The Hyperpapalist Interpretation of Pastor Aeternus: Why Modernists and Sedevacantists are Both Wrong

They both make the same fundamental mistake, believing that everything the Pope says is an infallible statement and not allowing for the existence of heretical, but valid Popes like Honorius, Liberius, and John XXII.

From One Peter Five

By Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD

In recent years, I have been surprised to find that progressive modernists, hyper-papalist conservatives, and sedevacantists support similar positions when it comes to interpreting the teachings of the Pastor Aeternus constitution (1870) concerning the infallibility of the Pope. Of course, their reasons are different. And yet, they support the interpretation that, besides being infallible, the Pope is indefectible. In other words, a pope in office cannot be (or become) heretical. To understand their positions, we must simply and clearly summarize the dogma of infallibility.

When the Supreme Pontiff defines ex cathedra a teaching concerning faith or morals, he cannot err. A special charism given to the Church by the Lord Jesus Christ himself protects the Holy Father from any error. Explicitly defined as dogma in the constitution Pastor Aeternus, issued in the context of the First Vatican Council under Pope Pius IX in 1870, this teaching was defined as follows:

We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Savior, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, operates with that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be instructed in defining doctrine on faith and morals; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff from himself, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable.

But if anyone presumes to contradict this definition of Ours, which may God forbid: let him be anathema.[1]

Even though I have met Catholics who do not accept it, the majority are familiar with the dogma of infallibility. It is also known even to those who belong to the Eastern schismatic Church or (neo)Protestant communities, which, without exception, reject it. As for us Catholics, if it were only about the charism of infallibility manifested when the Supreme Pontiff speaks ex cathedra (something that happens very rarely), we would not encounter major difficulties. The problem is that the Pastor Aeternus constitution states more than that. It seems to support the thesis that a pope is not only infallible but also indefectible. In other words, he can never err in matters of moral or dogmatic doctrine, under any circumstances. This seems to be asserted in the following fragment of the Pastor Aeternus constitution:

All the venerable Fathers have embraced, and the holy orthodox doctors have venerated and followed, their Apostolic doctrine; knowing most fully that this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error according to the divine promise of the Lord our Saviour made to the Prince of his disciples: ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren.’ (Luke 22:32).[2]

The suggestion is at least strange, as such a teaching was rarely supported by theologians and doctors of the patristic and medieval periods (like Saint Maximus the Confessor). Regardless of the historical discussions on the subject, I am interested here in the conclusions drawn from this assertion by each of those mentioned at the beginning of the article.

Progressive modernists are happy to recall this teaching and fight for it with all their energy when a pope asserts something that suits them. Of course, they no longer do this when Pope Paul VI states that contraception is “intrinsically evil.” But if Pope Francis implicitly states that divorced and remarried individuals can receive communion without renouncing their state of adultery, they are quite happy. Naturally, they will be even happier when, through some well-crafted pontifical document, the use of contraceptives is permitted. Therefore, this category leverages the teaching about the Pope’s infallibility and authority when it serves their agenda. Pope Francis’s teachings must be accepted and followed because, in their view, the Church’s doctrine can be changed according to the historical context. Of course, progressives will do everything possible to ensure such changes do not appear to be in complete contradiction with previous doctrine. But anyway, changes are necessary. After all, we no longer live in the Middle Ages but in the modern world, where certain beliefs and moral principles can no longer be accepted. This is their essential – and historicist – opinion.

Conservatives, meaning those who are big “fans” of Pope John Paul II and – especially – Pope Benedict XVI, are usually adherents of the Pighius-Bellarmine thesis. As we know, this thesis holds that a pope cannot be heretical at all. Immoral, indeed, but heretical, never. In other words, there is a category of sins that a pope cannot commit. God prevents him from doing so. Some conservatives go so far as to believe that the pope would die instantly if he were to even think, privately, a heresy. Anyway, most of them consider that such a thing is not possible. So what do they do when they read documents like Amoris Laetitia? If a pope cannot err in either the extraordinary or the ordinary magisterium, then debatable pontifical documents like Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans must be interpreted in a way that maintains continuity with the teachings previously expressed by the Church’s Magisterium. Following Pope Benedict XVI’s suggestions, they perform real intellectual acrobatics, practicing a “hermeneutic of continuity” that never discerns any rupture between the traditional teachings of the Church and the modernist ones. This is somewhat similar to what Pope Benedict XVI (wrongly) asserts in Summorum Pontificum: that the “Novus Ordo” liturgy is in continuity and complementarity with the Catholic “Vetus Ordo” liturgy. There is no rupture between them; everything is harmonious, and both can be preserved and celebrated without any problem.

Finally, the sedevacantists also accept infallibility accompanied by indefectibility. So how can a pope be heretical? First of all, none of the pontiffs they accuse of heresy (John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II etc.) became heretical after being elected to the chair of Peter but were heretical before being elected. Then the conclusion follows naturally: since a heretic no longer belongs to the Church, a heretic placed on the chair of Peter is not pope. Therefore, the chair is vacant. Only when a Cardinal who accepts and professes the entire teaching of the Church without error (i.e., an “orthodox” one) is elected to the fisherman’s throne will we truly have a pope again. Until then, we are in a sort of perpetual provisional situation, as when, after the death of a pontiff, the Church is without its visible head until the College of Cardinals elects the deceased’s successor.

Personally, I believe that a heretical pope is still, nevertheless, pope. Here’s why.

The First Argument: from “Potency” to “Act”

The Church’s mystagogical teachings on the Sacraments speak somewhat “ideally” about their effects. Practically, as we see in the epistles of the Apostle Paul, the baptized are considered and sometimes even explicitly called “saints.” But can we really consider ourselves saints in the full and complete sense? Personally, I would not dare to assert such a thing about myself, no matter how much I would like to be a saint like Robert Bellarmine (the patron of my name), or Saints Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Bonaventure, John of the Cross, and Francis de Sales (my favorite saints). But what is the difference between us, the baptized who have received sanctifying grace, and the great saints in the history of the Church? The answer is simple: indeed, through the Holy Sacraments – especially Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist – we all receive the graces of holiness in potential. However, only some actualize these graces to reach what the Apostle Paul called “the perfect man” (Ephesians 4:13).

In other words, by virtue of the fact that the graces of God received through the Sacraments are indeed hidden in the depths of our souls, all the baptized can be called “saints.” However, we usually avoid this term because only those who truly live the Gospel heroically, making these graces active, deserve to be called saints. It’s like a medieval army: all fighters can be called warriors, but only a few are heroes. Similarly with the Popes: when Pastor Aeternus speaks about the popes as they were indefectible, this indicates the extent of the graces God grants to those elected in the chair of Peter, but this does not mean they automatically rise to the level of the granted graces. So if the Cardinal elected as Pope had done everything necessary to be, at the moment of election, “a perfect man,” then, yes, he would be exactly as Pastor Aeternus suggests – not only infallible but almost indefectible. Otherwise, just as the graces received through the Holy Eucharist do not automatically make the recipient a saint unless he is already in a state of grace, the same applies to the Cardinal who is elected Pope. On the contrary, if he is unworthy (because of his sins – heresy included), it is the same as with those who receive Holy Communion unworthily: “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself” (1 Corinthians 11:29). He who becomes Pope unworthily “eateth and drinketh judgment to himself.”

Another way to understand the statements from Pastor Aeternus results from a more subtle distinction, namely,between “the see of Holy Peter” and the person who occupies it at a certain historical moment.[3] If the see is always free from all blemish, the person can be a sinner – even a heretic. The man as such is always fallible, but the See is not – and we know that when a pope defines ex cathedra (with all the conditions mentioned in Vatican I) he is acting on behalf of the See, indeed on behalf of Christ and the Church. Short of that threshold, certain errors of belief and judgment are possible.

As we know well from the numerous scandals of recent decades, neither the grace of priesthood, nor that of episcopacy, nor even that of the pontificate makes a person impeccable. The Pope can commit any sins that any other Christian can – and I am not only referring to moral sins. For someone occupying the throne of Peter to truly become a saint, that man must do everything that saintly shepherds like Peter, Gregory the Great, or Pius V did: defend the treasury of faith, defend the liturgical treasury of the Church, oppose heresies and errors, and, when circumstances require, die a martyr. Otherwise, without appropriate deeds, the graces, however numerous and great they may be, will remain mere unactualized potency.

The Second Argument: The Military Metaphor

If we look at the secular world, we can draw a limited parallel between the military hierarchy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In the case of the former, we know that treason does not automatically nullify the rank of the individual in question. A general who is discovered to be an enemy spy does not automatically lose his rank. He must be tried so that his guilt can be proven. Only then can he be demoted and punished proportionally to the severity of his guilt. However, until the trial takes place, he retains his position and is treated accordingly, even if his betrayal has already been discovered. Similarly, I believe there are serious practical reasons why God allows a heretical pope to remain in office. What might these reasons be? First of all, the many and the ignorant who do not understand the situation still need such a visible head. Isn’t it better for a child to know he has an alcoholic father, than never to know who his father was? Obviously, it is a very bad situation. But it still allows us to distinguish between a lesser evil and a greater evil.

Mysteriously, God almost never works alone but through and with His loyal people. He wants to highlight those of His servants who heroically take on the responsibility of opposing heretical hierarchs. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the greater the hierarchical difference between the one who denounces the heretic and the one being denounced, the greater the merits of the lesser. The young David had much greater merit in defeating Goliath than if he had been an experienced warrior of 30-40 years. However, we must understand that it is very important to see hierarchs denouncing heretical popes. Then it becomes clear to us who the true shepherds are that we can follow.

An Argument Inspired by Saint Francis de Sales

In his treatise titled The Catholic Controversy, Saint Francis de Sales draws a direct analogy between the function of the Pope and that of the High Priest when he says that “the High Priest of old was but the vicar and lieutenant of Our Lord, as ours is.”[4] When I read this statement by the Saintly Doctor of Geneva, I was electrified by its implications. For the one who condemned the Savior Christ to death was the High Priest Caiaphas who said that “it is expedient (…) that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). So the Pontiff of the Jews condemned the Son of God to death. Although he committed such a terrible act, he was no less the High Priest. But could a Christian Pope do what Caiaphas did? The answer given by the Gospel seems to be positive: the first Pope in history, Peter, denied Jesus Christ three times. Why couldn’t any other Pope do something similar – through one or more heresies? But if he did such a thing, would he be any less Pope?

Not Interminable Polemics, but Prayer

All my words above are not an invitation to a new polemic, but an invitation to reflection and prayer. I felt compelled to respond to all those who have discussed some of my previous articles published in The Remnant. At the same time, I emphasize that I am fully aware of the enormous difficulties raised by such issues. The greatest of all is the one that – I am sure – troubles most of us, whether we are conservatives, moderate traditionalists, or sedevacantists. All our explanations are nothing but attempts to “digest” an incredibly difficult situation. It is easier to believe that a pope is not a pope, but an impostor, than to accept a heretical pope and face the most difficult question: why does God allow such a thing to happen? The reality is that absolutely all our virtues, and especially Faith, Hope, and Love, are severely shaken.

We are like the apostles whose fragile boat – a poor nutshell – was threatened to sink in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. We see only threatening waves everywhere, mercilessly lashing at us, day and night. And the question that haunts us most often in recent decades has remained, until today, unanswered: “Lord, how long?” But the answer will not come until all of us – those who are truthfully aware of the existence of the giant tsunami trying to destroy the whole world – will cry together, from the bottom of our wounded hearts, just as the frightened apostles cried out to the Savior Christ who slept in the boat: “Lord, save us, we perish” (Matthew 8:25).

So more than an invitation to polemics and discussions, I ask you to receive my article as an invitation to prayer. For nothing do we need more than God and His answer, which alone can calm the waves and adverse winds.

Sancta Maria, stella maris, ora pro nobis!

---

[1] The quote can be found in Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Translated by Roy J. Deferrari from the Thirtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, Preserving Christian Publications, Boonville, New York, 2009, art. 1839 and 1840 at page 457. Online it can be read here: https://patristica.net/denzinger/#n1800 [Accessed: 06 June 2024].

[2] Idem, art. 1836-1837, pp. 456-457.

[3] I owe this suggestion regarding the distinction between person and office to Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, to whom I express my gratitude here.

[4] Library of St. Francis De Sales, WORKS OF THIS DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH translated into English by the Very Rev. H.B. Canon Mac Key, O.S.B. under the direction of the Right Rev. John Cuthbert Hedley, O.S.B. Bishop of Newport: III. The Catholic Controversy, Third Edition, London: Burns and Oates, 1909, p. 300.