Why ‘universal and peaceful acceptance’ doesn’t prove Francis is pope
Very many Catholic theologians hold that the universal and peaceful adherence of the Church to a man as pope is an infallible sign that the man is the true pope. But does it hold for Francis?
Very many Catholic theologians hold that the universal and peaceful adherence of the Church to a man as pope is an infallible sign that the man is the true pope. But does it hold for Francis?
Matthew McCusker’s contributions to ‘Is Francis really the pope? – The debate’ (2024-5)
Is Archbishop Vigano really in schism?
A preliminary article, setting out a number of arguments showing that Francis does not hold the office of pope.
Is Francis the pope? The argument from public heresy
The argument from public heresy and membership of the Church, outlined in more detail.
Why ‘universal and peaceful acceptance’ doesn’t prove Francis is pope
Can we attain certainty that Francis is the pope because of the alleged “universal and peaceful adherence” of the Church?
Is there really ‘universal peaceful acceptance’ of Francis as pope?
Expanding further on subject touched on in third article, namely the Catholic rule of faith.
Public heresy gives certainty that Francis isn’t the pope (Reply to Matt Gaspers I)
First response to Matt Gaspers’ attempt to refute arguments made in my previous articles – this one focusing on the argument from public heresy.
Does the pope have to follow the teaching of the magisterium? (Reply to Matt Gaspers II)
Second response to Gaspers, explaining his misunderstanding of the arguments based on the Catholic rule of faith.
The Catholic Church never stops teaching infallibly (Reply to Matt Gaspers III)
Third response to Gaspers, demonstrating that Gaspers misunderstands the “two presuppositions” which he attributes to me in a mistaken and distorted way.
Post-conclave continuation
The Magisterium always transmits revelation in its integrity (Reply to Matt Gaspers IV)
Fourth response to Gaspers, explaining why the “two presuppositions” rejected by Gaspers are in fact true statements of Catholic theology.
Why ‘universal and peaceful acceptance’ doesn’t prove Francis is pope
One of the most difficult but important questions facing Catholics today is whether the man who claims to be the Successor of St. Peter, and is generally regarded as such, truly occupies the papacy.
In a previous article, I summarized a number of arguments which lead to the conclusion that Francis is not the pope and that the Holy See is currently vacant. In a follow up article, I presented the argument from public heresy in more detail.
The argument from public heresy is founded upon Catholic doctrine on (i) the consequences of the public profession of heresy on a person’s membership of the Church, and (ii) the perpetual and visible unity of faith possessed by the Catholic Church.
The application of these theological principles leads us to the conclusion that a public heretic could not possibly be the pope, and that the apparent existence of a “heretical pope” is explicable only by either (i) a claimant never in fact securing election to the papacy, whether through existing public heresy or some other reason or (ii) a true pope losing office due to his fall into public heresy, or some other reason (public apostasy, public schism, insanity, resignation).
The conclusion of my argument follows logically from the premises. If the conclusion is to be challenged, then the premises must be challenged.
However, defenders of the papal claims of Francis often point to a parallel chain of reasoning beginning from different theological principles – those regarding the “universal and peaceful adherence/acceptance” of a man as pope (hereafter UPA) – to reach the contrary conclusion that Francis must be the pope.
If two arguments, based on different theological principles, reach a contradictory conclusion, then the premises of one of the arguments must be incorrect.
In this article I will explain why I do not think that the argument from UPA leads securely to the conclusion that Jorge Mario Bergoglio must be accepted as a true pope.
The argument from ‘peaceful, universal adherence’
An impressive number of Catholic theologians hold that the universal and peaceful adherence of the Church to a man as pope, is an infallible sign that the claimant is indeed the true pope. Basing themselves on this theological conclusion, they argue as follows:
“If a man is universally and peacefully adhered to as pope, it is established beyond doubt that such a man is pope. Francis is peacefully and universally adhered to as pope, therefore it is established beyond doubt that he is the pope.”
The proponents of this argument would assert that Francis has been universally and peacefully adhered to as pope because all the bishops who head the local churches and exercise ordinary jurisdiction in the Church, and all the members of the College of Cardinals, would publicly state that he is the pope; and all, as far as we know, name him in the canon of the Mass.
This is a strong argument, and it is worthy of respect. However, I believe that it ultimately fails. I would like to present two arguments against it in brief, and then proceed to explore one of them in further depth.
Argument 1
The doctrine of universal and peaceful adherence was proposed by theologians as means of explaining how the Church could gain certainty about the identity of the pope, despite real or alleged defects in the manner of his election. Hence, they argued that the universal and peaceful adherence to a man as pope was sufficient to bring about certainty as to his identity.
A surface reading of the texts of these theologians might lead a reader to suppose that once a man can be shown to have received universal and peaceful adherence at some time following his election, his claim to the papacy cannot be challenged for any reason.
However, a deeper reading shows this to be inconsistent with the wider doctrine of these authors. This is because many of the theologians who propose the theory of UPA also hold that a public heretic cannot be pope, and that, if a true pope were to fall into public heresy, he would cease to be the pope. As Louis Cardinal Billot, one of the theologians whose explanation of UPA is regularly cited puts it, “the question is whether it is possible that a person duly elected and once and for all elevated to the pontificate can at some time or other stop being active in the pontificate.”1
As explained in my previous article, theologians are divided on the question of whether a true pope can fall into public heresy. Some regard it as more probable that this can never occur. If this opinion is true – as it may well be – the apparent appearance of a “heretical pope” can only be explained by the fact that the claimant has never held the office.
Other theologians accept the possibility that the fall of a pope into public heresy can take place, (or even hold it to be the more probable opinion). Such a pope, they teach, would lose office, with various explanations being proposed for how that loss would occur, or be recognized. They agree with each other that public heresy is incompatible with holding the papacy.
Billot, in common with St. Robert Bellarmine, holds that it is more probable that a true pope will not fall into public heresy. But, Billot writes, if it should occur, “all concede that the bond of communion and subordination will have to be removed on account of the divine authorities that expressly command separation from heretics.”2 And, of the theories that explain how a heretical pope could lose office, Billot holds that the automatic loss of office, “seems to follow the only way in which the absolutely certain principles of the ecclesiastical constitution, hitherto uninjured, are preserved.”3
Billot holds that UPA is an infallible sign that a man is truly the pope, but Billot also holds that if a true pope were to fall into public heresy, he would automatically lose office. Therefore, it would seem clear that UPA is something that can be lost.
The Church may universally and peacefully adhere to a man as pope, and this is an infallible sign that he is truly the pope. But should that man cease to be pope, such as by falling into public heresy, the Church will, as a result of this public action of the pontiff, withdraw her universal and peaceful adherence from him. How this withdrawal is manifested will become clearer later in this article.
Here it can be noted that it is clearly inadmissible to use the theory of universal and public adherence, as proposed by theologians such as Billot, in such a way as to deprive the universal Church of the ability of recognizing that a true pope has fallen into public heresy, and of withdrawing her adherence to him. To do so goes beyond the intentions of the theologians who propose it.
Argument 2
Francis is not, in fact, universally and peacefully adhered to by the Catholic Church in the manner required by the theologians who explain this doctrine; that is, he is not universally and peacefully adhered to as “the living rule of faith,” in submission to which the Catholic Church acquires her miraculous and perpetual unity of faith. On the contrary, many Catholics, including cardinals and bishops, publicly refuse to submit to his teaching on faith and morals as contained in a number of documents addressed to the universal Church, such as the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, which proposes the heretical denial of the legitimacy of capital punishment in a text presented to the universal Church as a “sure norm of faith.”
In openly refusing to submit to Francis as the “living rule of faith,” these cardinals and bishops seem to be refusing peaceful adherence to him as the Roman Pontiff, even if they refrain (at present) from publicly stating that he is not the pope.
In order to keep this article to a manageable length, I will now treat the second of these arguments in greater depth. The first argument can be addressed in more detail in a future article, if there should be demand from readers.
A closer look at the doctrine of universal and peaceful adherence
As seen above, the doctrine of universal and peaceful adherence tells us that when the universal Church adheres to a particular man as the Roman Pontiff, we have certitude (the degree of which theologians disagree about) that such a man is indeed the pope.
This doctrine is expressed clearly by Cardinal Billot. He writes:
“But whatever you finally think about the possibility or impossibility of the aforementioned hypothesis, [as to whether or not a true pope can fall into public heresy] at least one point must be maintained as completely unshaken and firmly placed beyond all doubt: the adherence alone of the universal Church will always be of itself an infallible sign of the legitimacy of the person of the Pontiff, and, what is more, even of the existence of all the conditions requisite for legitimacy itself.
“One need not fetch from afar proof of this claim. The reason is that it is taken immediately from the infallible promise of Christ and from providence. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and Behold I am with you all days. To be sure, for the Church to adhere to a false pontiff would be the same thing as if she were to adhere to a false rule of faith, since the Pope is the living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in fact, as will be still more clearly apparent in what is to be said later.”
He continues:
“By all means God can permit that at some time or other the vacancy of the see be extended for a considerable time. He can also allow a doubt to arise about the legitimacy of one or another man elected. But He cannot permit the entire Church to receive someone as pontiff who is not true and legitimate. Therefore, from the time he has been accepted and joined to the Church as the head to the body, we cannot further consider the question of a possible mistake in the election or of a deficiency of any condition whatsoever necessary for legitimacy, because the aforementioned adherence of the Church radically heals the mistake in the election and infallibly indicates the existence of all requisite conditions.”4
The reference to infallibility in this context may surprise some readers. There is a common misconception that only the Church’s teaching of divinely revealed doctrines can be infallible. Revealed doctrine is indeed the primary object of infallibility. However, theologians also speak of the “secondary object of infallibility” which consists of those “other truths which are required necessarily in order to guard the whole deposit of revelation.”5
These truths, according to Monsignor Van Noort, “are so closely connected with the revealed deposit that revelation itself would be imperiled unless an absolutely certain decision could be made about them.”6
The identity of the pope, many advocates of UPA maintain, is one such truth. The pope is the supreme teacher and governor of the Church. He is the supreme rule of faith, by whom the unity of the Church’s profession of the true faith is maintained. Therefore, his identity is a proper secondary object of the Church’s infallibility.
Rev. Sylvester Berry comments on the application of secondary infallibility to the identity of the pope:
“A dogmatic fact is one that has not been revealed, yet is so intimately connected with a doctrine of faith that without certain knowledge of the fact there can be no certain knowledge of the doctrine. For example, was the Vatican Council truly ecumenical? Was Pius IX a legitimate pope? Was the election of Pius XI valid? Such questions must be decided with certainty before decrees issued by any council or pope can be accepted as infallibly true or binding on the Church. It is evident, then, that the Church must be infallible in judging of such facts, and since the Church is infallible in believing as well as in teaching, it follows that the practically unanimous consent of the bishops and faithful in accepting a council as ecumenical, or a Roman Pontiff as legitimately elected, gives absolute and infallible certainty of the fact.”7
As suggested earlier, a surface reading of these texts might seem to lead inescapably to the conclusion that Francis must be accepted as pope. Yet, as we have also seen, Billot himself holds (as does Berry and other theologians who express UPA just as strongly) that if a true pope were to fall into heresy, he would cease to be pope, and therefore, necessarily, a pope who once possessed UPA would cease to possess it.
There would appear, therefore, to be a contradiction. On the one hand, UPA gives infallible certainty that a man is truly the pope. On the other hand, a man who possesses UPA could, according to Billot and others, cease to be the pope.
This apparent contradiction evaporates when we examine more closely what it means to adhere to a man as the Roman Pontiff.
What does it mean to peacefully adhere to the Roman Pontiff?
In the passage quoted above Cardinal Billot writes that “the adherence alone of the universal Church will always be of itself an infallible sign of the legitimacy of the person of the Pontiff” because “for the Church to adhere to a false pontiff would be the same thing as if she were to adhere to a false rule of faith, since the Pope is the living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in fact.”8
Or reformulated: the adhesion of the Church to a man as Roman Pontiff consists in taking that man as the “the living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in fact.”
John of St. Thomas similarly founds his doctrine on the fact that “it was committed to the Church, by Christ the Lord, to choose for itself a man who would be such a rule for a time.” “Thus,” he continues, “just as it pertains to the pope and the Church to determine which books are canonical, so it pertains to the Church to determine which man is elected into the canon and as the living rule of faith.”9
To submit to a man as pope, to adhere peacefully to him as pope, is inseparable from the act of taking him to be that which he necessarily is, “the living rule” of the Catholic faith.
To refuse to accept a man as such a “living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in fact,” is to refuse to accept him as pope.
But before asking whether or not the Catholic Church does accept Francis as her “living rule,” let us look at this doctrine a little more closely.
The pope as ‘the living rule of faith’
The Divine Head of the Catholic Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, established His Mystical Body for the salvation of mankind. He has commanded that everyone must enter her as “the only ark of salvation,” for “whoever does not enter will perish in the flood.”10
In order to make it easy for all souls to find identify the true Church, Our Lord established her as a visible body, with four identifying marks which are clearly identifiable to anyone of good will. These four marks are part of the divinely established constitution of the Church, they can never be lost and are always clearly visible. They are:
Unity
Sanctity
Catholicity
Apostolicity
Hence, we refer to the true Church of Christ as the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Church is necessarily One, that is, she is always united in faith, worship, and government. The Church is necessarily Holy, that is, she perpetually possesses the doctrine and sacraments that sanctify, and she brings forth heroic virtue in numerous souls in every age. The Church is necessarily Catholic, that is, she is ever dispersed across the world and is never restricted to any particular race or nation. The Church is necessarily Apostolic, that is, she is perpetually governed by bishops who have received both the power of orders and the power of jurisdiction in direct succession from the Apostles.
The Church is governed by Our Lord Jesus Christ who exercises a threefold power over His Church, through His Vicar, the Roman Pontiff, who is the Visible Head of the Church Militant, and through the Successors of the Apostles who, with the Bishop of Rome, form the Apostolic College. By His sanctifying power, men are made holy by the sacraments, and His Sacrifice is re-presented on our altars. By his teaching power, the Catholic faith is infallibly transmitted to each generation. By His governing power, He directs His flock towards eternal life. Our Lord Jesus Christ is priest, prophet, and king.
It is because the Church is perpetually united under the threefold power of Christ, that we say she is united (i) in faith (under the teaching power) (ii) in worship (under the sanctifying power) and (iii) in government (under the governing power). This unity can never be lost – even for a moment – and will always be visible to men and women of good will.
Of the Church’s perpetual unity of faith, Pope Leo XIII teaches:
“Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful – ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. iv., 5).
“That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith.”11
All Catholics profess exactly the same faith, not deviating by even one proposition:
“He absolutely commands that the assent of faith should be given to His teaching, promising eternal rewards to those who believe and eternal punishment to those who do not… He requires the assent of the mind to all truths without exception. It was thus the duty of all who heard Jesus Christ, if they wished for eternal salvation, not merely to accept His doctrine as a whole, but to assent with their entire mind to all and every point of it, since it is unlawful to withhold faith from God even in regard to one single point.”12
And:
“The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. ‘No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if anyone holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic’ (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).”13
We all know that when human beings come together in any organization, any field, any family, they will soon disagree and take up different positions. So how is it possible that millions of men, women, and children worldwide profess exactly the same faith as each other, and not just in a given moment of time, but for nearly two thousands years?
This miraculous unity across time and space is only possible because every Catholic, without exception, submits to an external rule of faith. By definition, a Catholic is someone who conforms their intellect to this rule of faith which is proposed by the teaching authority (magisterium) of the Church, the supreme exercise of which belongs to the Successor of St. Peter.
It is by adherence to this supreme rule of faith, the pope, that the Church perpetually maintains the unity of faith bestowed on her by Jesus Christ.
Now let us reconsider the passage from Cardinal Billot quoted above:
“[T]he adherence alone of the universal Church will always be of itself an infallible sign of the legitimacy of the person of the Pontiff, and, what is more, even of the existence of all the conditions requisite for legitimacy itself. One need not fetch from afar proof of this claim. The reason is that it is taken immediately from the infallible promise of Christ and from providence. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and Behold I am with you all days. To be sure, for the Church to adhere to a false pontiff would be the same thing as if she were to adhere to a false rule of faith, since the Pope is the living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in fact, as will be still more clearly apparent in what is to be said later.”
The Church cannot universally and peacefully adhere to a false pontiff because that is equivalent to the Church defecting from the Catholic faith. This follows from the fact that to adhere to a man as pope is inseparable from adhering to him as a rule of faith. Divine Providence ensures this will never take place.
Therefore, when the Church does submit to a man as the “living rule of faith,” that man must necessarily be the pope.
If the Catholic Church does universally and peacefully adhere to Francis as the “living rule of faith,” then it would seem difficult to deny that he is pope.
But does she universally and peacefully offer him such adherence?
Does the Catholic Church adhere to Francis as the ‘living rule of faith’?
Van Noort defines the Catholic Church as:
“The society of men who, by their profession of the same faith, and by their partaking of the same sacraments, make up, under the rule of apostolic pastors and their head, the kingdom of Christ on earth.”14
The members of the Church are those who are (i) baptized, (ii) publicly profess the Catholic faith, (iii) submit to the lawful authorities of the Church and (iv) are not under sentence of perfect excommunication.
The doctrine of membership referred to in this section has been sufficiently explained in an earlier series of articles, and readers may wish to familiarize themselves with them before proceeding, especially the article on public heresy and its effects.
Here it is worth repeating Cardinal Billot’s explanation of heresy as the choosing of a rule of faith other than that of the magisterium of the Catholic Church:
“According to the origin of the term and the constant sense of all tradition, someone is properly called a heretic who after receiving Christianity in the sacrament of Baptism, does not accept the rule of what must be believed from the magisterium of the Church, but chooses from somewhere else a rule of belief about matters of faith and the doctrine of Christ: whether he follow other doctors and teachers of religion, or adheres to the principle of free examination and professes a complete independence of thought, or whether finally he disbelieve even one article out of those which are proposed by the Church as dogmas of Faith.”15
A Catholic chooses the magisterium of the Catholic Church, which is exercised pre-eminently by the pope, as his rule of faith. A heretic chooses something else.
The question we must ask is this: Does the Catholic Church, that is, “the society of men” who share “profession of the same faith,” submit to Francis as their “head” and, thereby, their “living rule of faith”?
One of the reasons why I have drawn attention to the definition of the Church, and the criteria for membership here, is to make it clear that we are only interested in whether the Catholic Church accepts Francis as her head, not those who have already departed from her public profession of the faith. We do not look to the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Anglican Synod, to tell us who the pope is. Nor should we look to those who by their public heresy have clearly separated themselves from the Mystical Body of Christ.
Since the Second Vatican Council there has been a de facto schism between those who seek to adhere faithfully to the divine revelation committed to the Catholic Church, and transmitted infallibly by the ecclesiastical magisterium, and those who, abandoning any attempt at fidelity, clearly follow a different rule of faith.
For the purposes of this article, it is not necessary to draw an absolutely sharp line between who is a member of the Catholic Church, and who is aligned with that other group, which we could call “the Conciliar Synodal Church,” if we wish to keep up-to-date with their own self-description. It is simply necessary to make clear that in assessing whether the Catholic Church accepts Francis as the “living rule of faith,” we are only interested in those who look to the magisterium of the Catholic Church for their rule of faith, not to those who look elsewhere.
In my previous article on this subject, I noted that dozens (if not hundreds) of public deviations from divine and Catholic faith have been noted during the purported pontificate of Francis, which clearly manifests that Francis does not take his rule of faith from the Catholic Church but rather follows a rule of his own. I drew particular attention to seven heresies which Francis presented to the universal Church in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, to the public correction which followed, and to Francis’s refusal to retract those heresies.
Since the publication of Amoris Laetitia, bishops have been divided against each other over the interpretation of its permission for the “divorced and remarried” to receive Holy Communion. For example, the Polish bishops issued a statement upholding the orthodox doctrine, while the Argentinian bishops issued a statement adhering to the erroneous position proposed in Amoris Laetitia. Francis, by an official act, set down in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, confirmed the Argentinian bishops’ interpretation as reflecting his true meaning.
We see can see two points here with great clarity: (i) Francis publicly departs from the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church and (ii) significant parts of the episcopate refuse to follow him as the “living rule of faith.”
Examples of this kind can be multiplied. Numerous dubia and public corrections have been issued, often publicly endorsed by cardinals and bishops, all manifesting the collective refusal of faithful Catholics to adhere to Francis as their “living rule of faith.”
Indeed, it can be safely affirmed that the more a person is determined to adhere faithfully to everything that the Church has always taught, the more suspicious they are of everything which comes to them from Francis. This is precisely the opposite of what one would expect to see when observing the relationship between the Catholic faithful and the one whom they regard as Successor of St. Peter and “the living rule of faith.”
This state of suspicion, of withheld judgment, of endless comparison between the doctrine proposed by Francis and the prior teaching of the magisterium, pervades the entire Church. It is the disposition of cardinals and bishops worldwide, as well as tens of thousands – or more – of the clergy and laity.
It will be useful here to consider the difference between the “proximate rule of faith” and the “remote rule of faith.”
The proximate rule of faith is the ecclesiastical magisterium as it exists in the present. It is the pope and bishops teaching now.
The remote rule of faith is Scripture and Tradition.
Theologian Joachim Salaverri summarises:
“Scripture and Tradition are, therefore, the remote and objective rule of faith, because from them, as from fountains, the Magisterium draws what is proposed for belief to the faithful.
“The Magisterium, however, is the proximate and active proximate rule of faith, because immediately from it the faithful are bound to learn what they must believe about those things that are contained in the sources of revelation, and what they must hold about those things that have a necessary connection with the revealed truths.”16
When we speak of submitting to the pope as the “living rule of faith,” we mean that we take him, and the bishops who teach in union with him, as the “proximate rule” of what we are to believe. We know also, because of our faith in Christ’s promises, that the teaching of the “proximate rule” will never deviate from the “remote rule.”
But today, faithful Catholics do not approach Francis in this way. Instead, they continually compare his doctrine to that contained in Scripture and Tradition, the “remote rule of faith,” to judge for themselves whether it is orthodox. They do this because they know, as a result of his public departure from the Catholic faith, that he is not a legitimate teacher of the faith. Thus, we see an example of how the Catholic Church withholds her adherence to a heretic, once the heresy becomes known.
While Francis’s heresy makes this withholding of adherence obligatory to Catholics, this is a clear inversion of the proper relationship between the pope and the faithful, between the teacher and the taught, and it clearly manifests that Catholics do not take Francis as their living rule of faith.
The disposition of Catholics towards a true pope is beautifully expressed by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical letter Casti Connubii, where he writes: “a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.”17
But no one who wishes to retain the Catholic faith would ever “suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals” by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
An example: capital punishment
The Catholic Church teaches that the use of capital punishment by the state is legitimate under certain circumstances. This teaching is infallible by virtue of the universal and ordinary magisterium. It is contained in Sacred Scripture and the monuments of Sacred Tradition and has been proposed anew to the faithful in each generation by the magisterium in all places.
One of the instruments by which the faithful are taught are catechisms. Especially authoritative are those approved by the Holy See. On the topic of capital punishment, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, promulgated by Pope St. Pius V, teaches:
“Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”18
The Catechism of Pope St. Pius X teaches:
“It is lawful to kill when fighting in a just war; when carrying out by order of the Supreme Authority a sentence of death in punishment of a crime; and, finally, in cases of necessary and lawful defence of one’s own life against an unjust aggressor.”19
This is the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church, to which all must assent.
But on August 2, 2018, Francis formally amended the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” to exclude entirely the legitimacy of capital punishment:
“Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
This doctrine is heretical and may not be professed by anyone who wishes to remain a member of the Catholic Church.
Francis has proposed his own rule of faith, in direct contradiction to that of the Catholic Church, and incorporated it into a catechism which purports to be, like the Catechism of the Council of Trent, an official teaching instrument of the Holy See, to be used throughout the universal Church for the teaching of the Catholic faith.
“This catechism,” the text states, “aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both faith and morals, in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Church’s Tradition. Its principal sources are the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the liturgy, and the Church’s Magisterium. It is intended to serve as a point of reference for the catechisms or compendia that are composed in the various countries.” It continues: “This work,” the texts states, “is intended primarily for those responsible for catechesis: first of all the bishops, as teachers of the faith and pastors of the Church. It is offered to them as an instrument in fulfilling their responsibility of teaching the People of God.”20 John Paul II had asserted that:
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church’s faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church’s Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith.”
And yet, this supposedly authoritative teaching document now openly departs from the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church. This very month, August 2024, Francis has again called for the abolition of capital punishment and restated the heretical proposition contained in the revised catechism, manifesting his persistence in this error.
The situation is stark: the only way for Catholics to retain the faith is to refuse to accept that this amendment to the catechism is legitimate. That is, Catholics must refuse to accept a catechetical text presented to the universal Church by the one who claims to be the supreme and living rule of the Catholic faith.
In response to this heresy, a multitude of Catholics have clearly manifested their determination to remain faithful to the true rule of faith, and reject the alternative doctrine proposed by Francis. Most of the readers of this article will be among them. And our number includes cardinals and bishops who have also made their refusal to accept this false doctrine clear. For example, on May 31, 2019, a statement signed by Cardinal Burke and Cardinal Pujats, Archbishop Peta of Astana, and two other bishops, publicly rejected the teaching of Francis, adhering instead to the following position:
“In accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, the Church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise capital punishment on malefactors where this is truly necessary to preserve the existence or just order of societies.”
By refusing to treat Francis as “the proximate rule” of faith, and by their appeal to “the remote rule” of faith, all these members of the Church, including cardinals and bishops, are manifesting their refusal to submit to Francis as their “living rule of faith.”
And again, such examples of cardinals and bishops publicly appealing from the teaching of Francis to the remote rule of faith have been multiplying for more than a decade.
Such a state of affairs simply cannot, with any conviction or credibility, be described as the “universal and peaceful adherence” of the Catholic Church to Francis as the “living rule of faith.”
Conclusions
If Catholics universally and peacefully treated Francis as the “living rule of faith” and made their own the profession of the doctrine proposed in his official teaching documents, such as the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church would have defected and ceased to exist, because she would have lost the unity of faith bestowed on her by Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church has in fact refused to adhere to the false rule of faith, as is seen in the number of Catholics at all levels in the Church – laity, bishops, and cardinals – who have publicly rejected the heresies taught by Francis, whether in the amended Catechism, Amoris Laetitia, or other documents released with apparently official status. A number of these churchmen have put their name to documents which publicly accuse Francis of teaching heresy.
In doing so they have publicly refused to adhere to Francis as the “living rule of faith,” preferring instead to publicly adhere to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church.
For as Cardinal Billot wrote: “the adhesion of the Church to a false Pontiff would be the same as its adhesion to a false rule of faith, seeing that the Pope is the living rule of faith which the Church must follow and which in fact she always follows.”
“In summary, if the Church peacefully and universally adheres to a man as pope, she adheres to him as her living rule of faith. But the Church does not peacefully and universally adhere to Francis as her living rule of faith. Therefore, the Church does not universally and peacefully adhere to Francis as pope.”
Therefore, the argument from universal and peaceful adherence cannot be used to reach the conclusion that Francis is the pope.
Indeed, the doctrine of universal and peaceful adherence, which teaches us that the Catholic Church can never adhere to a false rule of faith, can only strengthen our conviction that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not the pope.
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Read Next:
Matthew McCusker’s contributions to ‘Is Francis really the pope? – The debate’ (2024-5)
Is Archbishop Vigano really in schism?
A preliminary article, setting out a number of arguments showing that Francis does not hold the office of pope.
Is Francis the pope? The argument from public heresy
The argument from public heresy and membership of the Church, outlined in more detail.
Why ‘universal and peaceful acceptance’ doesn’t prove Francis is pope
Can we attain certainty that Francis is the pope because of the alleged “universal and peaceful adherence” of the Church?
Is there really ‘universal peaceful acceptance’ of Francis as pope?
Expanding further on subject touched on in third article, namely the Catholic rule of faith.
Public heresy gives certainty that Francis isn’t the pope (Reply to Matt Gaspers I)
First response to Matt Gaspers’ attempt to refute arguments made in my previous articles – this one focusing on the argument from public heresy.
Does the pope have to follow the teaching of the magisterium? (Reply to Matt Gaspers II)
Second response to Gaspers, explaining his misunderstanding of the arguments based on the Catholic rule of faith.
The Catholic Church never stops teaching infallibly (Reply to Matt Gaspers III)
Third response to Gaspers, demonstrating that Gaspers misunderstands the “two presuppositions” which he attributes to me in a mistaken and distorted way.
Post-conclave continuation
The Magisterium always transmits revelation in its integrity (Reply to Matt Gaspers IV)
Fourth response to Gaspers, explaining why the “two presuppositions” rejected by Gaspers are in fact true statements of Catholic theology.
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Louis Cardinal Billot S.J, Tractatus De Ecclesia Christi, 5th Edition, pp. 623-636
(Rome: Gregorian Pontifical University, 1927). Translation: https://novusordowatch.org/billot-de-ecclesia-thesis29/.
Billot, De Ecclesia
Billot, De Ecclesia
Billot, De Eccelesia
Revised Outline, Cn 9 – Draft Canons of Vatican I. Quoted in Salaverri, 266.
Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church, p xxvi.
Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, (Mount St. Mary’s, 1955), p290.
Billot, De Eccelesia
John of St Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, Tomus Septimus in Secundam Secundae, Tractatus de Auctoritate Sumi Pontificis, Disputatio II, Articulus II, pp 228-264. Full translation of passage: https://www.wmreview.org/p/jst-upa-i.
Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadem
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, No. 6.
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, No. 8.
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, No. 9.
Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church, (6th edition, 1957, trans. Castelot & Murphy), p xxvi.
Louis Cardinal Billot, De Ecclesia, Question 7: The Members of the Church, (extracts translated by Fr Julian Larrabee).
Joachim Salaverri S.J., Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, (1956; translated by Kenneth Baker S.J., 2015), p296.
Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, No. 104.
Catechism of the Council of Trent, The Sacraments: The Sixth Commandment. Translation: https://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tindex.htm
Catechism of St Pius X. Translation: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/catechism-of-st-pius-x-1286
Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 11-12.
I believe there might be a typo in the section entitled "What does it mean to peacefully adhere to the Roman Pontiff?" First, we read: “[...] living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in FACT,” and then: “living rule which the Church must follow in belief and always follows in FAITH.”
As always, superbly written: clear, concise, and well-researched. While I struggle with these questions, this website has been an oasis.
Edit: I had to remove some markdown code because it doesn't seem to work in comments.