CC in Brief – Sedevacantist questions

Catholic Candle note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism. Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. We recommend a small book explaining the errors of sedevacantism. It is available:

Below is the first of a series of CC in Brief articles which cover specific aspects of the error of sedevacantism.


CC in Brief

Sedevacantist Questions

Q. If a pope publicly preaches heresy, does he cease to be pope?

A. Your question does not provide enough information (i.e., context) for a simple answer, and makes us wonder if you are perhaps failing to distinguish between a person being a public heretic and a formal heretic. If any person understands (i.e., knows) that he is denying what he is required to believe in order to be Catholic (i.e., to belong to the Catholic Church), then that denial causes him to cease to be Catholic. This is to be a formal heretic.

Such a person ceases to be Catholic even if he never reveals the matter to anyone. Such a person would not be excommunicated by Church authorities since (as we supposed in this example) he never revealed his opinion to anyone. But the very fact that this person holds a statement that he understands to be incompatible with being Catholic – i.e., by his being a formal heretic – he ceases to be Catholic and could not go to heaven because Outside the Church there is No Salvation.

But suppose that a person holds a heretical opinion but he does not know it to be incompatible with being a Catholic. Then in that case, he would hold the “matter” of heresy but would not cease to be a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. In other words, by unknowingly holding his error about the Faith he would be a material heretic.

It is not uncommon for a person to hold material heresy but it is, of course, always a bad thing. So, e.g., suppose a seven-year-old child holds that God has a body (which is a heresy). Suppose he thinks that this is what the Catholic Church teaches. He is a material heretic but remains a member of the Catholic Church. He is not a formal heretic because he does not understand that he is contradicting the Catholic Faith which is revealed by the Church.

No matter how publicly he declares his understanding that God has a body, he is a material heretic and is not a formal heretic. The child remains a Catholic – but is one who is in error on a matter of the Faith.

Even a pope is not immune from denying a dogma of the Faith. But if that pope did not know that he was denying a doctrine that he was required to believe in order to be Catholic, then he remains a Catholic and remains the pope.

The case of Pope John XXII (who lived in the 14th century) is a useful example.

But before we get to that example, let us recall some important truths of the catechism which are necessary in order to understand the remainder of this article:


  • All that God has divinely revealed to man is called Divine Revelation.


  • Divine Revelation has two founts (i.e., sources): Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.


  • Since God is its author, all that is contained in Divine Revelation is certain, true, and is part of the Catholic Faith.


  • The Catholic Church is the guardian and sole interpreter of Divine Revelation, and teaches the Faithful all the contents of Divine Revelation.


  • To help her teach without err, God has given the Church the gift of infallibility – the gift of being unable to err when authoritatively teaching the whole Church anything about Faith or morals.


  • All of these truths which she teaches infallibly are called dogmas (i.e., doctrines).


  • Her teaching authority is called Her Magisterium.


  • She can teach dogmas to the Faithful using either Her extraordinary infallible Magisterium or Her ordinary infallible Magisterium. The easier method to understand, and the one most Catholics are familiar with, is the extraordinary Magisterium, which most Catholics associate with precisely-worded ex cathedra statements from the popes.


  • Both the ordinary and extraordinary magisterial methods faithfully transmit dogmas to the Faithful without error, but the extraordinary Magisterium has this advantage: that it is easier for the Faithful to recognize that a truth from Church authorities is indeed infallible, and must therefore be believed.

  • When the Church infallibly formulates the specific, precise wording of a dogma, She is said to define that dogma.


  • The Church has defined only a small percentage of all dogmas; thus, notice that although all dogmas are part of Revelation and thus infallible, yet not all dogmas have been precisely defined. That is the very beautiful advantage of the Church’s definitions: they give us exact wording which incapsulates the meaning (substance) of the dogma. For this reason, the Faithful can rejoice when the Church defines a dogma.


With those reminders stated, we can now investigate the case of Pope John XXII, who publicly denied a dogma of the Faith but was not a formal heretic.



Pope John XXII (reigned 1316-1334)


It is a defined dogma of the Catholic Faith that the saints see the Beatific Vision immediately after they die (and after they have been purged in Purgatory, if necessary).1 However, this dogma was not always defined.


In fact, Pope John XXII lived before this dogma was defined by the Church’s Extraordinary Magisterium. He publicly denied that the saints immediately see the Beatific Vision after they die, i.e., before the General Judgment.2


But further, before Pope John XXII became pope, he wrote a book publicly denying this dogma of the Catholic Faith, viz., that the saints see the Beatific Vision immediately after they die (and after they have been purged in Purgatory, if necessary).3 Instead, he taught the opposite heresy. Id.


Not only before Pope John XXII’s papal reign but also during it he caused a “great commotion” by denying this doctrine of the Catholic Faith on several occasions and publicly teaching the opposite heresy.4 Yet he reigned as pope until his death.5


Yet both before and after this doctrine was defined, the Church has always recognized the validity of Pope John XXII’s election and reign as pope.6 In other words, his public teaching of this heresy did not prevent his election or his reigning as pope.


We know that dogmas are already true and have always been doctrines of the Faith, even before those dogmas become defined by the Church’s Extraordinary Magisterium. In other words, the Church’s extraordinary definition of a dogma does not all of a sudden “make” a doctrine true (and make it part of the Faith).


Rather, an extraordinary definition of a doctrine of Faith merely gives certitude to anyone in doubt concerning a truth which was already a dogma of the Catholic Faith. This is why the First Vatican Council declared: “the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine”.7


Thus, we know that the dogma which Pope John XXII denied was always true and was a doctrine of the Faith at the time he denied it.


As scandalous as it was for Pope John XXII to publicly teach heresy, he was elected pope while professing this heresy and reigned as pope while continuing to profess this heresy.


Thus, we see that a pope who publicly teaches heresy would remain Catholic if he does not know that his teaching is a rejection of what he must believe in order to be Catholic. In other words, a pope who teaches heresy remains the pope if he is a material heretic. However, if the pope were to become a formal heretic, then he would cease to be a Catholic and cease to be pope (since a pope cannot be the head of the Church if he is not a member of the Church).



Afterword


When Pope Francis teaches heresy, that does not tell us whether he remains pope precisely because we do not know that Francis knows he is contradicting the Catholic Faith. He would have to make it known that he knows he is contradicting the Catholic Faith.


But the sedevacantists would reply (often in a tone of exasperation): “Oh, come on! He knows he is contradicting the Catholic Faith.” That reply raises the topic of the sedevacantists’ sin of rash judgment. Beware of that sin! But that sin is a topic that we will cover in a different CC in Brief.

1 Council of Florence, Pope Eugene IV, Bull Laetentur coeli, 1439; Pope Benedict XII Benedictus Deus, 1336, Denz. #530-531.

2

1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry: Pope John XXII.

3

1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry: Pope John XXII.

4

1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry: Pope John XXII. The phrase in quotes is the description in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

5

1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry: Pope John XXII. See also, the Annuario Pontificio editions 1939, 1942, and 1959.

The Annuario Pontificio is the Church’s official list of popes and the years of their reign. These lists not only include Pope John XXII as a pope but list his reign as ending when he died, rather than some earlier date as if he lost the pontificate because of his (material) heresy.

6

1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, entry: Pope John XXII; see also, the Annuario Pontificio editions 1939, 1942, and 1959.


The Annuario Pontificio is the Church’s official list of popes and the years of their reign. Pope John XXII is listed in all of those lists of the Church’s popes.

7

Vatican I, Session 4, ch.4 (emphasis added).