It
is common belief that Bellarmine did not require a declaratory sentence in the
case of a heretical pope. However, John of St. Thomas places Robert Bellarmine
and Francisco Suarez in the same category when he writes,
Hence,
Bellarmine and Suarez are of the opinion that, by the very fact that the Pope
is a manifest heretic and declared to
be incorrigible, he is deposed by Christ our Lord without any
intermediary, and not by any authority of the Church.[1]
However, Suarez undoubtedly believed that a declaratory
sentence was necessary to establish the element of notoriety. He writes,
Against
this opinion I say secondly: in no case, even of heresy, is the Pontiff
deprived form his dignity and power immediately by God himself, without
undergoing the judgment and sentence of men.[2]
However, sedevacantists will typically quote a portion from
Jus Canonicum by Franz Xavier Wernz and
Pedro Vidal. The portion reads,
The
fourth opinion, with Suarez, Cajetan and others, contends that a Pope is not
automatically deposed even for manifest heresy, but that he can and must be
deposed by at least a declaratory sentence of the crime. “Which opinion in my
judgment is indefensible” as Bellarmine teaches.
Finally,
there is the fifth opinion – that of Bellarmine himself – which was expressed
initially and is rightly defended by Tanner and others as the best proven and
the most common. For he who is no longer a member of the body of the Church,
i.e. the Church as a visible society, cannot be the head of the Universal
Church. But a Pope who fell into public heresy would cease by that very fact to
be a member of the Church. Therefore he would also cease by that very fact to
be the head of the Church.
According to Robert Siscoe,
Jus
Canonicum by Wernz-Vidal, is a revision of Fr. Wernz’s book Ius
Decretalium (1899). Fr. Wernz died in 1914. Fr. Vidal revised his
book after the 1917 Code came out to bring it in line with the law that was
currently in force. The reason I mentioned this is because Fr.
Wernz did not list Suarez as holding the Fourth Opinion. His name was added by Fr. Vidal when he
revised the book.
Here
is the quotation, as it is found in Fr. Wernz’ Ius Decretalium (1898):
Quarta sententia
cum Caietano contendit Papam propter haeresim etiam manifestam non esse ipso
facto depositum[the Fourth Opinion with Cajetan contends that a Pope who falls
into manifest heresy is not ipso facto deposed], sed illum posse et debere
deponi per sententiam saltem declarato riam criminis. “Quae sententia meo
iudicio defendi non pot est”, ut docet Bellarminus.[3]
As
you can see, Fr. Wernz only mentions Cajetan, not Suarez.
Fr.
Vidal was certainly wrong to list Suarez as holding the Fourth Opinion with
Cajetan. Suarez believed a manifestly
heretical Pope would beipso facto
deposed the moment a council declared him a heretic, which is not what Cajetan
taught. Cajetan maintained that the Church would have to (indirectly) depose
the Pope after he was declared
a heretic, and believed the loss of office would not take place unless and
until the Church did so.
So,
John of St. Thomas was correct to include Suarez as holding the Fifth Opinion
along with Bellarmine, not the Fourth with Cajetan. In fact, in his lengthy treatise on the loss
of office for an heretical Pope, Suarez discusses Cajetan’s opinion and attempts to refute it. Here is
what he wrote:
Suarez: “The Third Dubium. – The Response of Cajetan
is Refuted. –
From
here the Third uncertainty arises, by what law could the Pope be judged by the
congregation of bishops, since he is superior to it? Cajetan is marvelously
vexed in the matter, lest he would be compelled to admit the Church or a
Council stands above the Pope in the case of heresy; at length he concludes that
they do indeed stand above the Pope, but only as a private person, and not as
Pope. This distinction does not satisfy, for in the same mode that he affirms
the Church validly judges the Pope and punishes him, not as Pope but as a
private person; likewise, because the Pope is superior in so far as he is Pope,
it is nothing other than that person by reason of his dignity that is exempt
from all jurisdiction of another man, and has jurisdiction over others, as is
clear from each and every other dignity; and it is explained, for the
pontifical dignity does not make one abstractly and metaphysically superior,
but really in the individual superior and subject to none; therefore etc.
Moreover, the Council gathered on this matter in the time of Pope Marcellus,
when it declared “The First see is judged by no one,” it said that concerning
the very person of Marcellus, who was certainly a private person; so also Pope
Nicholas relates in his epistle to the Emperor Michael, where he mentions a
similar decree published in the Roman Council under Sylvester I, and we could
bring many more things to bear.[4]
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