Papal elections without the cardinals? – Gaspar Hurtado SJ
It's sometimes said that if all cardinals died or disappeared during a vacancy of the Holy See, there'd be no way to elect a new pope. Seventeenth-century Jesuit Gaspar Hurtado gives this the lie.
Editor’s Notes
This text by seventeenth-century Jesuit theologian Gaspar Hurtado (1575-1647) is a continuation of our series Papal Elections Without Cardinals?
This series is presenting various opinions proposed as to how the Church could elect a new pope in the absence of the normal electors.
A ‘dead end’?
We are sometimes told that an extended vacancy of the Holy See and/or the disappearance of all cardinals results in a ‘dead end,’ as we would therefore have no way of obtaining or electing a new successor. But – we are told – as there must be perpetual successors to St Peter, an extended vacancy of the Holy See is therefore impossible.
First, the impossibility of a long interregnum was by no means obvious to theologians writing prior to our time. Cardinal Billot wrote:
“God can indeed allow the vacancy of the Holy See to be prolonged for some time. He can also permit doubt to concerning the legitimacy of the election of one or another candidate.”1
The impossibility of an election without the cardinals was also by no means obvious to theologians, as this series shows.
There have been several in history who have considered analagous (even if not identical) situations to our own, without feeling obliged to either rule out an extended vacancy, nor to invent novel theses to explain one.
This text from Gaspar Hurtado
The below text is from Hurtado’s 1632 tract on the theological virtues, and was drawn to our attention by a contact on Twitter.
His solution is that both the bishops of the world (presumably diocesan bishops and equivalent) and the Roman clergy had a title to elect the Supreme Pastor if the requirements of positive law were impossible – but that the Roman clergy had a second title to this right, in that we are also discussing their own diocesan bishop.
The Catholic Encyclopaedia says of Hurtado:
‘Of the Jesuits, Hurtado is one of the most distinguished for learning and piety. He was among the earliest to deviate from the method of St. Thomas, which till then had been followed by the majority of theologians, and he devised a system of his own.
‘He is noted for the brevity, conciseness, and clearness of his exposition. He was a great orator and preacher with abundant success before the Spanish court.’2
Those who wish to object to the idea of deviating from St Thomas’ method are welcome to do so: the point here is not to hold Hurtado up as an authority settling the question, but simply to show that the question has been discussed for a very long time – which in itself refutes the idea that this is a dead end.
Tract on Faith, Hope and Charity
Gaspar Hurtado, 1632.
pp 239-40
… Secondly, there is the difficulty regarding to whom the election of the Supreme Pontiff pertains when no prescribed method of election has been established by the Supreme Pontiff, nor has he designated electors, or if they were designated, they die after the death of the Supreme Pontiff but before the election of a new one. For example, if it were to happen now that, upon the death of the Supreme Pontiff, all the Cardinals were to die before the election of a new Pontiff?
First Opinion – The Roman Clergy
Cajetan in Apologia 22, Bellarmine in "On the Clergy" Book 1, and Turrian in Disputation 15, Doubt 3, teach that in this case, the election of the Supreme Pontiff pertains to the Roman Clergy, because: setting aside positive law, the election of a head or superior pertains by natural law to the inferiors and subjects, therefore, in such a case, the election of the Bishop of Rome would pertain to the Roman Clergy.
Second Opinion – Bishops of the world
However, Vittoria in his c.q.3. on the power of the Church, and Suarez in Disputation 10, Section 4, teach that in such a case, the election of the Supreme Pontiff pertains to a General Council or to the Bishops of the entire Christian Church, and rightly so, because the Supreme Pontiff is the superior of the entire Church.
Therefore, setting aside positive law, the election by natural law pertains to the clergy of the entire Church, especially to the foremost members, namely the Bishops.
Because, on one hand, the election of a superior by natural law (excluding positive law) pertains to the inferiors, and on the other hand, even though in the election of the Supreme Pontiff, not only the Supreme Pontiff is elected, but also the Bishop of Rome, what is chiefly elected in him is the Supreme Pastor, and less principally and almost as an accessory, the Bishop of Rome.
For the Supreme Pastor, as such, is more principal than the Bishop of Rome as such; indeed, he was the Supreme Pastor before he was the Bishop of Rome, and the Episcopacy of Rome was added or attached to the Supreme Pontificate, and not the other way around.
Hurtado’s opinion
I confess that the election of the Supreme Pontiff pertains to the Roman Clergy by a double title: both because he is their peculiar Bishop and because he is also their Supreme Pastor; but to the rest only by the latter title, namely because he is their Supreme Pastor.
And therefore, assuming that it would not be convenient enough for the election of the Roman Pontiff to be entrusted to the entire clergy of all of Christendom, due to the great difficulty and delay that would be in the election, the election of the Supreme Pontiff has been conveniently enough entrusted by Pontifical positive law to the Roman Clergy, primarily, namely to the Cardinals.
Papal elections without the cardinals, and the state of the Church during a papal interregnum
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On this series
As implied by the idea of a series of such texts, no individual text published resolves the wider question, of how this could be achieved. The purpose of this series is merely to show that it is false to say that a long interregnum and/or the disappearance of legitimate cardinals is a dead end.
It seems wise to have as many ideas on the table as possible. It is not obvious that there can be only one single way out of our situation; nor does it seem that the various parties at the Council of Constance were agreed on what they should do (or what was happening at the time) with regards to the three claimants, or on the exact mechanism by which the later Pope Martin V was elected.
We are not declaring how the current crisis will end, or how a new Roman Pontiff be elected. In fact, we do not need to adopt a given opinion on this topic, or to present a “plan” to restore the Church. It is hardly obvious that doing so is our business.
In any case, the point is this: theologians and others have long considered how the Church might obtain a pope without any cardinals, and far from denying the possibility outright, they have presented solutions. This is sufficient to refute the objection at hand. Even a solution which is temporarily practically unworkable – at least, for the present – refutes the claim that this is a dead end.
Louis Cardinal Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et soc, 1909, Th. XXIX §. 3, p 621
Fournet, P.A. (1910). ‘Caspar Hurtado.’ In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07583b.htm
Thanks for bringing this up!
A very valuable resource!