The utterly dishonest "PaxChristi2" juxtaposes quotations which assert different things in such a manner as to make them appear contradictory. In the first I asserted that I have not stated that all theologians have been unanimous in the view that a pope cannot be a heretic. This proposition refers to opinions of theologians. In the second I asserted that the constant doctrinal and canonical tradition of the Church presupposes that a pope cannot be a heretic. This proposition refers not to opinions, but to canon law and magisterium. While theologians have speculated on the possibility of a pope being a heretic, and whether or not such a one can be deposed; the papal magisterium has constantly taught that the pope can never be judged by anyone.
Pope Innocent III: Truly, he [the Pope] should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God. Still the less can the Roman Pontiff glory because he can be judged by men, or rather, he can be shown to be already judged, if, for example, he should wither away into heresy; because he who does not believe is already judged. In such a case it should be said of him: ‘If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled underfoot by men’.” (Pope Innocent III, Sermon 2 on the Consecration of a Supreme Pontiff.)
Pope Innocent III: “For faith is so necessary for me that, while for other sins I have only God as my judge, only for that sin which is committed against faith could I be judged by the Church.” (Pope Innocent III, Sermon 2 on the Consecration of a Supreme Pontiff).
Don Paolo: Since the opinion of John of St. Thomas on the deposition of a heretic pope calls for a JUDGMENT OF HERESY to be made by a COUNCIL on the POPE, there exists the problem of JURISDICTION, not only for other theologians' opinions, but for his own as well. No council can ever declare a reigning pontiff to be a heretic, because that judgment pertains absolutely to the pope's own jurisdiction.
The Pope can be judged with a discretionary judgment, which is a legitimate judgement, but one that lacks any juridical or coercive power over the Pope. If you deny that a Pope can be judged by a discretionary judgement, not only are you in manifest disagreement with Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus, and countless other theologians I could cite, but you are disagreement with the Popes who willingly submitted to a discretionary judgment of an Emperor or council, such as Popes Sixtus III, Leo III, Leo IX, and others.
Don Paolo: No council can ever bind the whole Church with a vitandus order against the pope, because the pope possesses the full and absolute jurisdiction over the whole Church, and over the council.
So says Fr. Kramer, but the real theologians have taught otherwise. here's how they explain it.
According to divine law, a heretic is to be avoided (vitandus) after two warnings (Titus 3:10-11), and divine law makes no exceptions for the case of an heretical Pope. Therefore, if the Pope remains hardened in heresy after being warned twice by the ecclesia docens, the same ecclesia docens can, in accord with divine law, command the faithful that the heretic must be avoided. The authority, in this case, is being exercised by the ecclesia docens over the ecclesia discens (the faithful), not over the Pope. Now, since a Pope that must be avoided is unable to govern those who are legally obliged to avoid him, the vitandus declaration induces a disposition into the matter (the person of the Pope) that renders him incapable of exercising the office - that is, the disposition is incompatible with the exercise of the form (authority of the Pontificate.) Consequently, according to the 4th Opinion, God freely responds to the legitimate commend to avoid the Pope, which is based on divine law itself, by withdrawing the form from the matter, and thereby authoritatively deposing the Pope. Nothing about that opinion entails the Church exercising jurisdiction or any coercive power over the Pope, and nothing about that opinion contradicts anything that was taught by Vatican I.
Don Paolo: In order to exercise power over the conjunction between the papacy and the pope, a council would first have to exercise the necessary jurisdiction to judge the pope guilty of heresy, and to exercise a jurisdiction over the whole Church.
No it wouldn't. The judgement of heresy is a discretionary judgment, not a juridical or coactive judgment. It exercises no more jurisdiction or authority over a Pope than you did on April 30th, when you judged Pope Benedict to be a heretic. Then, after you judged the Pope (or the one you thought was Pope while you were arriving at your judgement), you publicly stated that the Papal See is to be presumed vacant and "exhort[ed] the few remaining Catholic prelates and clergy" to accept your judgment by presuming that same.
The difference between a discretionary judgment and your private judgment, is that the former is a legitimate public judgment by members of the ecclesi docens who have a right to render it, whereas yours is an illicit judgment by usurpation. What the two have in common is that neither exercise jurisdiction or authority over the Pope.
Don Paolo: ... a true pope cannot be a heretic, because in virtue of Christ's prayer that Peter's faith not fail, the pope's faith cannot fail.
The Church has never taught that Christ’s promise of unfailing faith means a successor of Peter is unable to lose his personal faith.
Christ’s prayer contained two distinct promises: one that St. Peter would never lose his personal faith, and another that prevented him from err when he taught ‘As Pope,” by defining a doctrine for the universal Church. According to tradition, only the second privilege was passed on to St. Peter’s Successors.
Bellarmine: “… the promise of the Lord in Luke XXII, as we find it in the Greek: ‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has asked for you that he might sift you like wheat, yet I have prayed for thee that thy faith would not fail…’ (...) the true exposition is that the Lord asked for two privileges for Peter. One, that he could not ever lose the true faith insofar as he was tempted by the Devil (…) The second privilege is that he, as Pope, could never teach something against the faith, or that there would never be found one in his See who would teach against the true faith. From these privileges, we see that the first did not remain to his successors, but the second without a doubt did.”
The second privilege – infallibility when teaching ‘as Pope’ – is what the First Vatican Council defined in Chapter IV of Pastor Aeternus.
The first privilege, which was not passed on to Peter’s successors, was a habitual operating grace (gratia gratum faciens) that benefited the person of St. Peter. The second privilege is a charism (gratia gratis data) that was given to Peter for the good of the Church. The first was a species of impeccability (relative impeccability) that prevented St. Peter from falling into sin heresy and losing the faith; the second was a conditional infallibility that prevented him from erring (even materially) when he taught ‘as Pope’. When St. Peter died, the second privilege remained attached to his teaching office (Magisterium), to be enjoyed by his Successors, for the good of the Church.
When Bellarmine said the second privilege prevents a Pope from erring when he teaches, ‘as Pope’, he meant when he teaches ex-cathedra, which is how the phrase has always been understood.. In his book, On the Word of God, Bellarmine explains that this is how the Pope have always understood Christ’s promise of unfailing faith, as it relates to the teaching of St. Peter’s successors. He writes:
Bellarmine: “‘I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have been converted, strengthen your brethren’ (Luke 22:31). From this text St. Bernard in letter 90 to Pope Innocent deduced that the Roman Pontiff, teaching ex cathedra, cannot err; and before him the same was said by Pope Lucius I in letter 1 to the Bishops of Spain and France, by Pope Felix I in a letter to Benignus, Pope Mark in a letter to Athanasius, Leo I in sermon 3 … Leo IX in a letter to Peter, Patriarch of Antioch, Agatho in a letter to the Emperor Constantine IV which was read at the sixth council (act. 4 and again act 8 and approved by the whole Council, Pope Paschal II at the Roman Council … Innocent III in the chapter, Majores on Baptism and its effect. Therefore, if the Roman Pontiff cannot err when he is teaching ex cathedra, certainly his judgment must be followed (…). For we read Acts ch.15 that the Council said, ‘It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us;’ such also now is the Pontiff teaching ex cathedra, whom we showed is always directed by the Holy Spirit so that he cannot err.” (Bellarmine, On the Word of God, lib. 3, cap 5.)
Bellarmine’s explanation of when the second privilege prevents a Pope from erring is identical to what Vatican I defined more than two centuries later.
Suarez provides a lengthy explanation Christ’s promise of unfailing faith in his book Against the Anglicans, and likewise distinguishes between the two privileges. In Chapter five he begins by explaining that the Promise was not only for St. Peter personally, but was primarily for his office, which was to remain in the Church forever:
Suarez: “Hence, just as this office [i.e., that of an infallible teacher] is necessary in the Church for the preservation of the true faith, so those words [i.e., ‘Feed my sheep’] were said to Peter by reason of a pastoral office that was going to flow perpetually into the Church and remain there always; therefore too the (…) promise, that ‘thy faith fail not,’ was made, not merely to the person [of Peter], but to the office and See of Peter. For that is why Christ specially prayed for him and gained that privilege for him, because the office of strengthening the brethren required that help on the part of God; therefore, as the office was going to be perpetual in the See of Peter, so also the privilege.”
In chapter six, he uses the distinction between the two privileges to refute the heretics of his day, who were convinced that certain popes had fallen into personal heresy, and believed it proved that Christ’s Promise was not passed on to St. Peter’s successors. Suarez replied as follows:
Suarez: “There is open to view a received distinction between the Pontiff as believer, as a private person, and as teacher, as he is as Pontiff. For we say that the promise of Christ pertains to him as taken in the second way; (…) when considering the person of the Pontiff in the first way, even Catholics are in disagreement about whether a Pontiff could be a heretic, and the quarrel is still undecided whether some Pontiff was a heretic, not by presumption alone, but really such. (…) So for the sake of avoiding controversy we easily grant that it is not necessary for the promise of Christ to extend to the person of the Pontiff as an individual believer.
“But if someone insists that the person of Peter as individual believer could for the same reason have defected from the faith, notwithstanding the promise of Christ, we reply first that the reasoning is not the same for Peter, because to him was the promise immediately made, and therefore it was made to him not only as to his office but also as to his person; but to the others it only descended by succession, and therefore it was communicated to them as successors of Peter.”
Once again, we see that only St. Peter received the guarantee of unfailing personal faith (first privilege), while the second remained attached to the Petrine office to be enjoyed by his successors. In later chapters, Suarez confirms that infallibility (second privilege) only applies when the Pope is defining a doctrine, ex cathedra.
The famous biblical commentary by Cornelius a Lapide, S. J., makes the same distinction between the two privileges, and likewise notes that only the second was passed on to St. Peter’s successors. The renowned canonist, Fr. Paul Laymann, S.J., explains why the first privilege was not:
Fr. Laymann, S.J.: “It is more probable that the Supreme Pontiff, as concerns his own person, could fall into heresy, even a notorious one (…) The proof of the assertion is that neither Sacred Scripture nor the tradition of the Fathers indicates that such a privilege was granted by Christ to the Supreme Pontiffs; therefore, the privilege is not to be asserted. The first part of the proof is shown from the fact that the promises made by Christ to St. Peter cannot be transferred to the other Supreme Pontiffs insofar as they are private persons, but only as the successors of Peter in the pastoral office of teaching, etc.” (Moral Theology, bk. 2, tract 1, ch. 7).
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