Sunday, December 17, 2023

John de Fontibus, John de Fontibus, and Cornelius a Lapide on the Question of a Heretical Pope

  

. . . the Dominican Theologian and Missionary John de Fontibus, O.P., in a Letter to the Abbot and Monks of a Monastery in Constantinople (c. 1350 A.D.) writes:

 

“The people, therefore, who has no other above him except Christ by whom he was appointed, can be deposed by no one other than Christ, unless someone kill him, as in the case of many martyr Popes, or if a Pope become an open heretic persevering in heresy. For then, as in the case of a dead Pope, the same must be done in the case of the heretical Pope, i.e., after assembling a Council against him and declaring him in the judgment of Christ to have merited deposition and to stand condemned, another would be elected to replace him in his chair and office. However, even should this happen, it does not necessarily follow that his authority would pass to the bishop of Constantinople.” (letter published in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 30 [1960]: 163-95, in William J. DeTucci, Communicatio in Sacris: The Roman Catholic Church Against Intercommunion with Non-Catholics [rev ed.; 2012], 32)

 

And again, John de Fontibus, O.P., writes:

 

“For in every canon of a Council, whatever it be, it is always understood the canon is to be so applied as to respect the authority of the Roman Pontiff, who is subject to no Council; only by Christ can the Roman Pontiff, if he is not, as I have said, openly heretical and fully contumacious.” (Ibid.)

 

In addition, the erudite Fr. Cornelius a Lapide, S.J., (1567-1637 A.D.) comments on the Scripture passage (Matt. 18:17) with the following:

 

“Wherefore, under no circumstances can be [the Pope] be deposed by the Church, but can only be declared to have fallen from his Pontificate, if, for the sake of example, he should chance (which God forbid) to fall into public heresy, and should therefore, ipso facto, cease to be Pope, yea, to be a Christian believer. (Ibid., 33)