St. Robert Bellarmine teaches most explicitly (De Romano Pontifice, II xxx) that it is heresy by its very nature, (ex natura haeresis), which severs the heretic from the Church, and causes the immediate loss of ecclesiastical office: “Thenceforth, the Holy Fathers teach in unison, that not only are heretics outside the Church, but they even lack all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and dignity ipso facto.”  Salza desperately attempts to interpret the Fathers as teaching that the heretic’s severing himself from the Church and the subsequent loss of office result from an ecclesiastical censure or judgment. Bellarmine, in his refutation of the Fourth Opinion utterly destroys that argument: “Nor does the response which some make avail, that these Fathers speak according to ancient laws, but now since the decree of the Council of Constance they do not lose jurisdiction, unless excommunicated by name, or if they strike clerics. I say this avails to nothing. For those Fathers, when they say that heretics lose jurisdiction, do not allege any human laws which maybe did not exist then on this matter; rather, they argued from the nature of heresy. Moreover, the Council of Constance does not speak except on the excommunicates, that is, on these who lose jurisdiction through a judgment of the Church. Yet heretics are outside the Church, even before excommunication, and deprived of all jurisdiction, for they are condemned by their own judgment, as the Apostle teaches to Titus; that is, they are cut from the body of the Church without excommunication, as Jerome expresses it.” (Neque valet, quod quidam respondent, istos Patres loqui secundum antiqua jura, nunc autem ex decreto Concilii Constantiensis non amittere jurisdictionem, nisi nominatim excommunicatos, & percussores clericorum; hoc, inquam, nihil valet. Nam Patres illi cuм dicunt haereticos amittere jurisdictionem, non allegant ulla jura humana, quae etiam forte tunc nulla extabant de hac re: sed argumentantur ex natura haeresis. Concilium autem Constantiense, non loquitur nisi de excommunicatis, id est, de his, qui per sententiam Ecclesiae amiserunt jurisdictionem. Haeretici autem etiam ante excuмmunicationem sunt extra Ecclesiam, & privati omni jurisdictione: sunt enim proprio judicio condemnati, ut docet Apostolus ad Titum3. V. II. Hoc est: praecisi a corpore Ecclesiae, sine excommunication, ut Hieronymus exponit.) Thus, St. Robert Bellarmine proves that it is the teaching of scripture, interpreted unanimously by the Fathers, that heretics are outside the Church and lose all jurisdiction by themselves before any judgment is made by the Church. 
     It is also shown by reason – by the very meaning of the words schism, heresy, apostasy suapte natura in Mystici Corporis, and and ex natura haeresis in De Romano Pontifice, that what is being spoken of is heresy in itself, in its very own nature, and not heresy considered as a violation of ecclesiastical law; because a thing considered in its nature, is considered formally as a principium motus in eo quod est. St. Thomas takes this definition straight from the Physics of Aristotle (Aristotle, Physics, III, I, 201 a 10 s.); and says, “Naturalia enim sunt quorum principium motus in ipsis est." (Sancti Thomae de Aquino, De motu cordis ad magistrum Philippum de Castro Caeli) Thus to speak of heresy suapte natura, or of heresy ex natura haeresis, refers to it as a principle of motion that is intrinsic to itself, and by which it separates the heretic from the Church, and not by any extrinsic principle such as the force of a human positive law. 
     Thus, as explained above, it is by faith that one is first united to God; and by the external profession of faith, and the sacrament of faith, that one enters the Church, because it pertains properly to the nature of faith that it unites one to God and to his Church; and it is by the contrary disposition of the sin of infidelity – of heresy or apostasy, by which one, with an external act, rejects faith, and leaves the Church. Such is the motion proper to each nature, as St. Thomas explains, that the natural motion of fire is upward, and of earth downward ([M]otus autem naturalis ad unam partem est, ut ignis sursum, et terrae deorsum); so likewise the motion of faith brings one into the Church, and heresy suapte natura takes one out. 
     Bellarmine explains that even bad Catholics are united to the Church and are members, they are united by the soul through faith, and by the body through the confession of faith and the visible participation of the sacraments. (Nam Catholici enim mali sunt uniti, & sunt membra; animo, per fidem; corpore per confessionem fidei, & visibilium Sacramentorum  participationem); and secret heretics are united and are members only by external union, but a manifest heretic is not a member of the Church in any manner, by neither soul nor body, neither by internal nor external union. (haereticus manifestus, nullo modo  est membrum Ecclesiae, id est, neque animo, neque corpore, sive neque unione interna, neque externa)     
     Applying this doctrine to the hypothetical case of a manifestly heretical pope, Bellarmine explains in what manner faith is simpliciter a necessary disposition for one to be pope; and faith being removed, by its contrary disposition, which is heresy, the pope would straightaway cease to be pope, with the necessary disposition for the form of the papacy not being able to be preserved. (ista dispositione sublata per contrariam quae est haeresis, mox papa desinit esse; neque enim potest forma conservari sine necessariis dispositionibus.) It is therefore on this theological foundation that Bellarmine judges the fifth opinion to be the “true opinion”, and according to it that Bellarmine’s explication of it must be interpreted. Thus, when Bellarmine affirms that a manifestly heretical pope can be “deposed”, it is clearly his meaning that he refers not to a pope while still in office, but one who has already ceased to be pope by himself, or; as Pope Gregory XVI expressed it of the claimant Pedro De Luna (Benedict XIII), if ever he was pope, would have already “fallen” (decaduto) from the papal throne for having attacked the dogma “unam sanctam”.  
     The correct understanding of the doctrine of St Robert Bellarmine, which exposes the absurdity of the Salza & Siscoe interpretation of Bellarmine’s doctrine on the question of a heretic pope, is explained by the Jesuit canonists Franz Xavier Wernz S.J. and Pedro Vidal S.J. in, Jus Canonicuм (1938) Chapter VII:
“453. By heresy which is notorious and openly made known. The Roman Pontiff should he fall into it is by that very fact even before any declaratory sentence of the Church deprived of his power of jurisdiction. (Per haeresim notoriam et palam divulgatam R. Pontifex si in illam incidat, ipso facto etiam ante omnem sententiam declaratoriam Ecclesiae sua potestate iurisdictionis privatus existit) Concerning this matter there are five Opinions of which the first denies the hypothesis upon which the entire question is based, namely that a Pope even as a private doctor can fall into heresy. This opinion although pious and probable cannot be said to be certain and common. For this reason the hypothesis is to be accepted and the question resolved. [NB - The term notorious in the expression, by heresy which is notorious and openly made known, is clearly denoting the common meaning of the word, (equivalent to public, manifest, evident or known ) in the context that the authors are using it, and not according to the strict canonical definition of the term as it is defined in penal law, as some authors arbitrarily interpret it; seizing upon the word notorious, and uncritically assuming it to denote a canonical delict that a judge has pronounced by a judicial sentence – (something that is impossible in the case of a manifestly heretical pope); or denoting a notoriety that would need to conform to  stricter criteria than those set forth in the 1917 Code of Canon Law of the canonical requirements for a delict to be considered notorious by fact in penal law. Thus it is manifestly evident that Wernz and Vidal do not apply the term in its strictly canonical sense, but in its ordinary sense, because the authors are not expounding a point of Canon Law, but of speculative theology, namely, the loss of office ex natura haeresis, as is manifestly evident from the context. What is canonically notorious is a question of law, and is therefore determined by legislation, jurisprudence, and principles of law. Although in Moral Theology, as far as the moral imputability of the act is concerned, the definition of notorious heresy in the sense of not merely material heresy, but of formal heresy, would be more or less materially equivalent to the definition of notorious heresy in the case of a delict of heresy as it is understood in its penal/canonical connotation of notoriety of fact; the moral-theological definition is nevertheless formally disgtinguished from the penal/canonical definition by the fact that it is not a question of law determined by legalities, but is determined by the moral object of the act, and according to the nature of that which morally constitutes the sin of heresy as a notorious act. It is in this moral-theological sense, that an act of formal heresy can plainly be considered to be notorious when the act of obstinate denial or doubt of a revealed truth of faith is public, and concerns: 1) a revealed truth that pertains to natural law ; 2) a universally known dogma that no Catholic is ignorant of ; 3) or if the heretic explicitly acknowledges his belief to be contrary to dogma; 4) or if the doubt or denial persists after correction.]
    “A second opinion holds that the Roman Pontiff forfeits his power automatically even on account of occult heresy. This opinion is rightly said by Bellarmine to be based upon a false supposition, namely that even occult heretics are completely separated from the body of the Church... The third opinion thinks that the Roman Pontiff does not automatically forfeit his power and cannot be deprived of it by deposition even for manifest heresy. This assertion is very rightly said by Bellarmine to be ‘extremely improbable’. 
    “The fourth opinion, with Suarez, Cajetan and others, contends that a Pope is not automatically deposed even for manifest heresy, but that he can and must be deposed by at least a declaratory sentence of the crime. ‘Which opinion in my judgment is indefensible’, as Bellarmine teaches. 
    “Finally, there is the fifth opinion - that of Bellarmine himself - which was expressed initially and is rightly defended by Tanner and others as the best proven and the most common. For he who is no longer a member of the body of the Church, i.e. the Church as a visible society, cannot be the head of the Universal Church. But a Pope who fell into public heresy would cease by that very fact to be a member of the Church. Therefore he would also cease by that very fact to be the head of the Church. 
    “Indeed, a publicly heretical Pope, who, by the commandment of Christ and the Apostle must even be avoided because of the danger to the Church, must be deprived of his power as almost all admit. But he cannot be deprived by a merely declaratory sentence... Wherefore, it must be firmly stated that a heretical Roman Pontiff would by that very fact forfeit his power. Although a declaratory sentence of the crime which is not to be rejected in so far as it is merely declaratory would be such that the heretical pope would not be judged, but would rather be shown to have been judged.”
      Thus, the great Jesuit canonists of the Gregorian University explain that Opinion No. 5 of St. Robert Bellarmine is based on the doctrine of Pope Innocent III, who said in Sermo II: "In tantum enim fides mihi necessaria est ut cuм de caeteris peccatis solum Deum judicem habeam, propter solum peccatum quod in fide commititur possem ab Ecclesia judicari. Nam qui non credit, iam iudicatus est. (Joh.3 18).", and “I say the less that he can be judged by men, but rather be shown to be already judged.”  Thus it is not an exception to the principle, Apostolica Sedes a nemine iudicatur, as many had taught before the solemn definition of the universal papal primacy of jurisdiction by the First Vatican Council made such an interpretation impossible, but rather, as Paul Hinschius explained in his monumental work on Canon Law , a series of Catholic writers, and already Innocent III and St. Robert Bellarmine, see no exception to that rule, because a pope who falls into heresy would already leave the Church and forfeit the Pontificate, so that a council could no longer  depose him (in the proper sense of a juridical deposition of a reigning Pontiff), but could only declare that the loss of office had taken place: «Eine Reihe katholischer Schriftsteller  wollen aber darin keine Ausnahme von der gedachten Regel finden, weil der in Ketzerei verfallene Papst sich dadurch selbst von der Kirche ausscheide, damit weiter den Pontifikat verwirke und also das Konzil keine Deposition mehr verhängen könne, sondern nur die Thatsache des erfolgten Verlustes der Päpstlichen Würde zu konstatiren habe. [3] (Dieser Gedanke tritt schon bei Innocenz III. auf (im Sermo IV. In consecrat. pontiff. opp. Colon. 1575. 1. 197): «Potest (pontifex) ab hominibus iudicari vel potius iudicatus ostendi, si videlicet evanescat in haeresim, quoniam qui non credit, iam iudicatus est» ) Vgl. ferner Bellarmin, christ. Fidei controv. gen. III. De Romano pontifice II. 30. (ed. Ingolstadt. 1605. 1083): «Est ergo opinio quinta vera, papam haereticuм manifestum per se desinere esse [papam et caput, sicut per se desinit esse] christianus et membrum corporis Ecclesiae; quare ab ecclesia posse eum iudicari et puniri. Haec est sententia omnium veterum patrum qui docent haereticos manifestos mox amittere omnem jurisdictionem»; Fagnan. comm. Ad c. 4. X. de elect. I. 6. n. 70 ff; Fragosi, regimen reipubl. Christianae lib. II. c. I. §. 2. n. 21 (Lugduni. 1648. 2, 11); Kober, Deposition. S. 585. » (see translation in Part II)
     With an arrogant stupidity that nearly defies belief, Salza and Siscoe say that it is I who have not understood the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine correctly, in spite of the fact that all the great scholars, canonists, jurists and theologians of recent centuries have unanimously understood Bellarmine’s doctrine in the manner that I have explained it; yet it is on the basis of their own grotesquely inverted interpretation of Bellarmine and of Mystici Corporis that they obstinately justify their heretical doctrine, that heresy by itself does not separate the heretic from the Church without an ecclesiastical censure or judgment – whereas it is plainly set forth and proven by Bellarmine that it is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers interpreting scripture that heresy in its very nature severs one from the Church, and directly brings about the loss of ecclesiastical office before and even without any judgment of the Church; and being the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, it must be believed de fide. 
     Salza and Siscoe still adamantly maintain, that, « As we explain in great detail in our book, Bellarmine and Suarez teach that the Pope will lose his office, ipso facto, once he is judged by the Church to be a heretic, without the additional juridical act of vitandus declaration. » Wernz and Vidal have explained that the opinion of Suarez is not that of Bellarmine, who says Opinon No. 5 is the “true opinion”, but that Suarez subscribed to Opinion No. 4. Thus, Salza and Siscoe quote Suarez to justify their errant doctrine, claiming that those who follow Bellarmine in saying that the loss of office takes place before any judgment, «have erred is by interpreting the ipso facto loss of office to be similar to an “ipso facto” latae sententiæ excommunication, which occurs automatically (or ipso facto), when one commits an offense that carries the penalty, without requiring an antecedent judgment by the Church. But this is not at all what Bellarmine and Suarez meant by the ipso facto loss of office.  What they meant is that the ipso facto loss of office occurs after the Church judges the Pope to be a heretic and before any additional juridical sentence or excommunication (which differs from Cajetan’s opinion). In other words, after the Church establishes “the fact” that the Pope is a manifest heretic, he, according to this opinion, is deemed to lose his office ipso facto (“by the fact”). This is clear from the following quotation from Suarez who wrote: 
       ‘Therefore, others [e.g., Azorius] affirm the Church is superior to the Pope in the case of heresy, but this is difficult to say. For Christ the Lord constituted the Pope as supreme judge absolutely; even the canons indifferently and generally affirm this; and at length the Church does not validly exercise any act of jurisdiction against the Pope; nor is the power conferred to him by election, rather [the Church] merely designates a person upon whom Christ confers the power by himself; 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…’ » 
     Incredibly, Salza and Siscoe have interpreted Bellarmine by quoting Suarez (and John of St. Thomas)! In order to arrive at Bellarmine's meaning, it is necessary to make a critical examination of Bellarmine's own words; but Salza and Siscoe attempt to determine Bellarmine's meaning by quoting Suarez and John of St. Thomas — and these are the men who say, Fr. Kramer is an amateur! I will provide a critical commentary on St. Robert Bellarmine's teaching on this question in a later segment of this work. Since it may be necessary to devote entire articles to each of the five opinions, I will only comment on them briefly here; since Salza and Sicoe have expounded on this topic so ignorantly, that a full refutation of their errors needs to be done. 
     In their insolent ignorance, these mere dilettantes (Salza and Siscoe), who have no formal education in Sacred Theology or in Canon Law, and who cannot read theological works in Latin (the language of Sacred Theology) , have even gone so far as to say that the above mentioned eminent canonists of the Pontifical Gregorian University have wrongly interpreted Suarez and Bellarmine, saying that they equate the opinion of Suarez with Cajetan; whereas in reality they did no such thing. What they did say is that Suarez and Cajetan were both of Opinion No. 4. Each had his own variation of the Fourth Opinion, but both of them opined that a manifest heretic pope would not lose office until judged by the Church – according to Cajetan by deposition, and according to Suarez, the logically incoherent opinion that the heretic pope would lose office ipso facto for heresy, but only after having been judged juridically by the Church, which amounts to a form of deposition. Wernz and Vidal correctly explain Bellarmine’s Opinion No. 5, which holds that “a Pope who fell into public heresy would cease by that very fact to be a member of the Church […] he cannot be deprived by a merely declaratory sentence... Wherefore, it must be firmly stated that a heretical Roman Pontiff would by that very fact [of falling into heresy] forfeit his power.” This is exactly what Bellarmine says, to wit,that a manifest heretic pope ceases to be pope, a Christian, and a member of the Church by himself (per se), having left the Church and the pontificate by his own judgment, and not after the judgment of others: “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, “heretics are outside the Church, even before excommunication, and deprived of all jurisdiction, for they are condemned by their own judgment” . Salza & Siscoe simplistically equate the fourth opinion exclusively with the opinion of Cajetan, obvlivious of the fact that many variations of the fourth opinion had already been formulated by medieval canonists centuries before Cajetan. That opinion had achieved its classical formulation from Cajetan in the 16th Century, so in refuting Opinion No. 4, Bellarmine zeroed in on Cajetan’s formulation of it. 
     Opinion No. 2 differs essentially from Opinion No. 5 in that in the case of a secret heretic, the heretic has not pronounced judgment against himself, thereby ceasing by his own judgment against himself to be pope, as does the manifest heretic; and does not cease to be a visible member of the Church as does the manifest heretic. Although he would remain united to the Church by external union only; so, as a practical hypothesis, he would not cease being pope for the sin of occult heresy, because no judgment of men can be pronounced against him, nor does he resign voluntarily – and, since the heretic pope was made pope with the cooperation of men, so he will not be removed except through men. Bellarmine states explicitly, “Nam iurisdictio datur quidem Pontifici a Deo, sed hominum opera concurrente, ut patet; quia ab hominibus habet iste homo, qui ante non erat Papa, ut incipiat esse Papa; igitur non aufertur a Deo nisi per hominem, at haereticus occultus non potest ab homine iudicari; nec ipse sponte eam potestatem vult relinquere.” The reason why God cannot secretly depose a heretic pope is that it is impossible for the visible head of the Church on earth to be invisibly removed, and therefore if he is to be removed, he must be removed by men in a visible manner. In his explanation of Opinion No.No. 5 and his refutation of Opinion No. 4, Bellarmine explained how a heretic pope would be visibly removed from the Pontificate: the manifest heretic pope would cease to be pope “by himself” (per se), i.e., by his own judgment against himself and not by others, and then, having already fallen from the pontificate directly by his own actions, he could then be judged and punished by men; and he explains at some length why a pope while still in office cannot be judged and deposed by his subjects. Bellarmine’s refutation of Opinion No. 2 must be understood according to the unequivocal doctrine he sets forh in his explanation of Opinion No. 5, namely, that the manifest heretic pope would cease “by himself” to be pope, a Christian, and a member of the Church; and “for which reason” (quare) having ceased to be pope, “he may be judged and punished by the Church.” Thus, the judgment he speaks of in order to bring about the removal of the heretic from the papal throne is quite obviously a post factum declaration of the ipso facto loss of office, i.e. a declaratory sentence that the man who was pope has lost office, and not a judicial or juridical sentence, i.e. a judicial or juridical verdict of guilt on the pope while still in office, which as a dispositive cause brings about the ipso facto loss of office; because such a judgment requires the jurisdiction of a superior, and therefore is impossible to be made by non-superiors who lack jurisdiction. Since the solemn definition of the papal primacy, it is no longer permissible to hold the latter opinion, and can be seen to be heretical, that a pope while still in office can be judged by anyone on earth for any reason, because papal immunity pertains to the very essence of the judicial supremacy of the primacy as solemnly defined by the First Vatican Council, and it has been repeatedly taught by the popes that the pope cannot be judged by anyone. Nevertheless, Salza and Siscoe stubbornly hold to their heretical opinion that a heretic pope would not lose office unless judged juridically by the public judgment of the Church; an opinion which directly opposes the doctrine of the injudicability of the pope, which pertains to the essence of the dogma of the universal primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. 
     As I pointed out above, the observation of Hinschius that many Catholic authors had already avoided the conflict between the problematic doctrine that a pope, by way of exception, can be judged by the Church and deposed for heresy, and the principle opposed to it, namely, Apostolica Sedes a nemine iudicatur; by advancing the opinion that the manifest heretic pope falls from office by himself before any judgment is made against him by the Church, so that a Council would not be able to depose him, but would only declare the fact that the pope had fallen from the pontificate;  and he quotes Innocent III and Belarmine as holding this opinion. It remains here only to be said, that Pope Gregory XVI (quoted above) was also of this same opinion as Bellarmine, and he based his opinion on the doctrine of Ballerini, who explained it with great erudition in his work, De Potestate ecclesiastica Summorum Pontificuм et Conciliorum generalium. Pope Gregory had said of papal claimant Benedict XIII, “So then he could be considered, as noted by Ballerini, to have been a public schismatic and heretic, and consequently to have fallen from papacy, even if he had been validly elevated to it.” Ballerini wrote of this same case saying, “For this double reason of schism and heresy Benedict XIII (if one believes him to have been a true Pontiff), by his own will ipso facto abdicated the primacy and the pontificate, [and] rightly and legitimately was able to be deposed by the Council as a schismatic and heretic, which was not the case with John XXIII, which in the sentence passed against him was not stated. One sees by what means the divine providence employed the synod of Constance to end the most tenacious schism, so that that synod did not need to exercise any power of jurisdiction by its authority to depose any true, albeit unknown, actual Pontiff.”   Ballerini says here that if Benedict XIII had been a valid pope; by his heresy and schism he would have ipso facto of his own volition (sua voluntate) “abdicated the primacy and the pontificate” (primatu et pontificatu exauctoratus); and for that reason the Council could rightly and correctly depose him. However, this self-deposition having taken place before any judgment or canonical warnings, (the warnings were not canonical admonitions, but were made only in charity) by the Council, the Council in its judgment declared that he had shown himself to be a schismatic and heretic, therefore, Ballerini explains, the Council did not declare that it had “deposed” him, but simply that he was deposed (depositum declaruit potius quam deposuit). Hence, the Council did not depose him but declared him deposed “as a precautionary measure” (“ad omnem cautelam”),  and that he had been automatically cast out by God, and deprived of all office and ecclesiastical dignity ipso jure due to obstinate heresy and schism. Thus the council's judgment (Session 37) did not depose or in any way cause him to lose office, but merely declared it post factum: “For, how greatly he has sinned against God's church and the entire christian people, fostering, and continuing the schism and division of God's church How ardent and frequent have been the devout and humble prayers, exhortations and requests of kings, princes and prelates with which he has been warned in charity, in accordance with the teaching of the gospel, to bring peace to the church, to heal its wounds and to reconstitute its divided parts into one structure and one body, as he had sworn to do, and as for a long time it was within his power to do ! He was unwilling, however, to listen to their charitable admonitions. How many were the persons afterwards sent to attest to him! Because he did not listen at all even to these, it has been necessary, in accordance with the aforesaid evangelical teaching of Christ, to say to the church, since he has not listened even to her, that he should be treated as a heathen and a publican. All these things have been clearly proved by the articles coming from the inquiry into faith and the schism held before this present synod, regarding the above and other matters brought against him, as well as by their truth and notoriety. The proceedings have been correct and canonical, all the acts have been correctly and carefully examined and there has been mature deliberation. Therefore this same holy general synod, representing the universal church and sitting as a tribunal in the aforesaid inquiry, pronounces, decrees and declares by this definitive sentence written here, that the same Peter de Luna, called Benedict XIII as has been said, has been and is a perjurer, a cause of scandal to the universal church, a promoter and breeder of the ancient schism, that long established fission and division in God's holy church, an obstructer of the peace and unity of the said church, a schismatic disturber and a heretic, a deviator from the faith, a persistent violator of the article of the faith One holy catholic church, incorrigible, notorious and manifest in his scandal to God's church, and that he has rendered himself unworthy of every title, rank, honour and dignity, rejected and cut off by God, deprived by the law itself of every right in any way belonging to him in the papacy or pertaining to the Roman pontiff and the Roman church, and cut off from the catholic church like a withered member. This same holy synod, moreover, as a precautionary measure, since according to himself he actually holds the papacy, deprives, deposes and casts out the said Peter from the papacy and from being the supreme pontiff of the Roman church and from every title, rank, honour, dignity, benefice and office whatsoever. It forbids him to act henceforth as the pope or as the supreme and Roman pontiff. It absolves and declares to be absolved all Christ's faithful from obedience to him, and from every duty of obedience to him and from oaths and obligations in any way made to him. It forbids each and every one of Christ's faithful to obey, respond to or attend to, as if he were pope, the said Peter de Luna, who is a notorious, declared and deposed schismatic and incorrigible heretic, or to sustain or harbour him in any way contrary to the aforesaid, or to offer him help, advice or good will.”                       

     Thus, the doctrine that a heretic pope would lose office by himself, before any sentence, judgment, or declaration, was already affirmed and applied by the Council of Constance, in the decree that cleared the way for the election of Pope Martin V. 

As I mentioned on page one of this work, “St. Pius V teaches in the Roman Catechism: ‘Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have defected (desciverunt) from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted.’” Defection from the faith is intrinsic to the act of heresy, which consists in the obstinate denial of some revealed truth of faith which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith; and therefore, defection from the faith cannot be understood to take place only when one joins some other sect or denomination; or when one openly declares oneself explicitly to have left the Church. Ecclesiastical laws must be understood according to the proper signification of the terms considered in their text and context  (Can. 17; and Canon 18 in the 1917 Code). Thus, the expression, ‘defection from the faith’ must be understood as the Church defines it, and not according to the arbitrary whims of fundamentalists such as Salza and Siscoe, who gratuitously define the terms themselves in such a manner to make them appear to confirm the errant legalism of their heretical doctrines. According to the expert commentaries of the Schools and scholars of Canon Law, public formal heresy suffices for the loss of office to take place. Salza & Siscoe write, «A simple review of the explanation of this canon, as found in the canonical manuals, explains precisely what the Church means by “public defection from the faith.” » It is precisely such a ‘simple review’ that they have studiously omitted, in order to propagate the lie that ‘defection from the Catholic faith’ means joining some other religion or sect, or expressly rejecting the Church. They also engage in the trickery of interpreting the non-penal Can 188 n. 4 on tacit resignation of office (which presupposes only a fact but not the commission of a crime), according to the commentaries on Can. 2314 in the penal section of the Code, which explain that deposition, or penal deprivation from office is a vindictive penalty. 
     It must also be borne in mind that what is set forth in Canon Law on the nature of defection from the faith or from communion with the Church, and on the consequent loss of office resulting from such a defection, is not a matter of “merely ecclesiastical law” (as mere provisions of purely human positive law in the Code are referred to in Canon 11), but pertain to divine law revealed by God, and that these precepts of divine law are merely enshrined in the provisions of Canon Law that treat of loss of ecclesiastical office due to defection from the faith. That heresy, apostasy, and schism (as demonstrated above) according to their very nature constitute defection from the faith, and sever a man from the body of the Church by themselves, apart from any human law, and therefore without any judgment or censure by ecclesiastical authority, must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. It is plainly set forth and proven by Bellarmine that it is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers interpreting scripture, that heresy in its very nature not only severs one from the Church, but also directly brings about the loss of ecclesiastical office before and even without any judgment of the Church; and being the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, it must be believed de fide. This has also been demonstrated in Part I of this work. Thus, the commentaries of the canonists which explain that defection from the faith takes place by acts of heresy, even without a formal act of defection from the Church, or joining some other sect; and that the consequent loss of office takes place ipso facto (as an act of tacit renunciation of office), and does not per se, (as a matter of fact determined by doctrine and not by law), require any sentence or declaration by ecclesiastical authority to take place, do not express mere opinions on these points, but truths of faith which require an assent of faith. John Salza and Robert Siscoe have explicitly denied these truths of faith in their articles, in their interviews, and in their book, True Or False Pope. 
True or False Pope website: “After explaining the bonds that unite man to the true Church, the authors explain the distinction between heresy and lesser errors, and how the sin of heresy alone does not sever one from the Church.”
     Thus it can be plainly seen that John Salza and Robert Siscoe are in heresy. Their entire doctrine on heresy and loss of office is based on their heretical proposition, (which I copied straight from their website): «heresy alone does not sever one from the Church. » Their objection, that they qualify their statement by professing that heresy which is public and notorious (not according to the letter of the canons of the Church, but according to their own understanding of “public and notorious”, i.e. according to the above enumerated circuмstances, which according to them, qualifies heresy as public and notorious), severs one from the body of the Church without there being made a judgment by ecclesiastical authority, does not render their opinion any less heretical; because they insist that only heresy that is public and notorious (according to their own specifications which go far beyond public and notorious heresy, and in fact, amount to formal defection from the Church), severs the heretic automatically from the body of the Church without a judgment by ecclesiastical authority – and that public heresy, which is only public, but is not notorious by fact according to their understanding of the term, does not automatically separate the heretic from the body of the Church suapte natura; but for that separation to take place, Salza & Siscoe profess that a public judgment of the Church is necessary. Now that proposition is plainly heretical. It has been perpetually and generally held in the Catholic Church, that not only those convicted of heresy, or those who are guilty of heresy canonically qualified as notorious by fact; but all who obstinately and willfully persist in manifest heresy (i.e. public heresy that is manifestly formal) are cut off from the body of the Church before any judgmengt is made. This belief was already plainly reflected in the Codex Jusinianus (1: 5: 12), which declared to be heretics, “everyone who is not devoted to the Catholic Church and to our Orthodox holy Faith”. As St. Jerome explained, in unanimous consensus with the other ancient Fathers, that heretics leave the Church on their own, and are not expelled by judgment of the Church. Now heretics are by definition ALL who obstinately deviate from even one article of faith; and therefore not only those who join heretical sects or publicly renounce the Church, or publicly admit that that they are in heresy defect from the Church by themselves, but ALL who publicly deviate from even one article of faith in a manner that is patently obstinate separate themselves from the body of the Church. The unanimous opinion of the Fathers, as Bellarmine demonstrates in his refutation of Opinion No. 4, and which is affirmed by Ballerini, Cappellari (Gregory XVI), the Council of Constance, and both the 1917 and 1983 Code of Canon Law, is that heretics are those who obstinately deny even one article of faith, or profess even one heretical doctrine (Can. 751 in the 1983 Code; Can. 1325 §2 in the 1917 Code); and by that very act of heresy, if it be public, they leave the Church by themselves and are separated from the Body of the Church by the very act of heresy suapte natura; and lose office and all ecclesiastical dignity automatically [first and foremost, ex natura haeresis, i.e. by the very nature of heresy apart from the law as Bellarmine explains; and therefore ipso facto “without any declaration” (Canon 188 4° in the 1917 Code); as well as ipso jure, i.e. “by operation of the law itself” (Canon 194 § 2 in the 1983 Code], even before any judgment of the Church is made (“sine ulla  declaratione” Canon 188 in the 1917 Code). So what has been John Salza’s response on this point? All he can say is, “You haven’t addressed Cardinal Billot’s teaching, who was an adherent to Bellarmine’s Fifth Opinion on the loss of office for a heretical Pope … you are not equipped to have this debate with us. You are in way over your head.” Having run out of arguments, Salza writes to Dr. Peter Chojnowski, “Fr Kramer is blind. Only public and notorious heresy separates one from the Body of the Church.”
     Since Salsa and Siscoe remain blindly adamant that I have interpreted both St. Robert Bellarmine and Don Pietro Ballerini incorrectly, an alleged misinterpretation which they maliciously attribute to diminished mental capacity and ignorance, I include here the learned opinion of Don Curzio Nitoglia on Ballerini's doctrine on a heretic pope's loss of office, and his commentary on the interpretation of Frs. Wernz & Vidal on Bellarmine's doctrine on Opinion No. 5. First, Don Nitoglia on the Wernz-Vidal interpretation of Bellarmine: «Secondo il Bellarmino (De Romano Pontifice, lib. II, cap. 30, p. 420), siccome gli eretici manifesti, notori e pubblici perdono ipso facto la giurisdizione, ammesso e non concesso che il Papa possa cadere in eresia, in caso di eventuale eresia manifesta egli perderebbe immediatamente l’autorità papale. Questa è l’interpretazione della posizione bellarminiana data dai padri gesuiti Franz Xavier Wernz e Pedro Vidal (Jus Canonicuм, Roma, Gregoriana, 1943, vol. II, p. 517> Secondo il Da Silveira (op. cit., p. 37) Francisco Suarez (De Fide, disp. X, sect. VI, n. 11, Parigi, Vivès, tomo XII, 1858, p. 319) e S. Roberto Bellarmino (De Romano Pontifice, lib. IV, cap. 7, Milano, Battezzati, vol. II, 1858) difendono la medesima tesi del Billot, ma in maniera meno rigida. Infatti il Billot (Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Prato, Giachetti, 1909, tomo I, pp. 617-618) la ritiene esplicitamente una “mera ipotesi, mai traducibile in atto. […]. A priori si può ritenere che Dio non lo permetterebbe mai”. Suarez e Bellarmino impiegano termini meno forti, però la sostanza della loro tesi coincide con quella del Billot, ossia secondo i due Dottori controriformistici il Papa come dottore privato può ipoteticamente e per una pura possibilità o al massimo per una probabilità e mai per una certezza teologica cadere in eresia materiale o favorire l’eresia.» [«According to Bellarmine, since the manifest, notorious and public heretics lose jurisdiction ipso facto, granted but not conceded that the pope can fall into heresy, in the case of an eventual manifest heresy, he would immediately lose all papal authority. This is the position of Bellarmine given by the Jesuit Fathers Franz Xavier Wernz and Pedro Vidal. According to Da Silveira (op. cit., p. 37) Francisco Suarez (De Fide, disp. X, sect. VI, n. 11, Parigi, Vivès, tomo XII, 1858, p. 319) and St. Robert Bellarmine (De Romano Pontifice, lib. IV, cap. 7, Milano, Battezzati, vol. II, 1858) defend the same thesis as Billot, but in a less rigid manner. In fact, Billot (Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Prato, Giachetti, 1909, tomo I, pp. 617-618) explicitly holds it to be a “mere hypothesis that can never become actual […] A priori one can maintain that God would never permit it”. Suarez and Bellarmine use less forceful terms, but in substance their theses coincide with that of Billot, or rather according to the two Counter-Reformation Doctors, the pope as a private doctor could fall into objective heresy or favour heresy hypothetically and as a pure possibility, or at most probably, but never as a theological certainty».] 
     The statement, “Suarez and Bellarmine use less forceful terms, but in substance their theses coincide with that of Billot,” does not claim that all three were of Opinion No. 5, but only that “according to the two Counter-Reformation Doctors, the pope as a private doctor could fall into objective heresy or favour heresy hypothetically and as a pure possibility, or at most probably, but never as a theological certainty”; and on this point only, “in substance their theses coincide with that of Billot”. Ballerini likewise admits formal papal heresy as a theoretical possibility; but doubts it will ever happen: “But this hypothesis is not established by any fact, since no private error ascribed to any Pontiff against any evident or defined dogma has been found, or is believed will be.”   Billot, like Bellarmine, is clearly of Opinion No. 5, which holds that a manifest heretic pope would automatically fall from office by the very act of his heresy before any judgment is pronounced; whereas Suarez held that the heretic pope would only fall from office upon being judged by the Church, which is Opinion No. 4. As I will show later in this work, all of the expert canonists and theologians who expound on the five opinions are unanimous in stating that the difference between Opinion No. 4 and No. 5 is that No. 4 requires a judgment to be made by the Church before the pope falls from office, whereas No. 5 holds that the fall from office is automatic, and takes place independently of and before any judgment is made. In order to support their erroneous opinion on this point, Salza & Siscoe in Chapter 11 of their book quote the ambiguously stated opinion of Fr. Sebastian Smith (Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, p. 210. 68  Ibid., Preface, p. xi.), who wrote in 1881, “Question: Is a Pope who falls into heresy deprived, ipso jure, of the Pontificate? Answer: There are two opinions: one holds that he is by virtue of divine appointment, divested ipso facto, of the Pontificate; the other, that he is, jure divino, only removable. Both opinions agree that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church - i.e., by an ecuмenical council or the College of Cardinals.” It is first to be pointed out that Fr. Smith states ambiguously that there are “two opinions” on the question (there have been five opinions, but only two which admit the removal of a manifest heretic pope); and he says, “Both opinions agree that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church”. This statement, “Both opinions agree that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church”, simply means that in the case of an ipso jure loss of office which takes place automatically before the declaration, and the case of jure divino “only removable” opinion, in which the loss of office is said to take place immediately upon the declaration: in both cases, a declaratory sentence would be required to enforce the removal and elect a new pope. Expressed in the manner that it is formulated, the statement can superficially be misinterpreted to mean, (in the manner that Salza & Siscoe opportunistically misinterpret it for their own purpose), that the declaration would be required in order for the loss of office to take place. As they do with so many authors (as will be shown later in this work), Salza & Siscoe twist the meaning of a passage to make it appear to say exactly the opposite from what a critical examination of the words demonstrates to be their authentic meaning. Smith is clearly referring to Opinion No. 5 when he says, “one holds that he is by virtue of divine appointment, divested ipso facto, of the Pontificate”; since he writes in answer to the question, “Is a Pope who falls into heresy deprived, ipso jure, of the Pontificate?” Now in Canon Law, the expression that one is deprived ipso jure means that it is automatic – it takes place ipso facto before any judgment is prounounced. This is exactly how the medieval Decretists employed the term in the earliest formulations of Opinion No. 5, and it is employed in exactly the same manner by the Council of Constance when it deposed Pedro de Luna “as a precautionary measure”, and declared that he had already fallen from every ecclesiastical dignity and had been severed from the body of the Church ipso jure before any judgment was pronounced. The term is again employed in exactly the same manner in the 1983 Code of Canon Law of Pope John Paul II. When Smith says of “the other”, i.e. “that he is, jure divino, only removable”, he is clearly speaking of Opinion No. 4 in its less radical formulation (Suarez), according to which the Church would deliberatively determine that the pope is a heretic, and upon the juridical declaration of guilt, the pope would immediately fall from office. If Smith had meant by, “Both opinions agree that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church”, that in both cases a declaration of guilt would be necessary for the fall from to take place; that would mean that there would not be two opinions on the question, but only one, namely, “that he is, jure divino, only removable”. Yet this absurd interpretation of the passage is exactly how it is understood by Salza & Siscoe in Chapter 11 of their book: «Fr. Smith expressly states that “both opinions agree” that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church. If he is not found guilty, he remains a true and valid Pope.” ». Then they state their non sequitur conclusion: «The teaching of Fr. Smith confirms John of St. Thomas’ understanding of Bellarmine and Suarez’s position, since he [John of St. Thomas] stated that “Bellarmine and Suarez” both held that a heretical Pope loses his office only if he is “declared incorrigible.” » In reality, what Fr. Smith’s teaching confirms is that John of St. Thomas as well as Salza & Siscoe have failed to correctly understand Bellarmine’s exposition on the question, as well as Opinion No. 5 generally, as it has been elaborated for more than eight centuries. In the first of the “two opinions” in which the heretic pope would lose office ipso jure (automatically) the Church would possess the jurisdiction to declare the See vacant, in the manner that the Council of Constance declared “Benedict XIII” to have already lost all ecclesiastical dignity and to have severed himself from the body of the Church, thus removing the last remaining claimant to the papal throne, and juridically establishing the sede vacante. In the second of the “two opinions”, the Church would not be able to declare the pope guilty of heresy, because an official judgment of guilt of an individual pronounced by the Church absolutely requires jurisdiction to judge that person; but neither the cardinals, nor a synod, and not even a general council possess the jurisdiction to make such an official, juridical declaration – so any judgment a council would make would not be a public juridical act of the Church, but would be a non-juridic statement of churchmen utterly devoid of any force of law or juridical value whatsoever. This is the fatal flaw in all the variations of Opinion No. 4, which holds that a heretic pope does not lose his office until he is judged by the Church. John of St. Thomas, who held this opinion, admitted himself the problematic aspect of the opinion when he wrote: “Concerning the second point, namely by whose authority the declaration and deposition is to be made, there is dissent among theologians, and it does not appear by whom such a deposition is to be made, because it is an act of judgment, and jurisdiction, which can be exercised by no one over the pope.” 
     Salza & Siscoe then carry the absurdity even further: « Because the “two opinions” agree that a heretical Pope “must at least be declared guilty of the crime of heresy by the Church,” there are actually three opinions to be noted, which, for the sake of simplicity and easy recall, could be classified as follows: 1) the “Jesuit” opinion (of Bellarmine/Suarez), 2) the “Dominican” opinion (of Cajetan/John of  St. Thomas), and 3) the unanimous opinion. The Jesuit opinion is that a heretical Pope falls from office after the crime of heresy has been established by the Church. The Dominican opinion is that a heretical Pope falls from office only after the Church commands the faithful to avoid him. But the unanimous opinion is that “he must at least be declared guilty by the Church.” » The belief that there was a single “Jesuit opinion” is the result of an uncritical failure to distinguish between two of the oldest opinions on the question of the deposition or removal of a heretic pope. As Moynihan demonstrates , among the early Decretists there were those, who maintained that a heretic pope would remain in office until judged guilty of heresy by the Church; and others, mainly of the French school of canonists who advocated the opinion that a heretic pope would by his very heresy automatically lose office by himself, ipso jure. It was among the early Decretists that these opinions, enumerated by Bellarmine as No. 4 and No. 5 originated. Bellarmine argued in favour of the fifth opinion which held that a heretic pope would automatically fall from office ipso facto or (as the Decretists would say), ipso jure; while Suarez followed the fourth opinion, which held that the heretic would remain in office until judged guilty of heresy by the Church. By the late 19th Century, the fourth opinion had been universally abandoned; and since then, the fifth opinion (as will be shown below), has been the unanimous opinion among theologians who admit, at least hypothetically, that a pope can become a heretic. Salza & Siscoe have totally inverted the truth in this matter, hysterically claiming that those who follow what is now the unanimous opinion among those theologians who admit at least as a hypothesis, that a pope can become a heretic, (No. 5), (in the manner that it is explained by all of the eminent scholars who have examined each of the five opinions), ‘nonsensically reject the unanimous opinion’ one cannot hold the Jesuit opinion (the Pope loses his office ipso facto), without also holding the unanimous opinion (the Pope must at least be declared guilty of the crime of heresy by the Church).” They then conclude against what has been established and is held with a unanimous consensus of scholars that the “rejection of [what is according to them] the unanimous opinion is clearly not the fruit of sound, scholarly research of the question, but rather a rash and superficial judgment based, in many cases, on snippets read on the internet”. (!)
     Bellarmine explained that the manifest heretic pope would cease “by himself” to be pope, a Christian, and a member of the Church; and “for which reason” (quare) having ceased to be pope, “he may be judged and punished by the Church.” It is unmistakeably clear from the explicit wording of the text that Bellarmine is saying that the manifest heretic pope, completely by himself, i.e. by his own act of defection from the faith, ceases to be pope, a Christian and a member of the Church; and precisely because he would cease to be pope, he, having fallen from office, could then be judged and punished by the Church. Ballerini, following Bellamine, is more explicit in saying that the heretic pope, upon manifesting his pertinacity, would have “abdicated the primacy and the pontificate”, ceasing automatically to be pope, without any judgment, but explains the pastoral reason why a declaratory sentence would need to be made. Pope Gregory XVI endorsed Ballerini’s opinion. A declaratory sentence is absolutely necessary not only for the pastoral reason given by Ballerini, (so that the faithful may be warned about the heretic), but more importantly, as Bellarmine explains in his refutation of Opinion No. 2, it is necessary that a heretic not be invisibly deposed, but visibly removed, and this can only be done by the judgment of men, (i.e. by the post factum judgment expressed in a declaratory sentence stating the fact that the pope fell from office by himself upon his manifest defection from the faith into heresy); otherwise not only would the Church defect by being be subject to the governance of a counterfeit pope, as in the case of a secret heretic according to Opinion No. 2; (and in the case of a manifest heretic, a great number would follow him into heresy if he were to be allowed to continue to usurp the papal throne without being declaed a heretic); but until and unless the heretic intruder be visibly and juridically declared to have fallen from office and removed, a manifestly and certainly valid pope could not be elected and universally accepted by the whole Church while the intruder carries on with his imposture. 
     As they do with the passage of Fr. Sebastian Smith, similarly Salza & Siscoe twist the words of Bellarmine and Ballerini, even falsifying the text of the latter (as is shown later in this work) to fit their own meaning, All three of these authors mentioned in the previous paragraph (Bellarmine, Ballerini and Gregory XVI), were following the ruling of the Council of Constance, which declared that Pedro de Luna had already lost all office and ecclesiastical dignity by himself, prior to his being judged by the Council. By the late 19th Century, Fr. Sydney Smith SJ (in 1895)  testified that it had already become the common opinion that a manifestly heretical pope would cease automatically to be pope, and that in such a case the Cardinals, being duely informed, would only need to issue a declaratory sentence on the one who was no longer pope.  (This is also the explicitly stated opinion of Cardinal Raymond Burke ). Thus, it would seem highly unlikely that Fr. Sebastian Smith would have been so ignorant as to mean by saying, “Both opinions agree that he must at least be declared guilty of heresy by the Church”, that both opinions held that the fall from office would only take place upon judgment by the Church, as Salza & Siscoe maintain. What his words clearly indicate, if one examines them critically, is that whether the pope would be “divested ipso facto, of the Pontificate” (Opinion No. 5), or, “that he is, jure divino, only removable” (Opinion No. 4), a declaratory sentence would be necessary in order to enforce the loss of office and facilitate the election of a new pope in the former case; and at least a declaratory sentence as opposed to judicial judgment and deposition by a tribunal, would be necessary to effect the removal of the heretic pope from office in the latter. Thus, Smith uses the term “removable” in the same manner as it is used in By Bellarmine in his refutation of Opinion No. 2, rather than that a reigning pope could be juridically judged and deposed from office. What this shows, is that Sebastian Smith is testifying that in his day (1881), the classical position of Opinion No.4 formulated during the Counter-Reformation, which held in favour of a juridical deposition of a heretical pope, had already been universally abandoned, and was replaced by a less radical version of the opinion; which held, contrary to the vast majority who favoured Opinion No. 5, that a heretic pope would fall from office upon the issuance of a merely declaratory sentence after a merely deliberative inquiry. The flaw in this theory is that a mere declaration pronounced on actually reigning pontiff by his subjects would lack all jurisdiction, and would therefore not be an official judgment of the Church, because so long as he is pope, the pontiff, who is solemnly defined to be the supreme and final judge in all cases, is the only one who has the authority to judge his own case. Without jurisdiction to pronounce judgment on the pope, a council’s judgment would not be a judgment of the Church, but a mere opinion of men, who would invalidly presume to convene in a council and pronounce a judgment they are juridically incompetent to make. The belief that the Cardinals, or even an ecuмenical council would be competent to judge a pope juridically is a heresy that directly offends against the judicial supremacy and injudicability of the Roman Pontiff, solemnly defined in Pastor Aeternus; the repeated declarations of the popes teaching that the pope cannot be judgd by anyone, as well as the solemn pronouncement of the fifth Lateran Council that the pope has absolute authority over a council . Bellarmine refuted this opinion in his exposition on Opinion No. 4 destroying the argument, by explaining that neither the bishops nor the cardinals have any power over a pope, and to pronounce official judgment on a pope is to exercise power of jurisdiction over a pope. Wernz and Vidal most conclusively refute and utterly demolish the theory that a council could even pronounce a merely declaratory sentence on a reigning pope:
«Finally there is the fifth view of Bellarmine which was expressed at the outset in the assertion [above] and which is rightly defended by Tanner and others as being more approved and more common. For he who is no longer a member of the body of the Church, that is, of the Church as a visible body, cannot be the head of the universal Church. But a pope who falls into public heresy would by that fact cease to be a member of the Church; therefore he would also, upon that fact, cease to be the head of Church.
So, a publicly heretical pope, who by the mandate of Christ and of the Apostle should be avoided because of danger to the Church, must be deprived of his power, as nearly everyone admits. But he cannot be deprived of his power by a merely declaratory sentence. 
For every judicial sentence of privation supposes a superior jurisdiction over him against whom the sentence is laid. But a general council, in the opinion of adversaries, does not have a higher jurisdiction than does a heretical pope. For he, by their supposition, before the declaratory sentence of a general council, retains his papal jurisdiction; therefore a general council cannot pass a declaratory sentence by which a Roman Pontiff is actually deprived of his power; for that would be a sentence laid by an inferior against the true Roman Pontiff. In sum, it needs to be said clearly that a [publicly] heretical Roman Pontiff loses his power upon the very fact. Meanwhile a declaratory criminal sentence, although it is merely declaratory, should not be disregarded, for it brings it about, not that a pope is “judged” to be a heretic, but rather, that he is shown to have been found heretical, that is, a general council declares the fact of the crime by which a pope has separated himself from the Church and has lost his rank. »       
      Following the doctrine of Innocent III , who taught that the pope, as pope, cannot be judged; Bellarmine says in Book Four, Chapter Seven of De Romano Pontifice, “the Pope cannot be judged”, but only upon having fallen from office ”by himself” (he explains in Book Two Chapter Thirty) he could then be judged and punished by the Church. It suffices to say that if even a council may not judge a pope, then a fortiori neither can any other group or individual which would be less than a council, judge a pope, but could only declare in such a manner that he may be “shown to be already judged” (Innocent III), to have already fallen, to alredy have lost any office and all ecclesiastical dignity ipso jure (Council of Constance) to have “abdicated the primacy and the pontificate” (Ballerini), and to have “fallen from the pontificate” (Gregory XVI). Ballerini states in the most explicit of terms that, a general council has no power to judge a pope, since the pope receives his power not from his electors or from the Church, but immediately from God; by which he is the Pontiff over the whole Church, and superior over general councils, and therefore is entirely removed from the jurisdiction of all others who are inferior to him, and precisely for this reason, the machinations of Basel against Eugenius IV ended up in open schism:

“ . . . contra certum Pontificium jus nulla vel generalis concilii potestas est: cuм ob idem jus non ab electoribus, nec ab Ecclesia, sed a Deo immediate tributum, verus Pontifex toti Ecclesiae, & generalibus quoque synodis (ut probavimus) superior, ab aliorum omnium sibi inferiorum jurisdictione subtrahatur. Hac quidem de causa Basileensium molimina & gesta contra Eugenium IV. unicuм certumque Pontificem illegitima & inania nihil potuerunt ad ipsum deponendum, & in apertum schisma deflexerunt.”    
     
     Peters  attests to the fact that the opinion that a heretic pope would remain in office until even a merely declaratory sentence would effect his removal as a dispositive casuse for his fall from office has been entirely abandoned in his article where he says, «I know of no author coming after Wernz who disputes this analysis [of Wernz and Vidal]. See, e.g., Ayrinhac, CONSTITUTION (1930) 33; Sipos, ENCHIRIDION (1954) 156; Regatillo, INSTITUTIONES I (1961) 299; Palazzini, DMC III (1966) 573; and Wrenn  (2001) above. As for the lack of detailed canonical examination of the mechanics for assessing possible papal heresy, Cocchi, COMMENTARIUM II/2 (1931) n. 155, ascribes it to the fact that law provides for common cases and adapts for rarer; may I say again, heretical popes are about as rare as rare can be and yet still be. In sum, and while additional important points could be offered on this matter, in the view of modern canonists from Wernz to Wrenn, however remote is the possibility of a pope actually falling into heresy and however difficult it might be to determine whether a pope has so fallen, such a catastrophe, Deus vetet, would result in the loss of papal office. » Incredibly, Salza & Siscoe adamantly and delusionally insist that the common opinion today is that a manifest heretic pope would not fall from office until he is judged by the Church; and, according to them, the opinion which was originated by the Decretists of the early 1180s, namely, the Fifth Opinion which holds that a manifest heretic pope would automatically fall from office ipso facto by the act of formal heresy itself before any judgment by the Church, is nothing but an opinion of  sedevacantists who do not understand Bellarmine! As I just quoted Peters, “I know of no author coming after Wernz who disputes this analysis [of Wernz and Vidal]”; yet the two armchair theologians – the tax lawyer and the businessman, who have no formal education in Canon Law or Theology presume to differ with the unanimous opinion of canonists and theologians on papal loss of office, and their learned understanding of Opinion No. 5.
     On the opinion of Ballerini, Don Curzio comments, «In breve ciò che don Pietro Ballerini  mantiene come certissimo è che il Papa nel definire non errerà mai; infine come ipotesi investigativa “ammesso e non concesso” che il Papa cada in errore contrario alla fede, dovrebbe essere ammonito e corretto e dopo due ammonizioni, se si ostina nell’errore, si dichiara da se stesso eretico e decaduto dal Pontificato, ma tutto ciò deve essere opera non di giurisdizione bensì di carità (De Potestate ecclesiastica Summorum Pontificuм et Conciliorum generalium, Verona, 1765, cap. 9, nn. 3-8; cap. 15, n. 21; cfr. T. Facchini, Il Papato principio di unità e Pietro Ballerini di Verona, Padova, Il Messaggero di S Antonio, 1950, pp. 126-128). »
[«Briefly, that which Don Pietro Ballerini maintains as most certain is that in defining the pope will never err; finally as an investigative hypothesis, "granted but not conceded" that should the pope fall into error against the faith, he ought to be warned and corrected, and after two warnings, and if he remains obstinate in error, he declares himself to be a heretic and fallen from the pontificate, but this must not be an act of jurisdiction but a work of charity. »]
     Thus Don Curzio Nitoglia explains the doctrine of Ballerini exactly as I have: there is not even a hint made that the heretic pope would be officially warned by "the Church", but by individuals as an act of charity, not acting in an official capacity (which requires the authority of a superior), and not pronouncing a judicial verdict or even a declaratory sentence while the pope remains in office (which requires jurisdiction). The judgment of condemnation is pronounced by the self-judging heretic, who falls from the pontificate by his own self condemnation before any juridical post factum judgment is made by the Church. This is precisely what the Council of Constance explicitly declared to have taken place in the case of Pedro de Luna (Benedict XIII).
     The proposition stated explicitly by Salza and Siscoe on their website, purportedly refuting my "erroneous" interpretation of Bellarmine, in which they assert that the Church may judge a pope for heresy while still in office, directly opposes the dogma of the universal papal primacy of jurisdiction defined by Vatican I, and which declares most solemnly that no one on earth may judge the pope. Don Nitoglia points out that this is the defined article of faith that the pope cannot be judged by anyone:
«Ma il Concilio Vaticano I (IV sessione, 18 luglio 1870, Costituzione dogmatica Pastor aeternus) ha stabilito la definizione dogmatica circa il principio della ingiudicabilità del Papa: “Insegniamo e dichiariamo che secondo il diritto divino del primato papale, il Romano Pontefice è il giudice supremo di tutti i fedeli […]" (DS, 3063-3064). Il CIC del 1917 al canone 1556 riprendendo la definizione dogmatica del Vaticano I ha stabilito il principio: “Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur”, ripreso tale e quale dal CIC del 1983, canone 1404.»
[“But the First Vatican Council (Session IV, 18 July 1870, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor aeternus) has established the dogmatic definition on the principle of the injudicability of the pope: ‘We teach and declare that according to divine right of the papal primacy, the Roman Pontiff is the supreme judge of all the faithful [...]’. (DS, 3063- 3064). The CIC of 1917 in Canon 1556 reiterating the dogmatic definition of Vatican I established the principle: ‘Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur’, repeated exactly the same in the CIC of 1983, Canon 1404.”]
     The doctrine that the Apostolic See may never be judged by anyone was already proclaimed in the Fifth Century by Pope St. Gelasius. Hinschius observes: «Schon im fünften Jahrhundert, in welchem die Stellung des Römischen Bischofs sich zu einer wirchlichen Obergewalt umzubilden anfängt, wird indessen aus der demselben beigelegten höchsten Jurisdiction über die Kirche von Papst Gelasius I. der Satz hergeleitet, dass die Römische Kirche dem Gerichte Niemandes unterstehe. [4]
[4] c. 16 (Gelasius I. a. 493) C. IX. qu. 3 : “Ipsi sunt canones qui appellationes totius ecclesiae ad huius sedis examen voluere deferri. Ab ipsa vero nusquam prorsus appellari debere sanxerunt ac per hoc illam de tota ecclesia iudicare,  ipsam ad nullius commeare iudicium nec de eius unquam praeceperunt iudicio iudicari”; c. 17 (idem a. 498) ead. : “Cuncta per mundum novit ecclesia, quod sacrosancta Romana ecclesia fas de omnibus habet iudicandi neque cuiquam de eius liceat iudicare iudicio.” »  
     In the phrase, «ipsam ad nullius commeare iudicium », the injudicability of the Roman Pontiff is declared, a principle which is restated by Pope St. Gregory VII around the year 1075 in Dictatus 19 of his Dictatus Papae : «Quod a nemine ipse (the pope) iudicari debeat», and again Paul IV in 1559 declared that the Roman Pontiff, «omnesque iudicat, a nemine in hoc saeculo iudicandus.» This injudicability pertains essentially to the very nature of the judicial supremacy of the primacy, as Moynihan explains, “This doctrine of papal immunity is incontrovertible […] the authority of the pope is supreme, and by virtue of his own primacy of jurisdiction, no one else is competent to be his judge.”  Hence, it is a proposition against the very nature of the primacy to assert that the pope can ever be judged by anyone, even for the crime of heresy; unless “judging the pope” be understood in a qualified sense, according to which, the manifestly heretical pope would, by the very act of his heresy, cease by himself straightaway to be pope and a member of the Church; and for that reason, (as Bellarmine states) he could then be judged and punished by the Church, i.e. shown to be already judged. Thus it is according to the same qualification and meaning, as both Hinschius observes (in the above cited passage), and Moynihan explains (citing the same passage as Hinschius), that Innocent III teaches, if the pope were to fall into heresy, he could be “judged by men”; but only in the qualified sense that he “can be shown to be already judged”. “Innocent, [Moynihan explains], in this passage is making a veiled reference to the principle elaborated by his teacher, Huguccio of Pisa, who wrote, «cuм papa cadit in heresim, non iam maior sed minor quolibet catholico intelligitur »” . According to this principle as elaborated by Huguccio, a heretic pope would automatically cease to be pope, and would therefore no longer be greater than any Catholic, but less than any Catholic.This principle had already been elaborated less systematically earlier by the authors of the Summa Et est sciendum  and the Gloss Ecce uicit leo . According to this principle elaborated by these early Decretists, a pope who becomes a heretic ceases automatically to be pope (ipso jure) and a member of the Church; and no longer a member of the Church, (excommunicated ipso iure as the author of the Gloss Ecce uicit leo states ) he is no longer greater than any Catholic, but is less than any Catholic. Hence, he can, as Innocent III teaches, be “shown to be already judged”, and “cast out and trampled underfoot by men” – “deposed”, as I explain in Part II of this work. So, explains Moynihan, “In this connection [i.e. on the automatic fall from office for heresy] it is interesting to note the difference of opinion on this question between Huguccio and Innocent III (1198 – 1216). The latter had been a pupil of Huguccio’s at Bologna. […] he could not agree with Huguccio that a pope could be deposed for notorious crimes, but rather only for heresy. There is a veiled attempt at avoiding a papal trial in the following words: «Romanus Pontifex … potest ab hominibus judicari, vel potius judicatus ostendi». […] (Sermo IV).” 
      Thus, it is the constant teaching of the Church going back to the explicit formulations of Pope St. Gelasius, that for so long as the pope is still the validly reigning pope, he is the supreme judge in all cases –  including his own, as Pope Innocent III teaches (see Part II); and cannot be judged by anyone. He can only be judged by his inferiors if he were to consent to being judged, as Pope Hadrian II taught.  The only “exception” is not an exception at all, but only if a pope were to cease to be a member of the Church because of heresy, Schism or apostasy, he would by that very act, publicly defect from communion with the Church, cease to be a member of the Church; and therefore, according to the prescription of Canon 194  (Canon 188 n. 4 in the 1917 Code ); he would lose office automatically (ipso jure); and the loss of office would then be enforced juridically by a merely declaratory sentence (Canon 194 §2). On this point, the canon is absolutely clear and unequivocal: “Can. 194 §1. The following are removed from an ecclesiastical office by the law itself: […] 2° a person who has publicly defected from the Catholic faith or from the communion of the Church; […]§2. The removal mentioned in nn. 2 and 3 can be enforced only if it is established by the declaration of a competent authority.” In the commentary on the Code of Canon Law composed by the Canon Law faculty of the University of Navarre, it is explained: “In the 2nd and 3rd cases, the act of the ecclesiastical authority is declarative, and it is necessary, not to provoke the vacating of the right of the office, but so that the removal can legally be demanded (also for the purposes of 1381 § 2), and consequently the conferral of the office to a new officeholder can be carried out (cfr. C. 154).”  Since the loss of office takes place ipso jure, it does not depend in any way on the subsequent declaration which merely enforces it; and for this reason, as the quoted canon of the 1917 Code explains, the actual loss of office by tacit renunciation takes place ipso facto without any declaration (“Ob tacitam  renuntiationem  ab ipso iure admissam  quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine ulla  declaratione”). The Canon Law commentary of the Pontifical Faculty of Canon Law of the University of Salamanca explains that the sole necessary condition for such a loss of office to take place, is that the act be freely committed, and then the loss of office follows necessarily: “El hecho por el que se presupone la renuncia debe ser puesto voluntariamente, a tenor del canon 185; pero, cuмplida esta condición, la perdida del oficio se produce necesariamente.”  That the canon is applicable to all ecclesiastical offices is stated explicitly with the words, “quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto” – and therefore necessarily includes the office of the Supeme Pontiff. The Very Rev. H. A. Ayrinhac explained, in his General Legislation in the New Code of Canon Law, on Loss of Ecclesiastical Offices, that such loss of office (Canons 185-191) “applies to all offices, the lowest and the highest, not excepting the Supreme Pontificate.” (p. 346)
     There exists only one case in the entire history of the Church that a papal claimant has been validly and legitimately deposed by ecclesiastical authority, and that was the deposition of Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna) by the Council of Constance (Sess. 37), which followed the same procedure as rhat which is prescribed in the canons in force at present. The Council did not presume to remove him by any judicial act of judgment, but rather, it followed and applied the teaching of Innocent III, and declared him to have already lost all office and ecclesiastical dignity by himself ipso jure; and thus, having already been reduced to the state of minor quolibet catholico by his own actions, the Council then deposed him “as a precautionary measure” (ad omnem cautelam privat et deponit et abiicit).  
     The subsequent developments brought it about, that the Conciliaristic tendency on the part of the hierarchy to attempt to limit papal power by means of creating exceptions to immunity were overcome, so that, (as Hinschius observed already in 1869 ), “The course of the further development, however, has, as is known, eliminated episcopalism in the Catholic Church, and the principle, apostolica sedes a nemine iudicatur is now in full force.” Based on the foundation of the doctrine of Pope Innocent III and its application by the Council of Constance, St. Robert Bellarmine formulated his exposition on the doctrine of the automatic loss of office of a manifest heretic pope, which he briefly stated in De Romano Pontifice II xxx as Opinion No. 5. Pietro Ballerini elaborated the same opinion more systematically, basing it explicitly on the firm foundation of the ruling of the Council of Constance; and Pope Gregory XVI explicitly endorsed Ballerini’s doctrine on the question of a heretic pope in his book, saying such a heretic would have “fallen from the pontificate by himself” . After the First Vatican Council infallibly defined the dogma of papal primacy, thus giving dogmatic force to the principle of papal injudicability, the principle “Prima sedes a nemine judicatur” was incorporated into the Code of Canon Law; and has been interpreted according to the mind of the Church, and in conformity with the constant teaching of the ordinary magisterium, by the officially approved commentaries on Canon Law, to admit no exceptions. 
     After all my lengthy argumentation and copious docuмentation, Salza & Siscoe remain entrenched in their position. Salza's chronic and habitual dishonesty comes to the fore in his most recent piece of sophistry, an e-mail message which blindly ignores the arguments which expose his fallacious (and fraudulent) reasoning, and simply re-affirms his thoroughly refuted, errant propositions:
《Every apologist for the Sedevacantist sect asserts that it is the “nature” of heresy, and not any declaration from Church authorities, that severs one from the Church.》
     This is a glaring red-herring argument. I have amply demonstrated in this work, from the most explicit magisterial pronouncements and the texts of the popes, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, that it is in the nature of manifest heresy that it is per se a defection from the faith and the Church; and that therefore, by the very act of manifest formal heresy, one ceases to be a member of the Church. This is the clear and explicit teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. Salza & Siscoe falsify the teaching of that encyclical, modifying and changing it by adding their own qualifications to the teaching which do not pertain to simple and unqualified doctrine expressed in that docuмent. 
      Salza quotes his faulty translation of Pius XII, and misinterprets the passage with a gramatically flawed and logically impossible hermeneutic:  《For not every offense, although it may be a grave evil, is such as by its very own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.》
     Salza gratuitously interprets the word "admissum" strictly to mean "crime" in the canonical sense of a delict, and then, against the rules of grammar, attempts to qualify the phrase later on in the sentence with that strict modification, whereby the words "schisma, vel heresis, vel apostasia faciunt suapte natura" are no longer understood according to their clear and proper signification as sins; but are errantly and gratuitously qualified to designate these sins only in so far as they are canonical delicts, i.e. according to their generic nature as crimes, but not according to their specific nature as sins. Schism, heresy and apostasy are not canonical offenses according to their nature, but are crimes only in virtue of legislation, which is extrinsic to their nature. Thus it is not in the nature of crimes, that by their very nature they sever a man from the Church, as do schism, heresy or apostasy, but only by the authority of the Church do they sever one from the body of the Church; whereas according to the nature of schism, heresy and apostasy, i.e. according to the intrinsic nature of the sin as a manifest external act, it is an act of defection from communion with the Church, that by itself visibly severs one from the body of the Church apart from anyone else's judgment, or any act or judgment of ecclesiastical authority; and without any need of further qualification such as, 1) explicit formal defection from the Church, 2) formal rejection of the Church’s magisterial authority as the rule of faith; or, 3) joining another religion –  because the act of formal heresy is in its very nature, a rejection of the authority of the Church, as St. Thomas explains in the above cited passage. I have already sufficiently explained this point and exposed the sophistry employed by Salza as the basis of his bogus interpretation of Mystici Corporis. Pius XII clearly and explicitly distinguishes between the sins which by themselves, according to their very nature (suapte natura) cut one off from the body of the Church, and all other sins, which only effect the separation of one from the body of the Church "by the legitimate authority of the Church", i.e. by excommunication because they are penal offenses, and do not sever one from the Church suapte natura. If one interprets the words, "schism, heresy, and apostasy -- suapte natura" to denote these species of sins according to the errantly qualified sense under their formal aspect of the accidental circuмstance of their being crimes, or according to the nature of their genus as external acts, then the distinction made by Pius XII in that paragraph between the specific acts which by themselves, by their own specific nature separate one from the Church, and all other species of acts which separate one by legitimate ecclesiastical authority is thereby destroyed, making irrational nonsense of Pacelli's magisterium on this point; since all crimes without exception pertain to the genus of external acts, and in their generic nature as external acts are absolutely identical. If Pius XII’s words are interpreted to mean that by their generic nature as external acts, schism, heresy and apostasy separate one from the Church suapte natura, then all external sins would by their very nature separare the perpetrator from the body of the Church – yet it is precisely only these three species of the sin of infidelity that the encyclical teaches, separates one from the body of the Church suapte natura, and for all others, men are “severed by the legitimate authority” of the Church: «ob gravissima admissa a legitima auctoritate seiuncti sunt. »Thus, Salza & Siscoe do violence to the teaching of the Church on the nature of heresy; and against the clear pronouncement of the Supreme Magisterium in 1943, Salza appeals to a previously expressed opinion written before the question was closed, such as that of Cardinal Billot (which errs on the specific nature of the matter of heresy, confusing it with the generic nature of infidelity) , and the clearly contrary opinion of John of St. Thomas. The opinion of John of St. Thomas, which holds that even for heresy, the judgment of the Church is required for the heretic to be severed from the body of the Church is explicitly contrary to the teaching of Pius XII, who explained in Mystici Corporis, that according to its very nature, heresy by itself separates one from the body of the Church, so that while those guilty of other crimes are severed from the body of the Church, by legitimate authority, heretics, according to the nature of heresy (suapte natura), miserably separate themselves from the unity of the body. The idea advanced by John of St. Thomas and advocated by Salza & Siscoe, namely, that the judgment of authority is required for the heretic to be separated from the body of the Church, is diametrically opposed to the teaching of Mystici Corporis, which explicitly excludes that the separation takes place by authority, and hence, the Salza/Siscoe doctrine is patently opposed to this clearly expressed papal doctrine which pertains to the universal and ordinary magisterium. The proposition affirmed by Salza & Siscoe, that the Church, “judges the quality of the crime that excludes from the Church without any over added censure, as long as it is declared by the Church”, is plainly contrary to the explicitly stated doctrine of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. 
      In the above cited texts, I have quoted the verbatim translations (of the passage of Mystici Corporis), and the commentaries of two of Salza's favorite authors, Msgrs. Van Noort and Fenton, both eminent theologians who translate and interpret the passage of Mystici Corporis exactly as I do; yet Salza blindly and obstinately insists that such an interpretation is a sedevacantist "abuse" of a faulty translation of Mystici Corporis (which would mean that Salza, who does not know Latin, translated the passage correctly, and Fenton, Van Noort and the official website of the Apostolic See translated it wrongly) Thus, Salza is not only wrong, but is plainly blind and obstinate against the mind of the Church. 
     It is the act of manifest formal heresy by itself, i.e. the manifestation of pertinacity, without any additional qualifications or conditions, and without any censure or judgment of authority, which separates the manifest heretic from the body of the Church, and takes place according to the very nature of heresy (suapte natura), and hence, ipso jure, by the operation of the law itself, (as I have amply explained and docuмented), and therefore severs both the spiritual and visible bond with the Church.
     Siscoe likewise remains entrenched in heresy, "I applied the Thomistic distinction of quoad se/quoad nos to show that, just because heresy of its nature severs a person from the Church (spiritually), does not mean heresy, of its nature, causes a person to cease being a member of the Church (legally).  And I quoted the great John of St. Thomas who explained it exactly the way I did." Siscoe elaborates: “Did you even read John Salza’s recent article that prompted this e-mail exchange?  John and I both contributed to that article so it represents both of our opinions.  We both affirm that the sin of heresy, of its nature, separates a person from the Church quoad se (of itself), but the sin of heresy, of its nature, does not result in a separation from the Church quoad nos (according to us), nor does it result in the loss of office. […] As long as a person remains a member of the Church quoad nos – even if he has committed the sin of heresy and has lost the faith - he remains a legal member of the Church; and if the person in question is a bishop or Pope, he retains his office until the crime has been legally established by the proper authorities.” Then he quotes John of St. Thomas: 
“[J]ust as the Church, by designating the man, proposed him juridically to all as the elected Pope, so too, it is necessary that she depose him by declaring him a heretic and proposing him as vitandus (one to be avoided).  Hence, we see from the practice of the Church that this is how it has been done; for, in the case of the deposition of a Pope, his cause was handled in a general Council before he was considered not to be Pope, as we have related above. It is not true, then, that the Pope ceases to be Pope by the very fact [ipso facto] that he is a heretic, even a public one, before any sentence of the Church and before she proposes him to the faithful as one who is to be avoided.  Nor does Jerome exclude the judgment of the Church (especially in so grave a matter as the deposition of a Pope) when he says that a heretic departs from the body of Christ of his own accord; rather, he is judging the quality of the crime, which of its very nature excludes one from the Church—provided that the crime is declared by the Church—without the need for any superadded censure; for, although heresy separates one from the Church by its very nature, nevertheless, this separation is not thought to have been made, as far as we are concerned [quoad nos], without that declaration.”
     Siscoe then comments, “Before continuing, notice the point he makes about heresy, of its nature, severing a person from the Church without the need for any additional censure.  This is how heresy, schism and apostasy differ from other mortal sins, which, of their nature, deprive a person from sanctifying grace, but do not separate them from the Church. It requires an additional censure for other sins to sever a person from the Church. For example, abortion severs a person from the Church, not by the nature of the sin, but due to the censure of excommunication that has been attached to it by the Church.” Siscoe is simply saying that other sins require the additional censure of excommunication for one to be cut off from membership in the Church, but for heresy, schism and apostasy, excommunication is not necessary, but only the judgment of the Church by which one is declared a heretic. He again quotes John of St. Thomas:
 “Likewise, we respond to his reasoning in this way: one who is not a Christian, both in himself (quoad se) and in relation to us (quoad nos), cannot be Pope; however, if in himself he is not a Christian (because he has lost the faith) but in relation to us has not yet been juridically declared as an infidel or heretic (no matter how manifestly heretical he is according to private judgment), he is still a member of the Church as far as we are concerned (quoad nos); and consequently he is its head.  It is necessary, therefore, to have the judgment of the Church, by which he is proposed to us as someone who is not a Christian, and who is to be avoided; and at that point he ceases to be Pope in relation to us (quoad nos); and we further conclude that he had not ceased to be Pope before [the declaration], even in himself, since all of his acts were valid in themselves.”
     Siscoe concludes: “If you disagree with the great John of St. Thomas - who was known, even in his own day as the second Thomas’ - explain why he is wrong.” It is not difficult to explain why he is wrong: John of St. Thomas teaches that the manifest heretic remains a member of the Church, who “has not yet been juridically declared as an infidel or heretic” and, he is still a member of the Church as far as we are concerned (quoad nos)”, since “It is necessary, therefore, to have the judgment of the Church, by which he is proposed to us as someone who is not a Christian”. Thus, John of St. Thomas teaches that even heretics are severed from the body of the Church and cease to be members, but not without the authority of the Church. Pius XII teaches in unison with the universal and ordinary magisterium that all other sins, which separate one from the body of the Church, do so “by legitimate authority”, but heresy, schism and apostasy do not separate one from the body of the Church by legitimate authority, but do so suapte natura, and by divine law (jubente Domino) heretics “miserably separate themselves” from the body of the Church.
     Salza & Siscoe reply in their Formal Reply Part II: «Dispositive vs. Formal Separation: This distinction explains different ways of understanding how heresy severs a person from the Body of the Church, without considering a separate unity with the Soul of the Church. According to this explanation, the sin of heresy, of its nature, severs a person from the Body of the Church dispositively, but not formally. The formal separation from the Body of the Church occurs when the juridical bond is severed by the public act (crime) of notorious heresy (notorious by fact), or when the crime has been judged and declared by the Church (notorious by law). »
     According to the bizzare doctrine of Salza & Siscoe, the sin of heresy is an internal sin only, and the external act of heresy is in its nature a crime. Such a usage of the terms is contrary to the common and perpetual usage of theologians, who distinguish between internal sins and external sins. To willfully profess heresy or to commit murder are equally external sins. The external profession of heresy is not an internal sin externalized by an external act (as Salza & Siscoe repeatedly claim), but is an external sin in the same manner that murder is an external sin. Both the internal and the external sin of heresy are intrinsically mortally sinful acts, which, by definition, are of identical specific nature, to wit, an obstinate denial or doubt of a revealed truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. In their Formal Reply, Salza & Siscoe obfuscate on this point by quoting Cajetan who pointed out the generic difference between the nature of an internal act and of an external act ; and on that basis they draw the absurd conclusion that the internal sin of heresy is of a different specific nature than the external act of heresy, which which they even more absurdly claim is a crime in its very nature! Since heresy as a sin specifically, whether internal or external, is specified in its essence by the selfsame definition, which thereby expresses its nature, both the internal sin and the external sin of heresy are of the same specific nature. Thus heresy as such, whether internal or external, separates one from the union with God, which exists by means of the virtue faith, and therefore heresy, committed internally or externally is the same species of sin, and is a mortal sin ex toto genere suo. No sin is in its nature a crime, because the criminality of a sin is not intrinsic to its nature, but exists solely in virtue of penal legislation which makes it a crime, and therefore is extrinsic to the nature of the sin.
     Earlier I wrote, “Salza & Siscoe now claim: ‘The external act of heresy is, by its nature, a crime.’ This is patently false: The nature of a crime in ecclesiastical law is of an external and morally imputable violation of a law or precept. It does not pertain to the nature of heresy that it is ‘an external and morally imputable violation of a law [an ecclesiastical law] or precept’; and therefore, the proposition is false. The external act of heresy is a sin, and not a crime.” The context of my words make it u

What Sean Johnson hasn't figured out is that the Salza/Siscoe critique of Fr. Kramer's interpretation of Bellarmine is based on the totally gratuitous and false assumptions that, 1) Fr. Kramer does not understand Cajetan's argument, which Bellarmine refutes. (Although Salza & Siscoe speak only of Bellarmine's "attempted refutation" of Cajetan.) Cajetan's argument is presented in my book. I know perfectly well what Bellarmine was refuting; and I present a much more in depth critical examination of Bellarmine's doctrine on this point than anyone else who is writing on the topic at the present time; and 2) that Fr. Kramer fails to take into account Bellarmine's refutation of the Second Opinion; according to which a pope who is put into the papacy by men is not removed from the papacy without the judgment of men. I have fully explained this point in Part III of my soon to be published book; which is that a secret heretic cannot simply fall from office in the manner of a manifest heretic who publlicly defects from the faith and ceases by himself to be pope. Only when the formal heresy becomes publicly manifest can an officeholder in the Church fall from office automatically (ipso facto); without any declaration (sine ulla declaratione), and without any judgment by authority, but by operation of the law itself (ipso jure); as is explicitly set forth in canon 188 n. 4 in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and is so explained in the 1952 Commentary the Pontifical Faculty of the University of Salamanca, (and remains the same in the 1983 Code, as Ecclesiastical Faculty Canon Law of the University of Navarre explain in their 2005 Commentary). Salza & Siscoe have exhumed a defunct opinion that was totally abandoned after Vatican I (Pastor Æternus) solemnly defined that the pope is the supreme judge in ALL CASES THAT REFER TO ECCLESIASTICAL EXAMINATION , and condemns the proposition that anyone can reject his judgment or judge against his judgment; or appeal to an ecuмenical council against his judgment:

Constitutio Dogmatica «Pastor Aeternus» Concilii Vaticani I: Et quoniam divino Apostolici primatus iure Romanus Pontifex universae Ecclesiae praeest, docemus etiam et declaramus, eum esse iudicem supremum fidelium (Pii PP. VI Breve, Super soliditate d. 28 Nov. 1786), et in omnibus causis ad examen ecclesiasticuм spectantibus ad ipsius posse iudicium recurri (Concil. Oecuм. Lugdun. II); Sedis vero Apostolicae, cuius auctoritate maior non est, iudicium a nemine fore retractandum, neque cuiquam de eius licere iudicare iudicio (Ep. Nicolai 1 ad Michaelem Imporatorem). Quare a recto veritatis tramite aberrant, qui affirmant, licere ab iudiciis Romanorum Pontificuм ad oecuмenicuм Concilium tamquam ad auctoritatem Romano Pontifice superiorem appellare.

   The definition makes no allowance for any exception; and its wording positively excludes such an interpretation; ERGO: The Salza/Siscoe doctrine which professes against the above quoted dogmatic definition, to wit, that papal heresy is an exception to the doctrine of papal injudicability defined in the quoted text of that Dogmatic Constitution, is HERESY.

Don Paolo,

Why do you speak of Fr. Kramer in the third person? You ARE, Fr. Kramer. You were exposed a few years ago when you came coming back under different names to support your own position. If you believe what you post, sign your name to it. 

I have not read your posts yet but you should speak for yourself. You have used your name before on CathInfo. Use it and take full responsibility  for your statements.

You really need to stop posting, Drew.  You do nothing but embarrass yourself more with each post.

So St. Thomas was a heretic for not believing in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception?  After all, it has always been dogma.  So if dogma is the rule of faith, then he was a heretic, right?

I assume that you would respond that it's because the dogma was not yet proximate to him, right?  At the time, that particular dogma was not the proximate rule of faith for him.

You have turned into a complete moron. Yuk.
 
Yes, it has always been a dogma.

As Pope Pius IX puts it:

The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the pillar and base of truth and has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin — a doctrine which is so perfectly in harmony with her wonderful sanctity and preeminent dignity as Mother of God — and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts........


And indeed, illustrious docuмents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church, very forcibly testify that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, which was daily more and more splendidly explained, stated and confirmed by the highest authority, teaching, zeal, knowledge, and wisdom of the Church, and which was disseminated among all peoples and nations of the Catholic world in a marvelous manner — this doctrine always existed in the Church as a doctrine that has been received from our ancestors, and that has been stamped with the character of revealed doctrine. For the Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them; but with all diligence she treats the ancient docuмents faithfully and wisely; if they really are of ancient origin and if the faith of the Fathers has transmitted them, she strives to investigate and explain them in such a way that the ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine will be made evident and clear, but will retain their full, integral, and proper nature, and will grown only within their own genus — that is, within the same dogma, in the same sense and the same meaning. -  Pope BI. Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus

You have turned into a complete moron. Yuk.
 
Yes, it has always been a dogma.

As Pope Pius IX puts it:

The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the pillar and base of truth and has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin — a doctrine which is so perfectly in harmony with her wonderful sanctity and preeminent dignity as Mother of God — and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts........


And indeed, illustrious docuмents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church, very forcibly testify that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, which was daily more and more splendidly explained, stated and confirmed by the highest authority, teaching, zeal, knowledge, and wisdom of the Church, and which was disseminated among all peoples and nations of the Catholic world in a marvelous manner — this doctrine always existed in the Church as a doctrine that has been received from our ancestors, and that has been stamped with the character of revealed doctrine. For the Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them; but with all diligence she treats the ancient docuмents faithfully and wisely; if they really are of ancient origin and if the faith of the Fathers has transmitted them, she strives to investigate and explain them in such a way that the ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine will be made evident and clear, but will retain their full, integral, and proper nature, and will grown only within their own genus — that is, within the same dogma, in the same sense and the same meaning. -  Pope BI. Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus

He said it's always been a dogma you blithering idiot. That was exactly his point. It has always been a dogma and yet St. Thomas was not a heretic for not believing it. Because it had not yet been defined in the infallible Magisterium. But now that it has been, any Catholic who denies it would be a heretic. 

Ergo, Magisterium is the rule of faith, as it is your adherence to the Magisterium that decides whether you are a heretic or not, as proven by Ladislaus' example of St. Thomas.

Subborn, just admit it.  You have no idea what we're even arguing about and what it's implications are.

Nope, you've turned into a complete moron alright. You are so screwed up that you don't even realize half the crap your pushing is pure Novus Ordo lies and the other half is a mixture of truth with lies - hence, your firm belief in sededoubtism. 

Again you completely dodge the point. If one today did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, they would be a heretic. They do not have to preach against it, holding heretical beliefs is sufficient to be a heretic. But as you yourself said, St. Thomas was not a heretic despite not believing in the Immaculate Conception.
So what changed? The Immaculate Conception was dogmatically defined by the Extraordinary Magisterium. That proves that it is adherence to the Magisterium or lack thereof that decide whether one is a heretic or not. One can have beliefs that are contrary to the truth, such as St. Thomas had, but if said truths(such as the Immaculate Conception) have not yet been defined by the infallible Magisterium, then one is not a heretic for said beliefs.

You have a Novus Ordo understanding of the whole issue. This means that you can discus this issue at length and on the same merry-go-round as poor Lad and get just as far as he's gotten - right into sededoubtism.

As for what dogma is and when to believe it - all you need to do is confirm that all the bishops in the world are in union with the pope when whatever he / they teaches suits you - because that is what you say is dogma, everyone else is a heretic. Remember now?

The Immaculate Conception has been a feast of the Church on December 8th for Centuries, since WAY before it was defined in the 1800s.  It has been an IMPLICIT part of the Faith since Apostolic times.  St Thomas Aquinas never denied this truth; he never denied that Our Lady had a special grace, or that She was sinless from birth.  What was being debated was when conception occurred and when the soul was infused, which St Thomas thought was AFTER the physical cells had formed.  The Church, by defining this dogma, clarified in a sense, (and in advance of the age of abortion) that life began at conception.  Before that time, scientists debated when life actually happened.