apostasy

Speray shouldn't be applying canon law.

Ecclesiastical law is human law, and a Roman Pontiff is above such law. All the approved quotes you can find mentioning the fact that a pope can become a heretic and automatically cease to be pope, reference only divine law.

One article from the Catholic Encyclopedia when speaking of cardinals and a pope gone insane or become a heretic says explicitly there is no canonical directives to even handle it after the fact.

Quote from: McCork

Speray shouldn't be applying canon law.

Ecclesiastical law is human law, and a Roman Pontiff is above such law. All the approved quotes you can find mentioning the fact that a pope can become a heretic and automatically cease to be pope, reference only divine law.

One article from the Catholic Encyclopedia when speaking of cardinals and a pope gone insane or become a heretic says explicitly there is no canonical directives to even handle it after the fact.

Quote

Very Rev. H. A. Ayrinhac taught in his “General Legislation in the New Code of Canon Law,” pp. 349-350:

Loss of Ecclesiastical Offices. Canons 185-191 “applies to all offices, the lowest and the highest, not excepting the Supreme Pontificate.” (p. 346)

The pope isn't being judged.  The man who tacitly resigned his office is being judged and the canons apply to his case.

I will assume Ayrinhac doesn't give any more details, otherwise the quote would be more extensive. He is correct insofar as each and every canon law is not purely human law. Some is a mixture of the divine, and canon law experts would know the distinctions.

It is a fact that human law does not apply to a pope, and canon 188 is not purely divine law. It resembles it, but is not identical to it, so it doesn't apply exactly the same way for a pope as it does lower clerics. Ecclesiastical (human) law is made to extend the divine law so that it is easier to apply divine law, which means it applies more easily and liberally to lesser clerics. The pope himself cannot just express something publicly and be considered a manifest or explicit heretic. For instance, Honorius expressed something publicly, but nobody ever says he tacitly resigned his office for doing do.

The final word, is, yes, divine law judges a pope who becomes a manifest or explicit heretic (as are the V2 papal claimants), and we simply recognize that it occurred.