Jacques Almain (c. 1480-1515), a proponent of conciliarism in the pre-Reformation era, wrote the following about actual instances of papal error that infringed upon the Gospel:
. . . some have
issued decrees contrary to the gospel, such as Pelagius [II],
who issued a constitution that all the subdeacons in Sicily should abstain from
their wives, whom they had married while in minor orders, or relinquish their
office, which, because it was iniquitous and against the gospel, Gregory I, his
successor, withdrew, as it is obvious from the text and gloss of c. Ante
triennium [Gratian’s Decretum, D. 31 c. 1]. If he could issue
a judicial decree contrary to the gospel, [he could] so define. (Jacques
Almain, “A Book Concerning the Authority of the Church,” Chapter X, in J.H. Burns
and Thomas M. Izbicki, Conciliarism and Papalism [Cambridge Texts in the
History of Political Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 179-80)
Elsewhere, in chapter XII, Almain wrote
the following, which is apropos in light of Francis being the current pontiff:
. . . if the Church
cannot get rid of a pope ruling it to its destruction and leading souls to hell
in droves by his instigation and example, it follows that a purely natural and
civil polity would be better organized than the ecclesiastical polity. For a
purely civil and natural polity would not be well organized if it could not
bring down its king who is throwing it into disorder. Indeed a community cannot
abdicate the power of bringing down and killing him as a member corrupting the
whole body. Granted the opposite, indeed, the polity would seem to be despotically
enslaved. When, therefore, Christ established the ecclesiastical polity for a
supernatural end, more perfect in its kind than a purely natural polity, since
things later in generation are prior in perfection, it follows that He left the
ecclesiastical polity the power to bring down its ecclesiastical prince and
king if he ruled not for its edification and destruction. Otherwise, indeed, He
would not only have established it in a worse condition than a purely civil
polity but He would have deprived the community of what is known to belong to
it by natural law. Also, He would not have made the Christian community free,
but rather enslaved in the strictest servitude. (Ibid., 193)
