What cannot be disputed without falling into heresy is that a pope, while validly holding office, possesses full and universal jurisdiction. He is solemnly defined to be the "supreme judge", to whose jurisdiction all questions of faith and morals pertain. Therefore no council, synod, or the college of cardinals my pronounce a sentence of heresy on a reigning pontiff. This is the de fide teaching of the Church which St. Robert Bellarmine demonstrated theoligically more than two centuries before Pastor Æternus. The logical inconsistencies in the opinions of Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, Suárez, Bordoni, (and others), is rooted in the problematic nature of the notion itself of a heretic pope. They all recognized that a heretic is an "incapable subject" of the papacy; and accordingly they all held the "first opinion" listed by Bellarmine, to be at least the most probable. An "incapable subject" lacks the "necessary disposition to preserve the form of the pontificate", as Bellarmine explained. Such a one is incapable of validly assuming the papacy, and therefore, if one elected is later discovered to have been a heretic, his election is null & void, even if he has received universal acceptance, according to the ruling of Paul IV confirmee by Pius V. The constant teaching of the popes since St. Gelasius is that the pope absolutely cannot be judged by anyone. A true pope cannot be deposed because he cannot become a formal heretic. It is only in the realm of a purely abstract hypothesis with no applicability in the real world that it can be said that a pope who falls into even occult formal heresy would cease automatically to be pope, because heresy would make him an intrinsically incapable subject. Although it would be of strict metsphysical necessity that he cease by himself immediately to be pope; it would be impossible for that to actually happen in reality; not for any intrinsic reason, but because of the effect: such a loss of office would result in the defection of the wole Church. For this reason, Bellarmine and the others mentioned, formulated opinions on how the Church would proceed in deposing a heretic pope. The fatal defect of all the arguments involving a judgment to be pronounced on a validly reigning pontiff is that no one possesses the jurisdiction to pronounce the pope guilty of formal heresy. John of St. Thomas explicitly concedes this difficulty. For the same reason, Bordoni held that by way of exception, a council would have jurisdiction, but his argument for such jurisdiction is logically inconsistent -- and since Pastor Æternus, is inadmissible. The constant doctrinal and canonical tradition of the Church, (as I demonstrate in volume one), presupposes that a pope cannot be a heretic, and that if a man is indeed a manifest heretic, or is proven to be a heretic, then he is not a true pope. This comment is only a brief abstract. The full expisition is set forth in Volume One of To Deceive the Elect.