Return to Theological Thoughts
"I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein;
To the contrary: with glowing affection as her truly faithful student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort;
To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, should such appear;
To guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the Divine ordinances of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support, being subject to the severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all that I shall confess;
I swear to God Almighty and the Saviour Jesus Christ that I will keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors and whatever the first councils and my predecessors have defined and declared.
I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline and the rite of the Church. I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I.
If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on the dreadful Day of Divine Justice.
Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest excommunication anyone - be it ourselves or be it another - who would dare to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic Tradition and the purity of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian Religion, or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with those who undertake such a blasphemous venture."
"There being an imminent danger for the Faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects. Thus, St. Paul, who was a subject of St. Peter, questioned him publicly on account of an imminent danger of scandal in a matter of Faith. And, as the Glossa of St. Augustine puts it (Ad Galatas 2.14), 'St. Peter himself gave the example to those who govern so that if sometime they stray from the right way, they will not reject a correction as unworthy even if it comes from their subjects....'
"Some say that fraternal correction does not extend to the prelates either because man should not raise his voice against heaven, or because the prelates are easily scandalized if corrected by their subjects. However, this does not happen, since when they sin, the prelates do not represent heaven, and, therefore, must be corrected. And those who correct them charitably do not raise their voices against them, but in their favour, since the admonishment is for their own sake .... For this reason, according to other [authors], the precept of fraternal correction extends also to the prelates, so that they may be corrected by their subjects." (IV Sententiarum, D. 19, Q. 2, A. 2)
"A pope who would be separated from the Church by heresy, therefore, would by that very fact itself cease to be head of the Church. He could not be a heretic and remain pope, because, since he is outside of the Church, he cannot possess the keys of the Church." (Summa Theologica)
"A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head of the Church, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. All the early Fathers are unanimous in teaching that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction. St. Cyprian, in particular, laid great stress on this point." (De Romano Pontifice, II. 30)
"If [the pope] gives an order contrary to right customs, he should not be obeyed; if he attempts to do something manifestly opposed to justice and the common good, it will be lawful to resist him; if he attacks by force, by force he can be repelled, with a moderation appropriate to a just defence." (De Fide, Disp. X, Sec. VI, N. 16)
"The privilege of infallible teaching belongs only to an undoubted Pope; and on the claims of a doubtful, disputed Pope the Church has the right of judging. No single example can be produced of a Pope whose orthodoxy and succession was undoubted upon whom the Church pretended to sit in judgement .... During a contested Papacy the state of things approximates to that of an interregnum. The exercise of active infallibility is suspended." (Catholic Controversy, 6th ed., Burns & Oates, pp. 30-31)
"If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the Catholic Faith, do not follow him."
The question was also raised by a Cardinal, 'What is to be done with the Pope if he becomes a heretic?' It was answered that there has never been such a case; the Council of Bishops could depose him for heresy, for from the moment he becomes a heretic he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be Pope, being deposed by God Himself.
"If the Pope, for instance, were to say that the belief in God is false, you would not be obliged to believe him, or if he were to deny the rest of the creed, 'I believe in Christ,' etc. The supposition is injurious to the Holy Father in the very idea, but serves to show you the fullness with which the subject has been considered and the ample thought given to every possibility. If he denies any dogma of the Church held by every true believer, he is no more Pope than either you or I; and so in this respect the dogma of infallibility amounts to nothing as an article of temporal government or cover for heresy."
Address at the First Vatican Council by Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the infallibility of the Pope as defined at the Council.
The Liturgy cannot be compared to a piece of equipment, something made,
but rather to a plant, something organic that grows and whose laws of growth
determine the possibilities of further development. In the West there has
been, of course, another factor involved. This was the Papal authority,
the Pope took ever more clearly the responsibility upon himself for the
liturgical legislation, and so doing foresaw in a juridical authority for
the forth setting of the liturgical development. The stronger the papal
primacy was exercised, the more the question arose, just what the limits
of this authority were, which of course, no-one had ever before thought
about. After the Second Vatican Council, the impression has been made that
the Pope, as far as the Liturgy goes, can actually do everything he wishes
to do, certainly when he was acting with the mandate of an Oecumenical
Council. Finally, the idea that the Liturgy is a predetermined ''given'',
the fact that nobody can simply do what he wishes with her, disappeared
out of the public conscience of the Western [Church]. In fact, the First
Vatican Council did not in any way define that the Pope was an absolute
monarch! Au contraire, the first Vatican Council sketched his role as that
of a guarantee for the obedience to the Revealed Word. The papal authority
is limited by the Holy Tradition of the Faith, and that regards also the
Liturgy. The Liturgy is no ''creation'' of the authorities. Even the Pope
can be nothing other than a humble servant of the Liturgy's legitimate
development and of her everlasting integrity and identity. (Spirit
of the Liturgy, 2000 AD)
First, Augustine never made the remark as it is usually stated. The phrase comes from a sermon concerning part of Augustine's struggle with Pelagius and Caelestius over the issue of free will. It was given in Carthage in September 417 AD, after the receipt of a letter from Pope Innocent I. The crucial phrase is "Two synods having written to the Apostolic See about this matter; the replies have come back; the question is settled." This can be read as if Augustine was placing papal authority above that of councils: as if it were the last word. However, in this instance, the case was most certainly not settled.
Pope Innocent died in March 417 AD and the new Pope, Zosimus proceeded to reopen the case. Moreover, he did so with the intention of favouring heresy. In the presence of the Roman clergy, he allowed as orthodox the heretical statements of Pelagius, which had been condemned by his predecessor and the two Councils of Carthage. He also condemned those who held the orthodox Catholic faith as calumniators [Letter "Postquam nobis," November 21, 417; Letter "Magnum pondus"] and demanded a formal retraction from St. Augustine of Hippo and his ally St. Aurelian of Carthage.
In response, St. Augustine and St. Aurelian took a solemn oath with God as witness (obtestatio), affirming that the traditional Catholic doctrine prevailed over the judgement of the Pope. This conclusion was upheld by a plenary council of all Africa. Eventually the Emperor Honorius condemned Pelagius and Caelestius. Confronted with resistance to his part in perpetuating heresy, Pope Zosimus finally followed the Emperor's example by renewing the excommunication of Pelagius.
Then Zosimus died, and Pelagius tried to reopen the case yet again. This time Augustine used lay contacts at the imperial court to prevent italian bishops from supporting Pelagius. Augustine was prepared to appeal to anyone to get his point accepted.
For a full discussion see Peter Brown, "Augustine of Hippo", (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 356-63.
In 543 AD Emperor Justinian issued a decree which condemned the various (supposed) material heresies of the prominent egyptian theologian Origen; this decree was sent for signature to all the Patriarchs. In order to draw the Emperor's thoughts from Origenism, the Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, suggested that condemnation of various representatives of the Antiochene school, including his namesake Theodore of Mopsueta, who were reputed to have championed Nestorianism, would make union with the Egyptians easier. The emperor, who was keen to win them over, agreed to this, and he issued a new edict condemning "The Three Chapters", a summary of their theology.
The Eastern Bishops signed this, however the Western Episcopate considered that this procedure risked detracting from the Oecumenical Council of Chalcedon. Pope Vigilius refused to acknowledge the imperial edict and was kidnapped to Constantinople by the Emperor, in order to settle the matter there with a synod. Justinian proceeded to convene a Council (Constantinople II) intending it both to condemn Origenism and to rescind the condemnation of "Monophysitism": the heresy that there is only one compound nature in Christ.
The Council condemned Origenism, but only by including Origen's name in a list of heretics. It also condemned a whole series of teachings that it attributed to Theodore of Mopsueta himself, and described him - in passing - aas a heretic even though he had been dead over a century and had died in communion with the Church. Justinian was disappointed, because the Council did nothing positive to aid reconciliation with the Egyptian Church.
This wasn't an outcome to Pope Vigilius' quasi Nestorian taste. At first he refused to go along with it. He issued his own Constitutum which condemned certain propositions from Theodore's writing, but not his writings as a whole nor the person himself. The Constitutum also anathematized those who condemned Theodore's "Three Chapters" by name. Although the Constitutum could be understood as fairer to Theodore than was the Council, it was in direct conflict with promises made by Pope Vigilius to condemn Theodore and the "Three Chapters".
As a result of this action, the Pope was excommunicated for heresy, first by an African Council and then also by the Council of Eastern bishops still meeting in Constantinople. He was forced to publicly annul the Constitutum, although he continued to support it privately in correspondence with the Emperor. In December 553 AD, he wrote a letter to Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, repenting his own writing, ratifying the decisions of the Second Synod of Constantinople (hence making it Oecumenical) and saying that he had been deceived by the devil. Finally, the Pope declared his judgement in detail in a Constitution of 26 February, 554 AD. At the end of a sorrowful residence of eight years at Constantinople, Pope Vigilius was allowed to set off home to Rome in the spring of 555 AD.
The exact character and status of the official reply of one Patriarch to the formal consultation of another that resulted is a matter of heated dispute. However, it is agreed that Pope Honorius wrote:
Wherefore we acknowledge
One
Will of our Lord Jesus Christ, for evidently it was our nature and
not the sin in it
which was assumed by
the Godhead, that is to say, the nature which was created before sin, not
the nature which
was vitiated by sin.
Clearly, this is not a definition of doctrine. Just as clearly, it is an act of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium
In response to the Pope's letter, the Patriarch Sergius composed an "Ecthesis", or exposition, which was issued by the emperor towards the end of 638 AD. It orders all to confess one Will in our Lord. Before Sergius died, in December, he assembled a synod at Constantinople, which accepted the Ecthesis as "truly agreeing with the Apostolic preaching"; the letter from the Apostolic See was evidently the surety for this. Honorius was dead by this point and had had no opportunity of approving or disapproving the imperial document which had been based upon his letter.
Pope John IV subsequently wrote a letter known as the "Apology for Pope Honorius". In it he argues cogently that both Sergius and Honorius asserted One Will only because they would not admit two contrary wills; yet he shows by his argument that they were wrong in using so misleading an expression. The words of Pope Honorius were thereby shown to be heretical.
Pope St. Agatho sent legates to preside at the Sixth general council which met at Constantinople in 680. They brought with them a long dogmatic letter in which the Pope set out the Traditional faith. He emphatically declares that the Apostolic Church of St. Peter has never fallen into error. He condemns the Ecthesis, and Bishops Cyrus and Sergius together with others. The new Patriarch of Constantinople, George, and all the council accepted the papal letter. In its thirteenth session, two letters of Sergius were condemned, and the council added:
Those whose impious dogmas
we execrate, we judge that their names also shall be cast out of the holy
Church of
God ..... these we define
to be subject to anathema. And in addition to these we decide that Honorius
also, who
was Pope of elder
Rome, be with them cast out of the holy Church of God, and be anathematized
with
them, because we have
found by his letter to Sergius that he followed his opinion in all things,
and confirmed his
wicked dogmas.
Setting aside the word "wicked", these last words are true. If Sergius was to be condemned Honorius could not be rescued. It can be argued that that Honorius was not condemned by the council as a Monothelatite, but rather for approving Sergius' policy, which at one time had amounted to placing both orthodox and heretical expressions under the same ban. On the other hand, it could be argued from a modern perspective, that the Council erred for renewing the condemnation of "monophysitism" and Sergius and Cyrus for their success in reconciling the Copts!
Here are some more details:
"The Bull lays down dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Church, the necessity of belonging to it for the attainment of eternal salvation, the position of the Pope as supreme head of the Church, and the duty thence arising of submission to the Pope in order to belong to the Church and thus to attain salvation. In the writings of non-Catholic authors against the definition of Papal Infallibility, the Bull .... was used against Boniface VIII as well as against the papal primacy in a manner not justified by its content. The statements concerning the relations between the spiritual and the secular power are of a purely historical character, so far as they do not refer to the nature of the spiritual power, and are based on the actual conditions of medieval Europe."The Bull seems to fulfil all the requirements of an infallible papal statement as laid down in 1871 AD at the First Vatican Council. The final line ".... we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff" is in the form used for the declarations on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.
As it stands, this doctrine was later repudiated by the Church. In the 19th century, Pius IX was clear that innocent people of goodwill could be saved! The Second Vatican Council specifically asserts that people in (but not by) all religions can be saved. Although some later commentators have tried to salvage the position, usually by asserting that only the Church has the right to interpret its own documents, there is little doubt that there has been a de facto reversal in the intended teaching.
My detailed analysis of this problem will be found elsewhere.
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: 'One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,' and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.Boniface VIII's teaching was largely repeated on a number of later occasions by both councils and popes. Vatican II in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, "Lumen Gentium" #15-17 directly contradicts the manifest intent of this doctrine.We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: 'Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.' [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23-24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: 'Feed my sheep' [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold, here are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former (sic) is to be administered for the Church but the latter (sic) by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God' [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by
intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: 'Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms' and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: 'The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man' [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, 'Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven' etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
For a quick overview see William R. Canon, "History of Christianity in the Middle Ages", pp 293-4
For the relevant texts see J Neuner and J Dupuis,
eds., "The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents if the Catholic Church",
revised edition. ( New York: Alba House, 1981), pp 684-687