S&S claim that Popes can be subjected to a discretionary judgment, and that this is an exception to the rule that the Pope can be judged by no one.  But, in point of fact, discretionary judgement has as its object not the Pope himself, but, as Torquemada explains, the truth of a proposition, in the case, the proposition that a given heretical Pope is in fact not a Catholic.  Pope Innocent III explains this type of judgment as, rather, meaning to "show that [the heretical pope] has ALREADY BEEN judged."  So it's SHOWING or AVERRING the a priori fact that the man has suffered loss of office.

John of St. Thomas: “For the Church can declare the crime of the Pope and propose him to the faithful as one who is to be avoided [vitandus], according to Divine Law, which commands that heretics be avoided.  And the Pope who is to be avoided, as a consequence of this disposition, is necessarily rendered incapable of being the head of the Church, since he is a member to be avoided by her, and consequently unable to exercise an influx on her; therefore, by reason of this power, the Church dissolves, in a ministerial and dispositive way, the bond between the papacy and that person.  The consequence is clear: for when an agent has the power to induce a disposition in a subject, and the disposition is such that the separation of the form necessarily follows from it (since the form cannot remain with this disposition in the subject), the agent has power over the dissolution of the form, and mediately touches the form itself as having to be separated from the subject—not as having to be destroyed in itself, as is evident in the agent that corrupts a man; for the agent does not destroy the form of the man, but induces the dissolution of the form by placing in the matter a disposition that is incompatible with the form.  Therefore, because the Church has the power to declare that the Pope is to be avoided, she is able to introduce into his person a disposition that is incompatible with the papacy; and thus the papacy is dissolved ministerially and dispositively by the Church, but authoritatively by Christ; even as, in designating him through his election, she gives him the last disposition needed for him to receive the papacy that Christ our Lord bestows upon him, and thus she creates a Pope in a ministerial way.”

Do you know what ipso facto means?

Well, yes.  It would help if they would lay it out in logical format.

Proposition (de fide):  The Pope can be judged by no one.

S&S:  that the pope can be judged by no one via a coercive judgment, concedo, that the pope can be judged by no one via a discretionary judgment nego.

I do not deny this distinction IF by discretionary judgment is meant simply that the Church is judging whether the fact of heresy has already taken place and deposed the Pope.

But S&S do not appear to hold this, but, rather, follow John of St. Thomas that the discretionary judgment actually causes the severing of the bond between the matter and the form.  If I were to kill the pope, I would in fact cause his loss of authority, by eliminating the matter.  This theory holds that the discretionary judgment has an analogous effect.  By declaring the man guilty of heresy, the judgement renders him unsuitable matter for sustaining the form of papal authority

But I cannot, for the life of me, see how this is not tantamount to judging the Pope.  If God does not withdraw the authority at some point before the judgment is rendered, then the judgment is in fact being rendered against the man who is the pope.  

And, if the Church is capable of "severing the bond," then what would stop the Church from merely withdrawing the designation?  "Hey, we changed our mind.  We're withdrawing our election of this man."  In both cases, we could stipulate, well, it's really God, in response to the Church, who removes the formal authority, so it's not really the Church stripping the man of authority.  Didn't the Church condemn an error which artificially distinguished between the man and his office ... once united by God?

Pax,

Do you know what ipso facto means?

Cajetan: “The power of jurisdiction is by man’s appointment: both giving it and taking it away belong to human judgment. … more is required to incur deprivation ipso facto than to incur excommunication [ipso facto], since incurring the censure does not require a declaration, whereas incurring deprivation does, according to the jurists.” (Cajetan, De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, ch. XIX).

Suarez: “Therefore on deposing a heretical Pope, the Church would not act as superior to him, but juridically and by the consent of Christ she would declare him a heretic and therefore unworthy of Pontifical honors; he would then ipso facto and immediately be deposed by Christ…”

John of St. Thomas: “It cannot be held that the pope, by the very fact of being a heretic, would cease to be pope antecedently to a declaration of the Church.  It is true that some seem to hold this position; but we will discuss this in the next article.  What is truly a matter of debate, is whether the pope, after he is declared by the Church to be a heretic, is deposed ipso facto by Christ the Lord, or if the Church ought to depose him.  In any case, as long as the Church has not issued a juridical declaration, he must always be considered the pope, as we will make more clear in the next article. (…) Hence, Bellarmine and Suarez are of the opinion that, by the very fact that the Pope is a manifest heretic and declared to be incorrigible, he is deposed [ipso facto] by Christ our Lord without any intermediary, and not by any authority of the Church.”

That's right. The universal acceptance cannot depose a sitting Pope, and no one has ever said it could.  The universal acceptance is an infallible sign that the one accepted as Pope is the Pope, and an infallible sign that all the conditions necessary for him to have become pope were satisfied.

Now, since one of the conditions required for a man to become Pope is that the See be vacant beforehand, the universal acceptance of John XXIII proves that Siri was not the Pope, and the universal acceptance of Francis proves that Benedict's resignation was accepted by God.

So you disagree with Bellarmine?

No, they don't seem to be saying that.  A discretionary judgment, by definition, has no coercive power.  It simply establishes the facts. It is the form of judgment used by an Arbitrator.