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Yesterday I had the fortune of seeing John Vennari at our chapel where he gave a very good lecture for a couple of hours. Afterwards there was a brief question period where someone asked if he would ever consider the see of peter to be vacant. He said no. Anyhow in his explanation he stated the possibility of all the bishops coming together and forming a council whereby the say to the Pope you have said X, this is the definition which declared X to be heresy, now knowing this do you still believe X to be true. and if he answers in the affirmative and dosn't renounce X then he is declared deposed. *Whereby X representing a heretical position*

Now me speaking, it is also possible to wait for another Pope to condemn him or convene a council to condemn him like Honorius.  


Laymen cannot condemn a Pope, Lay cannot even condemn a Bishop, but if they utter things that contradict the magisterium then we must use our intellect to discern right from wrong and disobey that which is wrong.

Yesterday I had the fortune of seeing John Vennari at our chapel where he gave a very good lecture for a couple of hours. Afterwards there was a brief question period where someone asked if he would ever consider the see of peter to be vacant. He said no. Anyhow in his explanation he stated the possibility of all the bishops coming together and forming a council whereby the say to the Pope you have said X, this is the definition which declared X to be heresy, now knowing this do you still believe X to be true. and if he answers in the affirmative and dosn't renounce X then he is declared deposed. *Whereby X representing a heretical position*

Now me speaking, it is also possible to wait for another Pope to condemn him or convene a council to condemn him like Honorius.  


Laymen cannot condemn a Pope, Lay cannot even condemn a Bishop, but if they utter things that contradict the magisterium then we must use our intellect to discern right from wrong and disobey that which is wrong.

Vennari is wrong.

Here is a Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine:

"Besides that, the second affirmation of Cajetan, that the Pope heretic can be truly and authoritatively deposed by the Church, is no less false than the first. For if the Church deposes the Pope against his will it is certainly above the Pope; however, Cajetan himself defends, in the same treatise, the contrary of this. Cajetan responds that the Church, in deposing the Pope, does not have authority over the Pope, but only over the link that unites the person to the pontificate. In the same way that the Church in uniting the pontificate to such a person, is not, because of this, above the Pontiff, so also the Church can separate the pontificate from such a person in case of heresy, without saying that it is above the Pope.

'Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction, and outstandingly that of St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2) who speaks as follows of Novatian, who was Pope [i.e. antipope] in the schism which occurred during the pontificate of St. Cornelius: 'He would not be able to retain the episcopate [i.e. of Rome], and, if he was made bishop before, he separated himself from the body of those who were, like him, bishops, and from the unity of the Church.' According to what St. Cyprian affirms in this passage, even had Novatian been the true and legitimate Pope, he would have automatically fallen from the pontificate, if he separated himself from the Church.

"This is the opinion of great recent doctors, as John Driedo (lib. 4 de Script. et dogmat. Eccles., cap. 2, par. 2, sent. 2), who teaches that only they separate themselves from the Church who are expelled, like the excommunicated, and those who depart by themselves from her or oppose her, as heretics and schismatics. And in his seventh affirmation, he maintains that in those who turn away from the Church, there remains absolutely no spiritual power over those who are in the Church. Melchior Cano says the same (lib. 4 de loc., cap. 2), teaching that heretics are neither parts nor members of the Church, and that it cannot even be conceived that anyone could be head and Pope, without being member and part (cap. ult. ad argument. 12). And he teaches in the same place, in plain words, that occult heretics are still of the Church, they are parts and members, and that therefore the Pope who is an occult heretic is still Pope. This is also the opinion of the other authors whom we cite in book I De Ecclesia.

"The foundation of this argument is that the manifest heretic is not in any way a member of the Church, that is, neither spiritually nor corporally, which signifies that he is not such by internal union nor by external union. For even bad Catholics [i.e. who are not heretics] are united and are members, spiritually by faith, corporally by confession of faith and by participation in the visible sacraments; the occult heretics are united and are members although only by external union; on the contrary, the good catechumens belong to the Church only by an internal union, not by the external; but manifest heretics do not pertain in any manner, as we have already proved."