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:
-
Since
God is its author, all that is contained in Divine Revelation is
certain, true, and is part of the Catholic Faith.
-
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).
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.
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).
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.
Yet he reigned as pope until his death.
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.
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”.
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.