Thursday, June 18, 2020

Wenz-Vidal: Did Bellarmine and Suarez hold the same view?

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]



[1] https://contrasedevacantism.blogspot.com/2020/06/john-of-st-thomas-on-loss-of-office-for.html
[3] Wernz, Ius Decretalium Tomus II, 696
[4] Suarez, De Fide Disputation X, De Summo Pontifice, Section VI

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