A Response and a Defense of Universal Peaceable Acceptance

Mr Grant demolishes a specific criticism of his essay "The Bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio: Void and of No Authority" by a sedevacantist.

From One Peter Five

By Ryan Grant, BA

"It is of no consequence that some Pontiff may have been illegitimately elected."

My previous article on Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio elicited several responses, including several very generous ones from some sedevacantists in agreement. Yet, I feel the need to turn to the response of Mr. Jackson of Hiereth in Exile, who wrote a response on his substack claiming that I “entirely missed the point,” but then spends numerous paragraphs demonstrating that he in fact missed the point. For instance, in the beginning, he says,

No one seriously denies that Cum ex has been overtaken by later legislation. But Grant’s deeper claim is that this fact somehow erases the principle behind it: that because a sixteenth-century penal mechanism was later streamlined, the theological axiom it expressed has evaporated too. That leap is untenable.

Now, I would ask where in the article this deeper claim can be found? Rather, I clearly laid out my motivation for writing the document, not to prove by its absence that a heretic can be elected a valid Pope, but to address its actual status, contrary to Mr. Jackson’s claim that “no one seriously denies Cum ex has been overtaken by later legislation,” there are notable people whom I cited, who indeed doubt it, and who claim it as an infallible document.  

If you want to distract Catholics, hand them a stack of sixteenth-century paperwork and tell them the whole fight lives or dies on whether a Renaissance penal bull remains legally active.

This is again empty rhetoric, and frankly silly, because one cannot find that anywhere in my article. Since Mr. Jackson takes the sedevacantist position to be “the whole fight,” I must again note that in both the preface and conclusion, as well as in footnotes, I stated that the sedevacantist question does not depend upon this document, and survives just fine without it. It is possible to write about a subject as such in order to consider what it is properly. Now, apart from such rhetoric, we have a few errors.

In response to my argument that this bull could not be infallible and irreformable since popes had made former heretics Cardinals, he argues:

Exactly; former heretics, after abjuration and reconciliation. The bull never taught that reconciled Catholics are permanently disabled. The point cuts the other way: the Church presumes visible Catholicity as the condition for promotion. That’s the principle on display.

In n. 2 as well as 6 of the document, Pope Paul IV clearly decreed that no one may hold the office of Cardinal, or any other ecclesiastical office, if he had ever deviated from the Catholic Faith.

The same lack of attention to detail is seen in his mustering of the claim of Canon 188:

By the letter of the law, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio as a standalone bull was absorbed into later codification. The 1917 Code abrogated its specific penal clauses but retained its substance in Canon 188 §4, which declares that public defection from the faith vacates any ecclesiastical office ipso facto. Official commentaries on the Code, including the Gasparri Fontes, explicitly cite Cum ex Apostolatus in the footnotes as the juridical source for that canon. In other words, while the bull’s disciplinary machinery no longer operates independently, its governing principle was not rejected; it was incorporated into the very structure of the Church’s modern law.

Fr. Creusan’s article on abrogation, which I cited and parts of which I translated in my previous article, make this clear enough. The principle in Canon 188 has nothing to do with the Pope, and it is entirely false to infer the whole of Cum ex in reference to the Pope, Cardinals, etc., is somehow enshrined in law or principle when the canon in question is limited to a cleric who has abandoned the faith.

Moreover, the Gasparri Fontes, if Mr. Jackson actually read them, in no way say anything about Cum ex. He reprints it along with the other the bulls of Paul IV, ordered chronologically with all the bulls of all of the Popes since the Renaissance. Its reference is simply merely systematic, as Gasparri himself notes on page one of his Codex Juris Canonici Fontes:  

Many laws mentioned in the notes and transcribed in this collection differ entirely from the canons of the Code; nevertheless, it seemed good to include them here to present the history of the law, and also when it is a question of penalties, so that they would be available to the Superior or to the Ecclesiastical Judge in imposing those same penalties.[1]

So again, returning to the footnote in the Code, this is an editorial gloss, as any canonist knows; as far as the lex vigens, there are no footnotes in the code. If an editor put one there, it is entirely for the purposes Gasparri laid out in his Fontes; but this still gives our opponents nothing. Let’s look at a standard canonical commentary from before the Council on Canon 188.4,

Defection from the Catholic faith, if public, deprives one of all ecclesiastical offices he may hold; not, however, mere schism, if unconnected with heresy.[2]

Contrast this with Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which does impose loss of all office for mere schism,[3] and again, we see that the two laws are simply not the same. It’s merely a reference to an antiquarian document to show the history of the law and what penalties used to be involved for such things, and in imposing a similar penalty for clergy who defect from the faith. It nowhere enshrines any principle Cum ex Apostolatus Officio into law, since that is a matter for dogmatic theology.

But if that is not enough, let us turn to the European Sedevacantist journal Sodalitium, which lays out the problems with Mr. Jackson’s claim:

This task [proving an election invalid by the precepts of Cum Ex] however in the current state of affairs, shows itself doubly arduous. To begin with, it is necessary to prove the formal and notorious heresy of the errant one. Failing a (hypothetical) admission of the guilty party, an intervention of the Church and its Magisterium then takes place, in accordance with the words of St. Paul to Titus: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid.” What Paul IV perhaps did not foresee—like all the classical writers on the question of the “heretical pope”—was that no authority would arise in such a case to make the admonitions required by scripture and canons.

The second difficulty consists in the current juridical value of the Constitution of Paul IV. The sixth canon of the Code of Canon Law prescribes that what is not taken up again in the 1917 Code should be considered as abrogated, unless the law is evidently by divine right. Now the prescriptions of Paul IV are only partially resumed by the Code (Can. 188.4 and 2314.1) without any mention of the case of the supreme pontiff. Doubt therefore remains about the character of Paul IV’s proclamation—whether it belongs to divine law, and thus is always valid, or to ecclesiastical law.[4]

I would put to Mr. Jackson, is the largest sedevacantist journal in Europe trying to distract Catholics by handing them a stack of sixteenth-century paperwork and telling them the whole fight lives or dies on whether a Renaissance penal bull remains legally active? Are they suggesting a heretic can be elected Pope because Cum ex Apostolatus Officio is null and void?

Finally, we have:

As for ‘universal peaceful acceptance,’ the maxim presumes the man is at least a Catholic subject and that the acceptance is truly universal and informed. When the same claimant uses his public ministry to propagate propositions irreconcilable with prior definitions, the “acceptance” that matters, the Church’s adherence to the same credenda through time, has already been withdrawn, even if press offices applaud.

This is again an invention, because nowhere did I address Universal Peaceable Acceptance (UPA), or suggest that UPA means a heretic can become Pope. It’s not even a reasonable inference because I have never written or spoken on UPA; until today.

Before I begin, however, we should turn to another article written by Mr. Jackson, where he mocks UPA as a magic pill used by his interlocutors to prop up the Popes since Vatican II. He cites Dr. William Ward, a prolific writer in the Dublin Review, and claims:

Dr. William George Ward surveys earlier theologians like Turrecremata and Suarez and frankly admits a possibility that today’s UPA apologists treat as blasphemy: a “seeming pope” who is universally regarded as pope, but in reality is not. …

Ward acknowledges that some medievals believed a pope could, by falling into heresy, cease to be really pope while still being treated as pope by the Church. Faced with that hypothesis, he doesn’t panic and scream ‘schism.’ He asks the right question: how does Christ protect His Church in such a scenario?

His answer is subtle and sane. He argues that once a man, already recognized as pope by the universal Church, truly puts forth a solemn, ex cathedra definition, divine Providence will not permit that man to be an impostor. If the Church as a whole adheres to a dogma defined from the Chair of Peter, that very act is a dogmatic fact: God guarantees both the truth of the dogma and the reality of the pope.

Notice what Ward is not saying.

He is not saying that the bare sociological fact of “everyone externally treats him as pope” is itself a revealed dogma. He is not treating “universal acceptance” as an automatic sacrament that retroactively cures any defect whatsoever. …

Let us look at what Ward is saying in the cited Dublin Review article. When examining the source, which Mr. Jackson gives in his own article, we find a rather different analysis. Dr. Ward was addressing a treatise by Renouf arguing that Honorius I erred while teaching ex cathedra, and to refute the argument, follows it to its conclusions by granting it hypothetically.

However let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that Mr. Renouf’s allegation were true. On such an hypothesis, in addition to the Ultramontane doctrine itself, —viz. that the Pope is infallible ex cathedra,—modern Ultramontanes have added another tenet altogether distinct; viz. that no Pope can fall into formal heresy. For this tenet doubtless they can claim no support from mediaeval theologians: but how can such a circumstance affect in the slightest degree the value of medieval testimony to the Ultramontane doctrine itself? It would have been very strange if any mediaeval theologians had held the opinion that no Pope can fall into heresy; considering that, as Mr. Renouf himself informs us (p. 43), S. Liberius was called a heretic in the Roman Breviary, and his fall “was accepted as one of the simply indisputable facts of Church history.” On the other hand, as critical and historical studies have advanced, it has become more and more evident that in fact no Pope has ever become a formal heretic; and in consequence the pious hope and opinion has largely and increasingly spread, that God will always preserve the Church from such a calamity.[5] (my emphasis)

Look at what Ward is saying. He is dismantling the objection arguing the Ultramontane position that a Pope cannot fall into heresy is a novelty, by pointing out the medieval belief was founded on false history, namely the notion that Liberius was a true heretic. Now, after reviewing the general opinion that a Pope who becomes a formal heretic would cease to be Pope (though he is not enthusiastic about inclining toward that opinion), Ward continues through the hypothetical argument:

But here ensues a difficulty, to which our author draws attention. A Pope may—by hypothesis—profess formal heresy; and yet that profession may be generally unknown. He has ceased then to be really Pope, and yet is universally regarded as Pope. Mr. Renouf writes as though this difficulty were confined to the particular case of a Pope secretly professing heresy; whereas his own authority, Turrecremata, might have reminded him that it applies with even greater force to other cases also. Lord Macaulay somewhere supposes that, at a time when hordes of barbarians were baptized en masse, some ten or twenty may have accidentally missed valid baptism. One of these afterwards undergoes the form of ordination and consecration, and is accounted a bishop; in due time he is appointed to the Pontificate. He is no real Pope, yet every one so accounts him. Even more plausible difficulties are often pressed by Protestants, as arising from the Catholic doctrine concerning sacramental intention. All these perplexities however are really quite groundless, except on one most strange supposition; except on the supposition that God, having founded the Church, ceases thenceforth to protect and watch over her. Divine Providence, as Turrecremata says, will protect her against all such evils.[6]

Notice what Ward is not saying. He does not advance that someone could be accounted Pope by the whole world, when he is not, and then put forth heretical doctrine, as a serious proposition. Rather, notice what Ward is saying: This will never happen because of Universal Peaceable Acceptance:

Turrecremata’s doctrine has been carried by later theologians to its legitimate results. Divine Providence he says, will protect the Church against any evil results which might ensue to the Church, from an unavoidable mistake of some seeming Pope for a true one. But if the false Pope proceeded to put forth doctrinal determinations quasi ex cathedra, most serious evil would accrue to the Church. It is the explicit doctrine therefore of later theologians, that so soon as a Pope, recognized as such by the Universal Church, has put forth any doctrinal determination, he is infallibly the true Pope. … Whenever therefore any universally recognized Pope puts forth any doctrinal determination, it is infallibly certain that he is not unbaptized, nor otherwise disqualified for the Pontificate.[7] (Emphasis in the original) 

Thus, read properly and in context, Ward is handing down all of the same distinctions which were developed quite some time before. We will see below what Torquemada’s doctrine is that “has been carried by later theologians to its legitimate results.” Yet, Mr. Jackson is determined to explain it all away:

After 1870, though, the tone changes. Catholic theologians now find themselves arguing not only with Protestants and Gallicans, but with Old Catholics who reject Vatican I by attacking Pius IX himself. “Maybe he wasn’t a true pope. Maybe the council was invalid. Maybe the whole thing was a massive fraud.”

You can see the temptation. If you allow that the identity of the pope can be seriously doubted, the enemy has an easy way to undermine any uncomfortable council or definition: “Perhaps that man was never pope.” In the face of that threat, some theologians move from Ward’s modest position to something far more sweeping.

Cardinal Billot is the poster child for this trend. Writing in the early twentieth century, in his De Ecclesia Christi, he takes the older intuition, that the Church cannot be left indefinitely subject to a false rule of faith, and expresses it in maximal form. The peaceful and universal adherence of the Church to a determined pontiff, he says, is in itself an infallible sign of his legitimacy and of all the conditions requisite for legitimacy. God may allow long vacancies, he argues, and even doubts about particular elections; what He cannot permit is that the whole Church accept as pontiff one who is not truly and legitimately so.

The immediate response is, gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. But those who have not done the reading are often convinced of the strength of gratuitous arguments, so we will show it for what it is. Cardinal Billot is in no way outstanding when he taught what he did in regard to UPA, and Dr. Ward, whom Mr. Jackson calls subtle and sane, says the same thing as Cardinal Billot.

Really, the Papacy was stronger in Cardinal Billot’s time than it ever was when it held temporal sovereignty, and still, a true consensus of theologians from the time of Martin V to Cardinal Billot and beyond teach precisely the same thing. Old Catholics, though seeming like a strong movement in the first couple of years of their existence, became a pitiful group of minimal importance. In reality, they always were, but their importance was inflated by the drama of Vatican I and the media spectacle surrounding it, and such importance deflated when everyone else had moved on. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Old Catholics concludes, “All things considered, Old Catholicism has practically ceased to exist. It is no longer of any public importance.”[8] And this was at the very time Cardinal Billot composed his treatise De Ecclesia Christi, where he argues on UPA and aligns precisely with what theologians argued for hundreds of years when there were no old Catholics. As a result, Jackon’s claim is a gratuitous assertion used to deflect the authority of pre-Vatican II theologians, which is nothing more than “big modernism.”

Notice what Cardinal Billot is saying

If Cardinal Billot is the poster boy for anything, it is fidelity to the tradition and developing his theology in consonance with it. After reviewing questions such as Honorius, and Gratian’s decretal can. Si Papa, Billot moves from debates among theologians to what is certain:

But whatever you may still think about the possibility or impossibility of the aforementioned hypothesis, this at least must be firmly held as entirely unshaken and placed beyond all doubt: that the adherence of the universal Church will always be, by itself alone, an infallible sign of the legitimacy of the person of the Pontiff, and consequently of the existence of all conditions that are requisite for legitimacy itself. Nor must the reason for this be sought from afar. For it is derived immediately from Christ’s infallible promise and providence: The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and again: Behold, I am with you all days. Indeed, it would be the same for the Church to adhere to a false pontiff as if she adhered to a false rule of faith, since the Pope is the living rule whom the Church must follow in believing and always in fact does follow, …. Certainly, God can permit that sometimes the vacancy of the See be protracted for a longer time. He can also permit that doubt may arise concerning the legitimacy of one or another elect. But He cannot permit the whole Church to recognize as pontiff one who is not truly and legitimately such. Therefore, once he has been accepted and joined to the Church as the head to the body, the question of a possible defect in the election or the absence of any condition necessary for legitimacy should no longer be raised, because the aforementioned adherence of the Church radically heals every defect of the election, and infallibly demonstrates the existence of all required conditions.[9]

When we compare this both to Ward and the tradition below, we will see that there is nothing particularly new here. The universal acceptance of the Church is an infallible sign that divine providence is at work, that, as Ward noted above, there is no possibility that he is a seeming Pope, because if he were this infallible sign could not be present. It is an argument to divine providence, not a “sociological sign” or a “magic pill” as Mr. Jackson temerariously refers to it. There is no minimalist or maximalist position embraced between Ward and Billot. Instead divine providence is the efficient cause for both authors, and for both it is marked by the acceptance of the whole Church.

Universal Peaceable Acceptance in the Tradition

Far from a mere opinion of a handful of theologians, the doctrine of Universal Peaceful Acceptance (UPA) grew out of the consequences of the Western Schism, as theologians grappled with the ecclesiological situation where the Church struggled over forty years to recognize who was in fact the legitimate Pope.. The doctrine, as explicated by theologians, is that the universal Church cannot err in recognizing its head; therefore, if a man is elected, and is universally received and accepted as Pope by the Universal Church (like Pope Martin was at Constance), then as a consequence he must be Pope, since nothing could have prevented him from being Pope, i.e., he could not have been invalidly elected, or been a heretic. Let’s delve into this doctrine a little more.

After Pope Martin V’s election at the Council of Constance, he approved articles condemning the doctrines of the heretic Jan Huss in Bohemia, among which he taught:

[Condemned:] If the Pope lives contrary to Christ, even if he ascended through a proper and legitimate election according to commonly accepted human constitution, nevertheless he would ascend by a way other than through Christ, even if it were granted that he entered through an election primarily made by God: for Judas Iscariot was rightly and legitimately elected by God Christ Jesus to the episcopate, and yet he ascended by another way into the sheepfold.[10]

Against this condemned article, bishops and inquisitors are to ask the following question: “Likewise, whether one believes that the Pope canonically elected, whoever he may be at the time, with his proper name expressed, is the successor of Blessed Peter having supreme authority in the Church of God.”[11]

From this, theologians draw the conclusion that identification of who is Pope is a dogmatic fact. We mentioned Juan Torquemada [Turrecremata] in the discussion of Dr. Ward’s Dublin Review article, so we will begin with him. Writing in the 15th century, he argues:

An eighth category can be distinguished of those truths which, although not absolutely Catholic, nevertheless savor of Catholic truth, for they are closely related to Catholic truths. Hence, a truth savoring of Catholic truth can be defined thus: A truth savoring of Catholic truth or faith by consequence is that which, when joined with some other truth not pertaining to faith, but which nevertheless cannot reasonably be denied, becomes a Catholic truth. For example, because Master Thomas of Sarzana now sits in apostolic dignity, the proposition ‘Thomas of Sarzana is pope’ is a proposition savoring of Catholic truth. This is evident because when joined with that truth which cannot be denied, namely that he was duly and canonically elected, as for instance by the entire college of cardinal lords or by two-thirds of them, it becomes a truth to be called Catholic. ‘Master Thomas of Sarzana, duly and canonically elected, and received as pope by the universal Church, is the true pope’ – this proposition is Catholic by determination of the universal Church, as in the chapter In nomine Domini. Likewise in the decretal epistle of Martin from the Council of Constance, it is placed among the things to be believed by every faithful person that the canonically elected pope who holds office at any given time, his proper name being expressed, is the successor of blessed Peter having supreme authority in the Church of God.[12]

Here we must note that Cardinal Torquemada is basing his teaching on the decree of Martin V and the praxis of the Church at Constance; the fact of whoever is Pope must be believed, and it is, though indirectly, de fide. Suárez holds the same thing:

I say that, just as Christ’s visible Church is this particular one, so it can have this particular visible head, and therefore it is of faith that this man, who has been accepted by the common consensus of the Church as the head of the Church, whom the Church herself is bound to obey, is the true Pontiff, the successor of Peter. This is proven first from Councils, and above all in the Bull of Martin V, at the Council of Constance, it is ordered that from heretics who wish to be reconciled to the Catholic Church, it should first of all be demanded whether they believe that the canonically elected Pope, whoever he may be at the time (his name being expressly stated), is the successor of Peter, and has supreme power in the Church of God; this therefore, as the Pontiff supposes, is to be believed by faith, nor is anything proposed by Pontiffs for immediate belief with less than the certainty of faith. Moreover, Councils do not distinguish between the true Pontiff in general and this one who now sits with the full consensus of the Church, but embrace them with the same veneration and faith; thus certainly the Council of Chalcedon received Leo the Pope by name; the Sixth Synod, Agatho; the Council of Milevis, Innocent I; etc.[13]

Cardinal de Lugo, writing in the 17th century, after summarizing the arguments of other theologians, asserts the following:

It can also be briefly proven by reason, omitting other arguments that are customarily presented, from what has been said above, because this singular object seems to be contained in the universal propositions revealed by God. For from God’s revelation, it is established that the Church cannot be deceived in universally believing any error, since it is the Column and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 2), in which universal infallibility of the Church it seems no less contained that the Church cannot err in recognizing the true visible rule of its faith, than in other matters to be believed through faith. For an error concerning the very rule of truth and faith would harm the Church more than errors concerning other particular objects, since it would be an error in the very foundation of faith. Therefore, since the visible rule which the Church follows in its faith and must absolutely follow is its visible head, namely the Supreme Pontiff, whose teaching and definitions it must embrace, the Church cannot be deceived in accepting as Pontiff and rule of faith one who truly would not be Pontiff nor rule of faith, but a pseudo-pope and a private individual (my emphasis).[14]

Again we must note, the Cardinal’s teaching is not that a heretic could become Pope, rather he is laying out that it is de fide that man X, properly elected and received by the universal Church, must in fact be the true Pope because the Church cannot be deceived in acknowledging her head.

The Salamancans take up the objection application of a universal proposition, e.g. whoever is elected by the Cardinals and received by the Church is Pope to a particular person (in their time Innocent XI) will not be de fide. They respond:

It is refuted, thirdly; for that election is certainly established to have been properly, or canonically, performed by the Church, which is certainly established to have been conducted, approved, and received by the whole Church: but this latter point is certainly established; therefore the former is as well. The major premise seems self-evident, because since the power of electing the Supreme Pontiff resides with the Church, that election is done properly and canonically which is conducted and approved by the whole Church; for no other laws are required for this purpose except those which the Church herself has established, which therefore in electing and approving fulfills all that is required for the true and canonical election of a Pontiff. The minor premise is also certain, because the Church has given to the Cardinals the power of electing the Supreme Pontiff, who therefore with respect to this office represent the whole Church. They themselves elected Innocent XI, and after the election was completed (although this is not even necessary for the proof of the minor premise which we intend), no doubt concerning its validity arose; otherwise, some of them would have protested. Furthermore, the elected person himself, having been presented by the Cardinals to the whole Church, was accepted and approved by the universal Church as if considered in its own person: and this universal approval would supply for defects, if any existed, in the election as conducted by the Cardinals. All these things are almost experimentally evident, and no one except a madman could deny them. Therefore, it is absolutely certain that the election of Innocent XI was conducted, received, and approved by the whole Church; and consequently the argument made above is not weakened on this account, but perseveres in its strength. [15] (my emphasis)

And dealing with an objection for matters that could hinder a man from being Pope, such as whether he was baptized, the Salamancans answer again:

And in this way, just as from these premises, Everyone duly elected by the Church as successor of Peter is the Supreme Pontiff of the Church; but Innocent has been duly elected by the Church as successor of Peter, it is concluded that Innocent XI is the supreme Pontiff of the Church: so it is also concluded that he is a man, and baptized, and has other essential conditions for being Pontiff; and all of this taken comprehensively is immediately of faith, and is contained implicitly in that universal proposition, Everyone duly elected by the Church, etc. [16](my emphasis)

Again, the argument is that election and acceptance by the whole Church is a sign that nothing was lacking for this man to become Pope, i.e., he cannot be a heretic prior to his election.

John of St. Thomas also argues this doctrine at great length in his Cursus Theologicus, examining this question at great length. After noting the development of the doctrine in Martin V’s Inter Cunctas, and whether it is de fide, he concludes:

You will only ask at what time this acceptance by the Church begins to be sufficiently valid so as to render that proposition a matter of faith: whether by the very fact that the Cardinals present the elected person to those faithful who are in the place of election, or when it has already been sufficiently promulgated throughout the whole world and the Church spread everywhere. It is answered that, as we stated above, the unanimous election and declaration by the Cardinals is like a definition made by bishops in a legitimately convened Council, while the acceptance by the Church is, as far as we are concerned, like a confirmation of such declaration. Moreover, this acceptance is understood to occur both negatively: immediately when the Church, wherever it knows of such an election, does not contradict it, and positively when it is immediately accepted by the prelates of the Church who are present there, and gradually in other parts of the world it is also admitted by other prelates, such that those who see or hear of the Pope-elect, and observe that he is not being contradicted, are immediately bound to believe that he is the Pope and to accept him.[17]

St. Alphonsus also summarizes the teaching of theologians:

It is of no consequence that in past centuries some Pontiff may have been illegitimately elected, or fraudulently intruded into the Pontificate; it suffices that he was afterward accepted by the whole Church as Pope, since by such acceptance he has already been rendered a legitimate and true Pontiff.[18]

To this we can add innumerable theologians, who constitute a true consensus which developed along a disputed question, and is a teaching that is de fide, as attested to by all the authors. As Cardinal Franzelin teaches, commenting on Bl. Pius IX’s teaching in Tuas Libenter, whenever the theologians are unanimous on a teaching, then it is considered infallible.[19]

Conclusion

Now, we have shown that according to the consensus of theologians prior to Vatican II, the consequent of UPA is that divine protection will ensure that the man who was elected Pope is not prevented from it by any defect. This does not mean as a consequence a formal heretic can be Pope, but conversely, there is no way that a man elected and then peacefully accepted could have been a heretic. That is the import of their teaching. The theologians are not saying that UPA applies unless he is a heretic, but that he cannot be. Conversely, this doctrine does not also mean a truly elected Pope cannot subsequently fall from the Papacy due to formal heresy. As previously noted, the same theologians whom we have reviewed also, for the most part, teach the more common opinion held by Bellarmine.

Thus, UPA is not a silver bullet to the arguments of our sedevacantist interlocutors, but it is a call to challenge assumptions. The problems in the Church remain, the problematic statements, teachings, questions about the Council, all remain. They will ask how is this the true Church? But just the same, how can it be that Cardinal Roncalli was such a heretic that not one theologian in the Church, let alone any bishop or member of the faithful, not even Gerard de Lauriers noticed, rather, the entire Church rejoiced in his election as John XXIII and adhered to him? This seems clearly, by the teaching of the theologians since the 15th century, to be an infallible sign that he was in fact validly elected as Pope. Maybe they were wrong. But if a consensus of this sort was wrong, how much more other propositions which our interlocutors take for granted?

Just the same, our sedevacantist interlocutors have other arguments not at all answered by UPA, but in the continuing dialogue, we should have a mind to what the theologians actually taught, and allow our assumptions to be challenged by their teaching, rather than superciliously sneering at their teaching as a “magic pill.”

Photo by airbr3ak3r.zh on Unsplash

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[1] Complures leges in notis commemoratae et in hac Collectione exscriptae a canonibus Codicis prorsus discrepant: eas autem hic ponere placuit ad exhibendam iuris historiam, atque etiam, qunado agitur de poenis, ut possint Superiori vel Iudici Ecclesiastico praesto esse in iisdem poenis irrogandis.

[2] Charles Augustine, OSB, A commentary on the New Code of Canon Law, vol. 2, St. Louis, Herder, 1918, p. 161.

[3] N. 2. and n. 3.1. Emphasis mine.

[4] Sodalitium, no. 14 pp. 9-10

[5] The Dublin Review, Volume 11; Volume 63; p. 229.

[6] Ibid., p. 230. We can also add St. Robert Bellarmine’s rather astounding remark in his work De Coniliis, l. 1 c. 21, namely that if there were a fake Council, made of seeming bishops and a seeming Pope, but all considered true bishops when they’re not, even then he argues God would not allow such a Council to err.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Baumgarten, P.M. (1911). Old Catholics. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

[9] Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, vol. 1, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, 1927, Question XIV, Thesis XXIX,§3, pp. 635-636.

[10] Inter Cunctas, §13, n. 14.

[11] ibid., §14, n. 24: “Item, utrum credat, quod Papa canonice electus, qui pro tempore fuerit, eius nomine proprio expresso, sit successor B. Petri habens supremam auctoritatem in Ecclesia Dei.”

[12] Summa de Ecclesia, p. II, l. 4, cap. 9, Venice, 1561, p. 383.

[13] Opera Omnia, Tomus Duodecimus Complectens Commentaria in Secundam Secundae Divi Thomae, tr. I, disp. X, sect. V.

[14] Opera Omnia, v. 1, disp. I, sect. XIII, sel. V, n. 326.

[15] Cursus Theologicus, tomus XI, tr. XVII, De Fide, tr. VII, disp. IV, dub. II. n. 38.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Loc. cit., vol. 7, Paris, 1876, Q. 1, D. 7, A. 2, p. 233.

[18] Verità della Fede: Opera data fuori dall’Illustrissimo e Reverendissimo Monsignor D. Alfonso de Liguori, v. 2, 1767, p. 101. Niente ancora importa, che ne’ secoli passati alcun Pontefice sia stato illegittimamente eletto, o fraudolentemente siafi intruso nel Pontificato; basta che poi sia stato accettato da tutta la Chiesa come Papa, attesochè per tale accettazione già si è renduto legittimo, e vero Pontefice. 

[19] De Divina Traditione, Thesis XVII.

Pictured: The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where papal conclaves take place