Jean XXIII (Part 1)

Mgr Roncalli before his Election

Facts, semi-heresy and the validity of the election of 1958

A chronological, theological and canonical study

 

Table of contents

1. Object and principles of the study
2. The facts prior to the election of 1958

2.1. Bergamo, 1905–1914: with Radini Tedeschi

2.2. 12 June 1914: the letter of Cardinal De Lai

2.3. The stay in Bulgaria: Catholics and Orthodox

2.4. Presence at Orthodox services and relations with Austin Oakley

2.5. The words of 1944 on universal brotherhood

2.6. The address concerning UNESCO

2.7. In 1953: Vincent Auriol and the cardinal’s hat

2.8. Venice, 1953: being a Christian and performing good actions

2.9. Under Pius XII: the suspicion of heresy

3. The theological import of the facts and the notion of semi-heresy
4. The canonical rules and the demonstration of public heresy

4.1. Pertinacity, warnings and canon 2200 § 2

4.2. Canons 2229 § 3, 1°, and 2205 § 3

4.3. Publicity, notoriety and certainty of proof

4.4. Canon 188 § 4 and tacit resignation

5. The interpretation of the statements and the authorities invoked

5.1. Modernist ambiguity and Pascendi

5.2. The benign interpretation and Vermeersch

5.3. The quotation attributed to Coronata

6. The election of 28 October 1958 and its acceptance

6.1. The import of universal and peaceful acceptance

6.2. The counter-quotation attributed to Billot

6.3. The objection of the Great Western Schism

7. Occult accusations and divergent opinions

7.1. The accusations of Freemasonry

7.2. Private testimonies and the diversity of judgments

8. Conclusion: what is established and what remains to be demonstrated
9. List of sources
10. Object and principles of the study

 

The question examined is that of the doctrinal situation of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli before his election as John XXIII, on 28 October 1958. Do his words, his associations and his acts allow him only to be regarded as gravely suspect of heresy, or do they prove that he was already a public formal heretic, incapable of validly receiving the papacy?

The principle on which the debate turns is not contested: a public formal heretic, separated from the Church by his heresy, cannot be its legitimate head. The constitution Cum ex apostolatus officio of Paul IV, of 15 February 1559, paragraph 6, is invoked on this point. I do not contest either that canon 188 § 4 of the Code of Canon Law of 1917 attaches automatic juridical consequences to public defection from the Catholic faith. The disagreement concerns the fulfilment of this condition in Roncalli before his election.

A statement may be public, objectively erroneous, theologically dangerous, scandalous, or savour of modernism or indifferentism, without thereby constituting the public profession of a formal heresy. To establish the latter, one must demonstrate the external denial or doubt of a truth of divine and Catholic faith, with the pertinacity required, present or juridically presumed in the external forum. The gravity of the facts does not dispense from this distinction.

The examination will follow first the episodes prior to the election, then their theological and canonical import. There will then follow the acceptance of the election of 1958, the objections raised against it, and the conclusion. The initial legitimacy of the election must remain distinct from the question of a possible subsequent loss of the pontificate.

2. The facts prior to the election of 1958

2.1. Bergamo, 1905–1914: with Radini Tedeschi

From 1905 to 1914, Roncalli was secretary to Bishop Radini Tedeschi, a progressive known for his modernist sympathies.

In his description of Radini Tedeschi, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile (The Pope of the Council), presentation and reflections by L.-H. Remy, p. 6, Roncalli writes:

“His burning apostolic eloquence, his determination, his innumerable projects and his extraordinary personal activity may have given many the impression, at the beginning, that he had in view the most radical changes and that he was moved by the sole desire to innovate.”

He adds:

“He was less concerned to carry through reforms than to maintain the glorious traditions of his diocese and to interpret them in harmony with the new conditions and the new needs of the time.”

This description reveals a will to reinterpret traditions according to the needs of the time, an approach which I criticise as typical of modernism and contrary to the immutability of the Depositum fidei, the deposit of the faith. It is in this sense that I retain the note erronea, “erroneous”, and a doctrinal proximity falling under what I call semi-heresy. This assessment does not dispense from establishing a precise dogmatic denial in order to conclude to public formal heresy.

2.2. 12 June 1914: the letter of Cardinal De Lai

As early as 1914, while he was a professor at the seminary of Bergamo, Roncalli was accused of modernist sympathies. Cardinal Gaetano De Lai, secretary of the Consistorial Congregation, addressed a letter to him on 12 June 1914, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile (The Pope of the Council), p. 15:

“According to the information which has reached me, I know that you have been a reader of Duchesne [an author whose work in three volumes was placed on the Index of forbidden books for critical history and modernist tendencies] and of other authors unrestrained in their criticisms, and that on certain occasions you have yourself felt drawn by the current of thought which tends to deny all value to tradition and all authority to the past — this current is dangerous and it leads to fatal consequences, etc.”

This intervention shows that Roncalli’s readings and dispositions had aroused a suspicion of modernism. Saint Pius X had condemned this current in Pascendi dominici gregis, on 8 September 1907; the encyclical characterises it notably by the words “omnium haereseon conlectum”, “the synthesis of all heresies” (paragraph 39). The tendency to withdraw its value from Tradition and its authority from the past merits here the qualification temeraria, “temerarious”.

It is not, however, established, in the documents examined, that Roncalli publicly persisted in a determinate dogmatic denial after this intervention. The suspicion is grave, but this finding does not suffice to prove the pertinacity constitutive of heresy. Conversely, the absence of a prior canonical warning would not, by itself, allow this pertinacity to be excluded: this point will be clarified in the examination of canon 2200 § 2.

2.3. The stay in Bulgaria: Catholics and Orthodox

During his stay in Bulgaria, Roncalli developed close relations with the Orthodox schismatics. According to Luigi Accattoli in When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II (English translation by Jordan Aumann, New York, Alba House, 1998, pp. 18–19), Roncalli declared:

“Catholics and Orthodox are not enemies, but brothers. We have the same faith; we share the same sacraments, and above all the Eucharist. We are divided by a few disagreements concerning the divine constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ. The persons who caused these disagreements have been dead for centuries. Let us abandon the old disputes and, each in his own sphere, work to make our brothers good, by giving them a good example. Later, although travelling by different paths, we shall realise the union between the Churches so as to form together the true and unique Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The affirmation of one and the same faith is gravely erroneous: the Orthodox do not share the same faith as the Catholic Church, notably by reason of their rejection of the papal primacy. On this primacy, one must refer to Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, of 18 July 1870, chapter 1; on the unity of faith, to Satis cognitum of Leo XIII, of 29 June 1896, paragraph 9, and to Mortalium animos of Pius XI, of 6 January 1928, paragraph 10. The idea of a union without conversion to the Catholic faith and without submission to revealed truth calls for the note falsa, “false”.

The sentence “We are divided by a few disagreements concerning the divine constitution of the Church of Jesus Christ” does, however, bring a reservation to the statement about the same faith. It does not remove the dangerous character of this presentation of unity, but it must be preserved in its interpretation. The judgment of semi-heresy by ecumenical equivocation rests on the passage as a whole, without suppressing this reservation.

The counter-study further invokes another formulation attributed to Roncalli:

“Sia che siate cattolici o ortodossi, noi siamo fratelli. (…) Tra cattolici e ortodossi non c’è una rottura nell’essenziale, ma solo un malinteso nelle spiegazioni umane.”

“Whether you are Catholics or Orthodox, we are brothers. (…) Between Catholics and Orthodox there is no rupture in what is essential, but only a misunderstanding in human explanations.”

It is deduced from this that the word essenziale necessarily includes the primacy, the jurisdiction of the pope and all the other contested dogmas, and that Roncalli would therefore have denied these dogmas. But this interpretation is precisely what has to be established. The reasoning “the primacy is essential; Roncalli says that there is no rupture in what is essential; therefore he denies the primacy” requires an additional premise: that by this term he expressly means all the dogmatic points on which Catholics and Orthodox differ.

The statement remains theologically incorrect or dangerously ambiguous. It calls for a severe criticism in the light of Mortalium animos and of Pastor aeternus. A gravely erroneous ecumenical formulation cannot, however, without further demonstration, be identified with a formal and public denial of a dogma.

2.4. Presence at Orthodox services and relations with Austin Oakley

According to Renzo Allegri (Il Papa che ha cambiato il mondo. Testimonianze sulla vita privata di Giovanni XXIII — The Pope who changed the world. Testimonies on the private life of John XXIII — Gardolo di Trento, Luigi Reverdito Editore, 1988, p. 66, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile, p. 38), a Bulgarian journalist, Stefano Karadgiov, reported:

“I have known Catholic priests who refused to enter an Orthodox church even as tourists. Mgr Roncalli, on the contrary, always took part in the Orthodox services, arousing astonishment and perplexity in some Catholics. He never failed to attend the great ceremonies which were celebrated in the principal Orthodox church of Sofia. He would place himself in a corner and follow the rites devoutly. The Orthodox chants especially pleased him.”

The testimony describes a presence at Orthodox services whose nature, passive or active, must be determined. Canon 1258 § 1 of the Code of 1917 forbids active participation in non-Catholic worship. The monitum Cum compertum of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, of 5 June 1948, likewise concerns common meetings between Catholics and non-Catholics (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, volume 40, 1948, p. 257).

Merkelbach teaches that external heresy may manifest itself “verbis, signis, factis, omissione facti”, “by words, signs, acts or the omission of an act” (Summa theologiae moralis, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, volume 1, no. 746, p. 570). A verbal profession is therefore not the only possible mode of external manifestation. To participate actively in a schismatic worship constitutes a scandalous act and may manifest an implicit adherence to a false religion. The objection of a merely passive presence must nevertheless be examined; it does not remove every suspect appearance, expressed here by male odorans, “savouring of heresy”.

Furthermore, according to Sister Mary Teresa SLG, “Peter and John: Two Twentieth Century Apostles”, Fairacres Chronicle, volume 5, nos 3–4, winter 1972, p. 13, citing Meriol Trevor, p. 177, Roncalli became a friend of the Reverend Austin Oakley, chaplain of the British embassy and personal representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the schismatic Orthodox ecumenical patriarch.

Roncalli also visited Oakley’s chapel, where the two men prayed together. I regard this common prayer with an Anglican minister as a grave violation of the Catholic prohibition of participation in non-Catholic worship. The invalidity of Anglican orders is taught by Leo XIII in Apostolicae curae, of 13 September 1896. One might object that Roncalli was praying for the conversion of his interlocutor; this possibility requires that the meaning of the act be specified, without erasing its disturbing character.

I retain for these behaviours the qualification of dangerous, periculosi. The reservation concerning the proof of a formal heresy does not rest on the absence of words, since acts may themselves manifest heresy. It bears on the establishment of the unequivocally heretical meaning of the particular act, account being taken of the distinction between passive presence and active participation.

2.5. The words of 1944 on universal brotherhood

The counter-study reports, concerning the Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and unbelievers, these words of 1944: “The diversity of race, language, education and religion does not exclude that we are all brothers, sons of the same Father.” It also cites: “Jesus died for universal brotherhood.”

The passage reproduced by Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile (The Pope of the Council), p. 37, note 39 on p. 39, with reference to Peter Hebblethwaite, p. 221, and to Righi, p. 259, reports a proclamation by Roncalli from the pulpit and gives the following formulation: Jesus Christ “died in order to proclaim universal brotherhood”.

Taken in isolation and without explanation, this affirmation is incomplete and captiosa, “captious”. Christ died to redeem mankind from sin and to restore communion with God; the communion of saints is not reduced to a human brotherhood independent of faith and conversion. A presentation which omits this supernatural end favours a humanist, naturalist or indifferentist reading. It is to this omission that the judgment of semi-heresy relates. See Pius XI, Quas primas, of 11 December 1925, paragraphs 13 and 15–16, and Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, of 29 June 1943, paragraphs 22 and 28–32.

The gravity of this ambiguity does not, however, allow one to conclude immediately that Roncalli places all men, indiscriminately, in the state of supernatural divine filiation. The universal destination of the Redemption must be distinguished from the effective application of its fruits: the fact that Christ died for all does not mean that all are effectively justified, in the state of grace, or members of the Church without the conditions laid down by God.

To establish the heresy alleged, it would therefore be necessary to demonstrate that universal brotherhood here designates necessarily and exclusively actual supernatural filiation. The fragments cited do not prove this. A formula capable of receiving a heretical sense does not, by that possibility alone, constitute an unequivocal profession of heresy.

2.6. The address concerning UNESCO

In the dossier prior to the election there also figures an address concerning UNESCO, the precise date of which is not given in the texts examined. Roncalli there praises a force which arouses enthusiasm for “justice, liberty and peace among all the peoples of the earth without distinction of race, language and religion”.

The counter-study sees in this “pure naturalism” and “State indifferentism”. However, to recognise natural justice and civil peace as goods does not mean that the supernatural order is superfluous, that Christ is not necessary for salvation, that all religions are true or equal before God, or that the true religion is devoid of particular rights.

To prove a real contradiction with Quanta cura, the Syllabus, Libertas or Quas primas, one must find a proposition in which Roncalli actually affirms a thesis condemned by these documents. The UNESCO sentence cited does not do so by itself. A Catholic may recognise a natural good pursued by a non-Catholic or secular institution, without thereby teaching that the natural order suffices or that the social kingship of Christ is superfluous. A necessary premise is therefore lacking here.

2.7. In 1953: Vincent Auriol and the cardinal’s hat

In 1953, Roncalli insisted on receiving the cardinal’s hat from the hands of Vincent Auriol, President of France and a convinced socialist. According to Lawrence Elliott (I Will Be Called John: A Biography of Pope John XXIII, Reader’s Digest Press, 1973), Roncalli described Auriol as an “honest socialist”. Now, Pope Pius XI had clearly taught in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno (15 May 1931, paragraph 120): “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist.” By publicly associating himself with a socialist and by accepting a distinction from him, Roncalli objectively gave a counter-witness with regard to the teaching of Pius XI, suggesting an adherence to ideas incompatible with the Catholic faith. Accepting a civil honour is not, however, automatically heresy. Roncalli presented it as a diplomatic act.

The judgment borne here is that of an act scandalosus, “scandalous”, public and contemptuous of pontifical teaching, by reason of the counter-witness and of the disturbance which it could provoke among the faithful. A proximity to ideas incompatible with the faith is at issue; it does not, however, without further proof, constitute an explicit dogmatic denial. The distinction between the diplomatic gesture and a doctrinal profession remains necessary.

2.8. Venice, 1953: being a Christian and performing good actions

The Venice statements constitute, in substance, one of the gravest parts of the counter-study. Roncalli is said to have declared:

“Il solo modo di essere cristiani è di essere buoni.” — “The only way to be Christians is to be good.”

Concerning persons who do not call themselves Christians, he is said to have added:

“possono essere riconosciuti come tali in ragione delle loro buone azioni.” — “they can be recognised as such by reason of their good actions.”

These formulations are gravely misleading. The idea that a person would be a Christian by reason of his good actions is false and confused if the word “Christian” is taken in the strict theological or canonical sense. The counter-study immediately qualifies them as “pure Pelagianism”. This qualification, however, requires a further demonstration.

Pelagianism does not consist simply in recognising that an unbeliever can perform naturally good works, or that these works present an external resemblance to Christian virtue. It would be necessary to establish the affirmation according to which man can, by his natural powers alone and without supernatural grace, attain justification or salvation. The fragments cited do not say this explicitly.

Without additional context, they therefore do not prove an unequivocal denial of the necessity of baptism, of faith or of grace, nor of a dogma of Trent on justification. I maintain a very severe judgment on these words, capable of a Pelagian or naturalist sense, without holding the conclusion of formal and public Pelagian heresy to be already demonstrated. The canonical presumption of dolus cannot supply the dogmatic sense which remains to be established.

2.9. Under Pius XII: the suspicion of heresy

The dossier finally mentions, without a precise date, the inscription of Roncalli on a list of persons suspected of heresy under Pius XII, by reason of his association with Ernesto Buonaiuti, a contemporary and close friend. It also advances the hypothesis of a link with his removal from a post at the seminary. This consequence is presented as a possibility, and must not be transformed into an established chronology.

No condemnation of Roncalli for heresy is produced in the documents examined. This absence does not suffice to exclude a heresy which would be proved otherwise, but it maintains the distinction between the suspicion borne upon a person and the demonstration of his public defection from the faith.

3. The theological import of the facts and the notion of semi-heresy

The facts gathered justify, according to my judgment, a severe assessment of Roncalli’s orthodoxy before 1958. The dangerous readings, the modernist sympathies, the associations, the ecumenical practices and the equivocal statements form a whole incompatible with a clear and distinct orthodoxy. The notes retained in the examination of the episodes — temeraria, erronea, scandalosa, falsa, captiosa, as well as the qualification of dangerous acts — express this gravity.

I employ the term “semi-heresy” in the sense defined in chapter 015, “Heresy and Heretic”, pp. 24–25: an inclination or a partial adherence to grave doctrinal errors, without the fullness of formal heresy being necessarily established. It is in this sense that I attribute to Roncalli a “crime of semi-heresy”, relating it to the theological censures retained and to the requirement of integrity of the faith taught by the Church. Equivocal acts or words may manifest a material deviation or a proximity to error and render their author suspect of modernism or of illicit ecumenism, without by themselves proving his exclusion from the Church.

The infallible Formula of Saint Hormisdas recalls the requirement of entire adherence to the apostolic faith and of the rejection of heresies: Libellus professionis fidei, annexed to Inter ea quae, of 2 April 517; Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, English translation by Roy J. Deferrari, old numbering, nos 171–172, pp. 73–74. Saint Thomas examines heresy as a vice against faith in the Summa theologica, 2-2, question 11, article 1. These references impose a distinction between the gravity of deviations and the precise qualification of heresy.

An accumulation of suspect facts, even numerous ones, does not replace the proof of an objectively heretical external profession, with the pertinacity required. Suspicions, imprudences, dangerous associations, ambiguities and scandals must be assessed, but the passage from suspectus ab haeresi, “suspect of heresy”, to haereticus, “heretic”, requires that the elements proper to this latter qualification be established.

The conclusion therefore bears on the available proof of a public formal heresy before the election. It does not claim to demonstrate the absence of every interior error or of every occult heresy. It is within this perimeter that I hold the qualification of semi-heretic, favouring modernism, liberalism, naturalism or indifferentism, to be justified by the elements set out.

4. The canonical rules and the demonstration of public heresy

4.1. Pertinacity, warnings and canon 2200 § 2

The counter-study rightly invokes canon 2200 § 2: “Posita externa legis violatione, dolus in foro externo praesumitur, donec contrarium probetur.” Translation: “Once the external violation of the law has been established, dolus is presumed in the external forum until the contrary is proved.”

I accept this principle and the correction according to which a prior canonical warning is not always necessary in order to establish pertinacity. The formulation which made it a necessary condition in every case must be rectified. MacKenzie distinguishes the pertinacity already supposed by the delict of heresy from subsequent warnings which may intervene for additional canonical penalties. A complete absence of pertinacity excludes the delict; the absence of an admonition does not, by itself, prove the absence of pertinacity.

The presumption of canon 2200 § 2 nevertheless supposes an external violation of the law already established. In the case of heresy, one must first show that the external act really signifies the denial or the doubt of a truth of divine and Catholic faith. Only afterwards does the presumption relating to dolus intervene. The canon does not transform every ambiguous, suspect or erroneous public statement into an external violation of the faith.

The order of the demonstration is therefore the following: establish the words or the acts; determine their objective sense in their context; show the real contradiction with a dogma; then apply the rules of imputability in the external forum. This method denies neither the objectivity of that forum nor the force of the presumption. It refuses to ask the presumption to create the heretical character of the act which it supposes.

4.2. Canons 2229 § 3, 1°, and 2205 § 3

The counter-study invokes canon 2229 § 3, 1°, and the contemptus fidei, the contempt of the faith. Its reasoning amounts to saying that a statement objectively expresses this contempt, that ignorance cannot then excuse its author, and that one must therefore conclude to formal heresy and then to the application of canon 188 § 4.

This reasoning confuses the definition of the delict and the conditions under which a penalty is incurred. Canon 2229 treats notably of the influence of ignorance on canonical penalties. The question whether ignorance excuses from the penalty does not take the place of the question whether the act constitutes the delict of heresy. A statement which is harmful, erroneous or injurious to the faith is not, for that reason alone, a proved formal heresy.

Canon 2205 § 3 is likewise invoked in order to exclude every benign interpretation in the case of contempt of the faith. This text concerns imputability in circumstances such as fear or compulsion, and the limits of excuses when an act leads to contempt of the faith. In the application proposed to the delict of heresy, that delict and the contempt alleged must still be established. A rule bearing on imputability does not dispense from proving the prior fact to which it applies.

I thus accept the juridical import of these canons, but contest their use to fill a gap in the determination of the heretical sense of the act. They do not allow one to pass directly from a dangerous formulation to the certainty of a public formal heresy.

4.3. Publicity, notoriety and certainty of proof

The counter-study invokes canon 2197 and the notorietas facti. It maintains that a statement made from a public platform or published in the press renders the delict notorious and dispenses from a further examination. One must, however, distinguish the notoriety of the words uttered and the establishment of their qualification as formal heresy. The fact that a bishop has publicly uttered a sentence does not, by itself, fix its dogmatic sense.

If publicity alone sufficed, every ambiguous or erroneous theological proposition would become a notorious heresy by the fact of its diffusion. Canon 2197 does not justify this passage. The distinction between a public fact and a notorious delict forbids the use of notoriety in order to evade the question of the objective sense of the act and of its conditions of imputability.

The requirement of certainty had been expressed by the formula “Nulla poena sine culpa certa et publica”, “No penalty without a certain and public fault”, with reference to canons 2195, 2197, 2223 § 4 and 2314. This formulation must be related to the precise question studied: the proof of a public heresy invoked in order to conclude to Roncalli’s incapacity. It must not be transformed into a universal requirement of publicity and notoriety for every sanction, nor be confused with the literal text of these canons.

The point maintained is the refusal to hold suspicions, rumours or doubtful proofs for the certain demonstration of the public defection alleged. One must distinguish the suspect from him whose delict is established, without thereby denying the ipso facto consequences which the law attaches to certain conditions actually realised.

4.4. Canon 188 § 4 and tacit resignation

Canon 188 § 4 and the tacita renuntiatio, the tacit resignation, do not give rise between us to a disagreement of principle. When the public defection from the Catholic faith required is really present, the ecclesiastical office may become vacant ipso facto, without a constitutive judicial deposition. The absence of such a deposition is therefore not the argument on which my conclusion rests.

The canon fixes a consequence when its conditions are fulfilled; it does not resolve the quaestio facti, the question of fact. One cannot reason thus: public heresy entails the loss of office; Roncalli uttered doubtful public remarks; therefore he lost his office. The missing premise remains the proof that he had effectively and publicly abandoned the rule of the Catholic faith before 1958, in the sense required.

5. The interpretation of the statements and the authorities invoked

5.1. Modernist ambiguity and Pascendi

According to an objection, the ambiguity of Roncalli’s words would itself prove his modernist method: Pascendi precisely describes authors who seek to escape condemnation by employing equivocal formulations. Recourse to this description cannot, however, become an automatic proof of the personal heresy of every suspect author.

Otherwise, the two branches of the reasoning would always produce the same conclusion: a clearly heretical word would prove heresy, and the absence of clarity would still prove it, as a sign of modernist dissimulation. The accusation would become irrefutable by construction. The description of modernist methods does not constitute a universal canonical rule transforming every ambiguity into a formal profession of heresy. Personal adherence to the condemned doctrine remains to be demonstrated.

5.2. The benign interpretation and Vermeersch

The counter-study attributes to Father Arthur Vermeersch S.J., Theologiae Moralis Principia, Responsa, Consilia, volume 2, a Latin text concerning the limits of the benign interpretation. For want of a precise page, edition, place and year, this quotation remains unverified.

According to the transcription invoked, the benign interpretation has no place in public persons when their external profession threatens the faith or the common good. Even if admitted, this principle does not mean that every objectively dangerous or ambiguous statement of a prelate already constitutes a public formal heresy.

The benign interpretation must not serve to conceal a clear denial of a truth of faith. When a sentence admits several senses, it remains necessary, on the other hand, to establish the sense which it really expresses. Public danger authorises a severe judgment; it does not, by itself, supply the proof of the heretical sense required. This distinction applies notably to the Venice fragments examined above.

5.3. The quotation attributed to Coronata

The counter-study attributes to Matthaeus Conte a Coronata the following text:

“Nihil obstat quominus vacatio officii ipso facto locum habeat, etsi haeresis sit tantum materialis. Nam ius ecclesiasticum in foro externo respicit factum publicum commissum contra fidem, non autem internam animi dispositionem vel culpam, quae Deo tantum patet.”

“Nothing prevents the vacancy of the office from taking place ipso facto, even if the heresy is only material. For ecclesiastical law, in the external forum, regards the public fact committed against the faith, and not the interior disposition of the soul or the culpability, which is known to God alone.”

The references given do not agree: “Institutiones, volume 5, p. 367” on the one hand; Institutiones Iuris Canonici, Rome, Marietti, volume 1, pp. 312 and 316, on the other. The reproduction of the original page, with its edition and its context, remains necessary in order to treat this quotation as verified. Even if authentic, the expression haeresis tantum materialis could not be assimilated without examination to every erroneous or ambiguous statement: it would be necessary to determine the public fact against the faith envisaged and the conditions of the juridical consequence.

Let us nevertheless admit the passage for the purposes of the discussion. It already supposes a “public fact committed against the faith”; it does not prove the existence of this fact in Roncalli before 28 October 1958. It describes the manner in which the law treats an established fact. The juridical consequence cannot serve to demonstrate the fact which triggers it. The difficulty therefore subsists independently of the material question of the authenticity of the quotation.

6. The election of 28 October 1958 and its acceptance

6.1. The import of universal and peaceful acceptance

After the election of 28 October 1958, John XXIII was accepted by the cardinals. The bishops remained in ecclesiastical communion with him, his name was pronounced in the liturgy, and no documented opposition, worldwide or hierarchically significant, against his legitimacy has been established.

This acceptance concerns the legitimacy of the election of 1958. It does not, by itself, settle a distinct question: that of a possible loss of the pontificate by a subsequent public heresy. The conclusion must remain limited to the initial legitimacy.

According to the doctrine set out by Cardinal Louis Billot in De Ecclesia Christi, the adherence of the universal Church is an infallible sign of the legitimacy of the person of the pope and of the presence of the conditions necessary to that legitimacy. It is a positive element which must enter into the examination of the thesis of a prior public incapacity.

The objection according to which acceptance could not cure an incapacity of divine right does not answer this argument. It is not a matter of supposing a public heretic validly recognised after a radically null election, but of holding universal and peaceful adherence to be the sign that the conditions required were present. The distinction is that between a sign of legitimacy and a sanatio, a juridical healing, of a divine obstacle already proved.

One cannot therefore set aside this adherence by simply affirming that the entire Church would have been collectively blind to a public and notorious formal heresy which had placed Roncalli outside the Church years before. I regard this reply as theologically untenable. It must at least confront the particular import of universal adherence, instead of treating the latter as a mere addition of individual opinions.

6.2. The counter-quotation attributed to Billot

The counter-study attributes to Billot this sentence:

“Si enim electio cecidisset in persona radicaliter incapacem, ut est haereticus publicus, consensus Ecclesiae rem inanem sanare non posset, cum actus ab initio nullus non grassetur per subsequens factum.”

“If indeed the election had fallen upon a person radically incapable, as a public heretic is, the consent of the Church could not heal a null thing, since an act null from the beginning does not become effective by a subsequent fact.”

This quotation being opposed directly to the preceding doctrine, its authenticity requires an exact location: title, edition, place and year of publication, volume, thesis, paragraph and page, with reproduction of the original Latin. In the absence of these elements, I suspend my judgment on its authenticity. A decisive theological conclusion cannot rest on a passage whose precise reference is not established.

Even if admitted for discussion, the sentence remains conditional: it supposes an election falling upon a person radically incapable. It states what would follow if the prior public heresy were established, without proving that Roncalli fulfilled this condition. To use it in order to demonstrate this same incapacity would be a circular reasoning.

The distinction between a sign of legitimacy and the healing of a null act therefore remains entire. So long as the divine obstacle alleged has not been demonstrated with the certainty required, universal and peaceful acceptance retains, in the argumentation set out, its positive force in favour of the legitimacy of the election.

6.3. The objection of the Great Western Schism

The Great Western Schism shows that saints and a very great number of Catholics were able to recognise different claimants as pope. But this situation precisely involved several claims and competing obediences. It did not present the universal and peaceful adherence of the Church to a single uncontested head.

This example proves the possibility of numerous errors concerning the person of the pope; it does not prove that the universal Church can peacefully accept a false pope without a significant contrary obedience. The difference between the two situations forbids making it a direct counter-example to the argument drawn from the acceptance of 1958.

7. Occult accusations and divergent opinions

7.1. The accusations of Freemasonry

The accusations according to which Roncalli would have belonged to Freemasonry before his election constitute a distinct question. Several testimonies invoked appear only after his death, and an irrefutable primary documentary proof is lacking in the dossier examined.

Even if an occult heresy had existed in his interior life, it would not be identical with public heresy in the external forum. The distinction is expressed by the formula attributed to Bellarmine, in De Romano Pontifice: “Papa haereticus occultus adhuc est papa”, “A pope who is an occult heretic is still pope”.

An alleged secret Masonic affiliation cannot therefore take the place of the proof that Roncalli was publicly outside the Church before his election. One must neither confuse these two questions nor transform the absence of public proof into an affirmation about an unknown interior disposition.

7.2. Private testimonies and the diversity of judgments

Opinions are divided among sedevacantists. Many hold Roncalli to be a heretic and unfit to receive the papacy; others do not identify a public formal heresy. The following testimonies illustrate these different positions.

Mgr R.: “I find no formal heresy in John XXIII, but for me he is a heretic.” But if one finds no heresy, one cannot accuse of being a heretic, but only of being suspect of heresy or a similar accusation.

Mgr S.: “I have a doubt about the papacy of John XXIII.”

The editor B. S.: “I find no formal heresy in John XXIII, although he is a scandalous pope; I have a doubt about his papacy.”

Abbé B. accepts John XXIII as pope, for want of proof of a formal heresy, and celebrates according to the missal of 1962 out of obedience to him whom he recognises as pope.

These testimonies do not themselves produce a determinate proposition establishing public formal heresy. The names of the persons cited are known to the editors; they are not published for want of permission. Their opinions do not constitute an exhaustive survey of the positions on the question.

The number of confreres, bishops, priests and lay authors who support the contrary conclusion deserves consideration. It gives it an “extrinsic evidence”, whereas the force of the arguments set out here seems to me to constitute an “intrinsic evidence”. The respect due to these confreres does not, however, dispense from examining the proof on which their conclusion rests.

8. Conclusion: what is established and what remains to be demonstrated

The facts examined render Roncalli’s orthodoxy gravely suspect before his election. They justify, according to my judgment, the terms “suspect of heresy”, “favourer of modernist errors” and “semi-heretic” in the sense defined by this study. This judgment retains all its severity; it does not suffice to demonstrate a public formal heresy which had already excluded him from the Church before 28 October 1958.

I acknowledge the admissible corrections brought by the counter-study: a prior admonition is not always necessary; the presumption of dolus of canon 2200 § 2 must be taken seriously; acts, as much as words, may manifest heresy; and a public defection effectively established may produce automatic consequences without a constitutive deposition. The disagreement bears on the proof of the fact to which these principles would be applied.

He who affirms Roncalli’s initial incapacity bears the burden of this proof. He must produce a concrete proposition or act, authentically established and read in its context, publicly professed or performed before 28 October 1958, whose sense constitutes a denial or a doubt of a truth of divine and Catholic faith. This sense must not depend on a contestable addition by the commentator. The rules relating to the external forum and to pertinacity must then be capable of being applied to it with certainty.

The succession of sympathies, associations, imprudences, scandals or equivocal expressions does not replace this demonstration. The canons relating to imputability, notoriety and loss of office cannot fill the missing step. The texts produced do not therefore suffice, in my judgment, to prove the radical nullity of the election of 1958. To this insufficiency is added the positive sign of the universal and peaceful acceptance of the one elected.

So long as a conclusive proof of the prior incapacity is not produced, I recognise John XXIII as pope at his election, while maintaining that he favoured grave errors. The question of the subsequent vacancy remains distinct: the position defended in this study places it later, with the first public heresy of Paul VI in Lumen gentium.

In this disagreement with several confreres, I apply the adage “In fide unitas, in opiniis libertas, in omnibus caritas”: “In faith, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, charity” (chapter 034, “A principle of unity”, pp. 1–2). The same attitude is expressed by “In dubiis libertas”, “In doubtful things, liberty”, without renouncing “In factis veritas”, “In facts, the truth”. I submit in advance to every decision of the Church in this matter.

AMDG

List of sources

1. Paul IV, constitution Cum ex apostolatus officio, 15 February 1559, paragraph 6. Original Latin text.
2. Pius IX, encyclical Quanta cura and Syllabus errorum, 8 December 1864. Original Latin texts.
3. Leo XIII, encyclical Libertas praestantissimum, 20 June 1888. Original Latin text.
4. Leo XIII, encyclical Satis cognitum, 29 June 1896, paragraph 9. Original Latin text.
5. Leo XIII, apostolic letter Apostolicae curae, 13 September 1896. Original Latin text.
6. Saint Pius X, encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, 8 September 1907, notably paragraph 39. Original Latin text.
7. Pius XI, encyclical Quas primas, 11 December 1925, paragraphs 13 and 15–16. Original Latin text.
8. Pius XI, encyclical Mortalium animos, 6 January 1928, paragraph 10. Original Latin text.
9. Pius XI, encyclical Quadragesimo anno, 15 May 1931, paragraph 120. Original Latin text.
10. Pius XII, encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, 29 June 1943, paragraphs 22 and 28–32. Original Latin text.
11. Vatican Council I, constitution Pastor aeternus, 18 July 1870, chapter 1. Original Latin text.
12. Council of Trent, teaching on justification, invoked in the examination of the Venice statements.
13. Vatican Council II, constitution Lumen gentium, mentioned in the conclusion relating to the subsequent vacancy.
14. Saint Hormisdas, Libellus professionis fidei, annexed to Inter ea quae, 2 April 517; Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, English translation by Roy J. Deferrari, old numbering, nos 171–172, pp. 73–74.
15. Code of Canon Law of 1917, canons 188 § 4; 1258 § 1; 2195; 2197; 2200 § 2; 2205 § 3; 2223 § 4; 2229 § 3, 1°; 2314. Original Latin text.
16. Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, monitum Cum compertum, 5 June 1948, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, volume 40, 1948, p. 257. Original Latin text.
17. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, 2-2, question 11, article 1. Original Latin text.
18. Saint Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, distinction concerning the occult heretic.
19. Cardinal Louis Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, doctrine of universal adherence;
20. Matthaeus Conte a Coronata, Institutiones Iuris Canonici; competing references of the counter-study: volume 5, p. 367, and Rome, Marietti, volume 1, pp. 312 and 316..
21. Arthur Vermeersch S.J., Theologiae Moralis Principia, Responsa, Consilia, volume 2;
22. MacKenzie, commentary on the canonical doctrine relating to pertinacity, cited in the counter-study.
23. Benedictus Henricus Merkelbach, Summa theologiae moralis, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, volume 1, no. 746, p. 570. Original Latin text.
24. Cardinal Gaetano De Lai, letter of 12 June 1914 to Angelo Roncalli, cited in French by Francesco Ricossa, p. 15.
25. Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile (The Pope of the Council), presentation and reflections by L.-H. Remy, pp. 6, 15, 37–39, notably note 39, p. 39. French text.
26. Lawrence Elliott, I Will Be Called John: A Biography of Pope John XXIII, Reader’s Digest Press, 1973. English edition cited.
27. Luigi Accattoli, When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II, English translation by Jordan Aumann, New York, Alba House, 1998, pp. 18–19.
28. Renzo Allegri, Il Papa che ha cambiato il mondo. Testimonianze sulla vita privata di Giovanni XXIII (The Pope who changed the world. Testimonies on the private life of John XXIII), Gardolo di Trento, Luigi Reverdito Editore, 1988, p. 66, cited by Francesco Ricossa, p. 38. Original Italian text.
29. Sister Mary Teresa SLG, “Peter and John: Two Twentieth Century Apostles”, Fairacres Chronicle, volume 5, nos 3–4, winter 1972, p. 13, citing Meriol Trevor, p. 177. English text.
30. Peter Hebblethwaite, p. 221, and Righi, p. 259, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Le Pape du Concile (The Pope of the Council), p. 37, note 39 on p. 39;
31. Chapter 015, “Heresy and Heretic”, pp. 24–25; chapter 034, “A principle of unity”, pp. 1–2. Internal references.