A Heretical Pope Is Presumed to Be Formal Heretic
Theological and Canonical Study
Table of Contents
- The Traditional Distinction between Material Heresy and Formal Heresy
- Invincible Ignorance in the Case of the Simple Faithful
- The Public Doctor of the Faith: An Objectively Different Situation
- Moral Doctrine on the Species of Ignorance
- Bellarmine and the Manifest Heretic
- Suárez and the Doctrinal Responsibility of Pastors
- Billot and Notorious Heresy
- Paul IV and the Meaning of Ipso Facto
- The Internal Forum and the External Forum
- Doctrinal Conclusions
- General Conclusion
- IMPORTANT REMARK ON MGR LEFEBVRE
Sources
- The Traditional Distinction between Material Heresy and Formal Heresy
Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches:
“Ad haeresim duo requiruntur: primo quidem corruptio fidei; secundo autem pertinacia.”
“Two elements are required for heresy: first, the corruption of the faith; second, pertinacity.”
Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 11, a. 1, Leonine edition, Rome, 1895.
Material heresy designates the objective adherence to a proposition contrary to the faith without subjective fault of pertinacity. Formal heresy implies, in addition to the objective error, the voluntary refusal to submit to the doctrinal authority of the Church after sufficient knowledge of the obligation to believe.
This distinction is unanimously admitted by scholastic theology.
- Invincible Ignorance in the Case of the Simple Faithful
The ordinary faithful receives no official mission to teach. Theologians therefore recognize that he can objectively adhere to a heretical error through invincible ignorance. In this case, he can remain inwardly united to the soul of the Church by sanctifying grace, while being outwardly separated from the visible body if he publicly professes the error.
Mgr. Gerardus Van Noort explicitly admits this possibility for public material heretics (Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, 4th ed., Hilversum, 1920, Cap. I, Art. I). Cardinal Billot and Cardinal Charles Journet develop the same doctrine at length, carefully distinguishing the visible order (body) and the invisible order (soul) of the Church (Le Traité de l’Église, 1957, Chapters VI and VIII).
- The Public Doctor of the Faith: An Objectively Different Situation
The bishop, the priest charged with teaching, and a fortiori the Roman Pontiff, are not simple faithful. They are constituted public doctors. The 1917 Code recalls:
Episcopi sunt fidei doctrinae custodes.
Bishops are the guardians of the doctrine of the faith.
Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), can. 1326, Rome, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis.
Their office carries a grave obligation: to know Catholic doctrine, to defend it, to transmit it faithfully, and to refute errors. Ignorance concerning the truths of which they are precisely the guardians therefore appears hardly reconcilable with the duties proper to their charge.
- Moral Doctrine on the Species of Ignorance
Moral theology distinguishes invincible ignorance, vincible ignorance, affected ignorance, and crass or supine ignorance. Saint Alphonsus Liguori teaches:
Ignorantia affectata non excusat a peccato.
Affected ignorance does not excuse from sin.
Theologia Moralis, lib. I, Rome, Marietti, 1905.
The office of doctor precisely imposes the grave obligation to acquire the necessary knowledge. An alleged ignorance in these conditions therefore appears hardly invincible.
- Bellarmine and the Manifest Heretic
Saint Robert Bellarmine writes:
Papa haereticus manifestus per se desinit esse Papa et caput.
A manifestly heretical pope ceases by himself to be pope and head.
De Romano Pontifice, lib. II, cap. 30, Naples, 1872.
Bellarmine does not treat directly of the psychology of invincible ignorance in clerics. However, his reasoning supposes an exterior heresy sufficiently manifest to produce its juridical effects. It requires neither a constitutive depositive sentence nor further inquiry into the internal conscience of the person concerned. Manifest heresy suffices in the external forum.
- Suárez and the Doctrinal Responsibility of Pastors
Francisco Suárez insists on the particular responsibility of pastors and public doctors in the conservation of the faith. Teaching authority implies an adequate knowledge of revealed truths. A public profession of error by an official doctor therefore constitutes a particularly grave indication of pertinacity (De Fide, Disputationes de fide; Defensio Fidei Catholicae, lib. III).
- Billot and Notorious Heresy
Cardinal Billot teaches that exterior and notorious heresy separates one from the visible body of the Church.
Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, THESIS XXIX (and corollaries), pp. 609-621.
Visible membership supposes the external profession of the Catholic faith. In the case of a public doctor, the invocation of invincible ignorance appears morally unsustainable and tends to amount to affected, crass, or gravely negligent ignorance.
- Paul IV and the Meaning of Ipso Facto
The Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (15 February 1559) declares:
Si unquam appareat […] Romanum Pontificem ante suam promotionem vel elevationem a fide Catholica deviasse aut in aliquam haeresim incidisse, promotio seu assumptio huiusmodi […] nulla, irrita et inanis existat.
If ever it should appear that a Roman Pontiff before his promotion or elevation had deviated from the Catholic faith or fallen into some heresy, such promotion or assumption shall be null, void, and without effect.
The Bull adds that these effects occur absque ulla declaratione, without any declaration being necessary. It uses the expression ipso facto several times. Paul IV does not develop an explicit theory of material and formal heresy. However, his legislation presupposes that a public deviation from the faith on the part of those who occupy the highest ecclesiastical offices suffices to bring about immediately the juridical effects provided for. No psychological inquiry into a possible invincible ignorance is envisaged.
- The Internal Forum and the External Forum
An essential distinction must be maintained. In the internal forum, God alone knows subjective guilt with certainty. An absolutely exceptional invincible ignorance remains conceivable in theory. In the external forum, the Church judges according to public facts. The persistent, public, and notorious profession of a heresy by an official doctor normally constitutes morally sufficient proof of formal heresy for external juridical effects.
- Doctrinal Conclusions
First conclusion. It is not demonstrated with absolute certainty that a cleric can never, in any imaginable case, be a purely material heretic.
Second conclusion. Classical theology establishes an extremely strong moral presumption according to which public doctors do not benefit, in the external forum, from the presumption of invincible ignorance granted to the simple faithful.
Third conclusion. The public, persistent, and notorious profession of an error contrary to a dogma normally constitutes, in a public doctor, morally sufficient proof of heretical formalism.
Fourth conclusion. This presumption sheds light on the use of the expressions ipso facto and absque ulla declaratione in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and provides one of the doctrinal foundations of the classical theses concerning the loss of office by manifest heresy.
- General Conclusion
The theological and canonical tradition prior to 1962 does not permit one to affirm as an absolute certainty the impossibility of purely material heresy in a cleric. It nevertheless teaches with great force that a public doctor of the faith, by reason of the obligations attached to his office, cannot be assimilated to the simple faithful as regards the presumption of invincible ignorance. In the external order, the public and persistent profession of heresy is held to be a morally sufficient sign of heretical formalism, justifying the juridical consequences provided for by canonical tradition. Thus the scholastic distinction between material heresy and formal heresy is reconciled with the affirmations of Paul IV, Bellarmine, and the great theologians of the post-Tridentine period.
This presumption has a particular relevance in the present crisis of the Church, where the vacancy of the Apostolic See since the public heresy of Paul VI in 1964 requires the faithful to recognize manifest facts according to the external forum, without claiming to sound the internal consciences that God alone judges with certainty.
- IMPORTANT REMARK ON MGR LEFEBVRE
This study contrasts with the position of Mgr Lefebvre, who affirmed in the 1980s that a pope could certainly be heretical, but not formally; only materially. According to him, a heretical pope therefore remained a member of the Church, since only formal heresy excludes someone from the Church.
However, ecclesiastical Tradition teaches the contrary. Moreover, Mgr Lefebvre privately recognized that Paul VI was outside the Church, which implies that he considered him a formal heretic.
Principal Sources
– Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 11, a. 1, Leonine edition, Rome, 1895.
– Codex Iuris Canonici, 1917, can. 1326.
– Saint Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, lib. II, cap. 30.
– Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia Moralis, lib. I.
– Cardinal Louis Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, THESIS XXIX (and corollaries), pp. 609-621.
– Bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio of Paul IV, 15 February 1559.
– Francisco Suárez, De Fide (Disputationes de fide); Defensio Fidei Catholicae, lib. III.
– Mgr. Gerardus Van Noort, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, 4th ed., Hilversum, 1920, Cap. I, Art. I.
– Cardinal Charles Journet, Le Traité de l’Église, 1957, Chapters VI and VIII.
– Other classical authors: Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, Wernz-Vidal, Coronata (according to their respective treatises cited in the tradition).