On the problem of the heretical pope
By Roberto de Mattei | 25 September 2024
The statement that Pope Francis made on the different religions on 13 September in Singapore is probably destined to fuel a certain sedevacantism, which refuses to recognise the authority of the reigning pontiff, because of his real or presumed heresies.
While dissent from or resistance to many of the pope’s pronouncements can be justified, this is not true of the superficiality with which the difficult and delicate problem of supreme authority in the Church is addressed in some circles.
In a benchmark book, Ipotesi teologica di un Papa eretico (Chieti, Edizioni Solfanelli, 2018), Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira (1929–2018) offered a systematic exposition of the question of the heretical pope. On the basis of thorough research, the author demonstrates how the possibility that a pope could fall into heresy is acknowledged by most theologians. There is no consensus, however, in establishing whether a heretical pope would lose his office, or, if so, when and how this would happen.
The most plausible view, according to da Silveira and other authors, seems to be that of Saint Robert Bellarmine, according to which a pope who fell into public and widely known heresy would cease to be a member of the Church, and therefore would cease ipso facto to be head of the Church.
On this basis, some sedevacantists argue: a) Francis has demonstrated, by his words and actions, that he is a public heretic; b) if Francis is a public heretic, then he is no longer a member of the Church, in which case he cannot be considered the true head of the visible Church instituted by Christ; c) therefore Francis is not the pope, but is simply Jorge Mario Bergoglio, “inimicus Ecclesiae”.
In reality, the problem is more complex and must be addressed in the light of the teaching of Saint Robert Bellarmine and the most reliable theologians.
In the encyclical Mystici Corporis of 29 June 1943, Pius XII explains that the Mystical Body of the Church, in its likeness to the Incarnate Word, possesses a profound spiritual life, together with an organic and social structure. Like its Founder, the Church consists of a human element, visible and external, supplied by the men who compose it, and a divine element, spiritual and invisible, supplied by the supernatural gifts that place its human society under the influence of the Holy Spirit, soul and unitive principle of the whole organism.
In order to be saved, it is necessary to belong, through supernatural faith, to the soul of the Church, because “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6). Faith, however, is only the beginning of our divine existence: its full, intense life is called sanctifying grace. Whoever commits the very grave sin of heresy separates himself from the soul of the Church.
Whereas belonging to the body of the Church requires three elements: the outward profession of the Catholic faith, participation in the sacraments of the Church and submission to the legitimate pastors. Are heretics automatically separated from the body of the Church as well?
In the same encyclical Mystici Corporis, Pius XII states that, “only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptised and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.”
There is a distinction here, implicit but fundamental, between the legal and the spiritual separation of heretics from the Mystical Body, which reflects the difference between the soul and body of the Church. The pope explains that, while heresy by its nature separates the person spiritually from the Church, legal separation occurs only when the person voluntarily leaves the Church or is separated from it by an ecclesiastical sentence.
One must not confuse the sin and the crime of heresy. The former belongs to the moral sphere, the latter to the juridical. Heresy, by its nature, constitutes a sin and separates us spiritually from the Church, also predisposing us to a juridical separation. But the spiritual bond is distinct from the juridical. John Salza and Robert Siscoe have explored this point in True or False Pope (Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 2015, pp 143–189). Formal separation occurs when the authority of the Church recognises the crime of heresy, publicly condemning the heretic. But who has the authority to pronounce a sentence against the pope, who has no superior above him? It is clear that any intervention by Church, cardinals or council would be a purely declarative action that would publicly manifest the existence of a crime of heresy. The Vicar of Jesus Christ, in fact, is not subject to any human jurisdiction: his direct and immediate judge can only be God Himself.
The pope can separate himself from the Church, but only by means of a widely known heresy, manifest to the Catholic people and professed with obstinacy. The loss of the pontificate, in this case, would be the result not of a dismissal by someone else, but of an act of the pope himself, who in becoming a formal and widely known heretic would have excluded himself from the visible Church, tacitly resigning from the pontificate.
But an outwardly professed heresy can be defined as public without necessarily being widely known. The famous canonist Franz Xaver Wernz, in his Ius Decretalium (volume VI, 1913, pp 19–23), makes an important distinction between a public crime and a widely known crime. A crime is publicum when, although common knowledge, it is not recognised as a crime by all people. “Widely known” means moreover that the crime is recognised as evident by all: “Widely known facts do not need proof” (can 1747). Its being widely known presupposes the awareness, on the part of the one who hears heretical words, of the intrinsic malice of the one who speaks them. If the one who speaks them is a pontiff, as long as this realisation is lacking and the pope is tolerated and accepted by the universal Church, the heretic will remain a true pope and, in principle, his acts will be valid.
Today, the large majority of Catholics, starting with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, interpret pro bono the words and actions of Pope Francis. So we cannot say that his loss of faith is evident and manifest. Nor does it seem possible to prove his obstinacy. Therefore the correct guidelines of the great classical theologians are difficult to follow in practice. When St Robert Bellarmine or Fr Wernz wrote their books, society was still Catholic, the sensus fidei was developed, and it was easy to discern the heresy of a priest, a bishop or even a pope. Today, the large majority of the baptised — ordinary faithful, priests, bishops — live immersed in heresy, and few are able to distinguish between the truth and the error that has penetrated within the Temple of God.
Let us return to the distinction between the spiritual and the juridical sphere. St Robert Bellarmine, in the second book of De Romano Pontifice, gives an interesting example regarding Novatian and Baius. Novatian (220–258) was a heretic who denied the legitimacy of Pope Cornelius and went so far as to proclaim himself pope, publicly rejecting the authority of the Church; Michel de Bay (1513–1589), known as Baius, a professor in Louvain in the Netherlands, fell into heresy and was censured by Pius V and Gregory XIII, but, in contrast with Novatian, he did not deny the pope and the Church as the infallible rule of faith. Bellarmine explains how Novatian was a manifest heretic who, unlike Baius, lost his office and jurisdiction in the Church.
In conclusion, it could happen that a pope might separate himself spiritually from the Church while remaining canonically pope, just as it could happen that the faithful might separate themselves spiritually from a pope while recognising his canonical legitimacy. True Catholics must separate themselves not from the pope but from the heresies and errors unfortunately professed from the highest summits of the Church, and then await everything from God.