Also worthy of mention is
Torquemada’s view that if the pope is guilty of heresy, he is automatically
deposed. His “decision” would then be his private opinion, not a decree of the
Apostolic See. A council or the College of Cardinals would merely have the job
of declaring (without causing) the deposition. Because of the difficulties
inherent in such a solution, however, his contemporaries did not follow
Torquemada on this point. (Ulrich Horst, The Dominicans and the Pope: Papal
Teaching Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Thomist Tradition [trans.
James D. Mixson; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006], 39)
In an endnote for the above (ibid., 93 n. 89) we read the
following:
[Summa de Ecclesia, bk.
II, c. 122], fol. 175r: “Si Romanus pontifex efficitur haereticus ipso facto
quo cadit a fide Petri cadit a cathedra et sede Petri et per consequens
iudicium quod faceret talis haereticus non esset iudicium apostolice sedis immo
nec iudicium alicuius auctoritatis est dicendum aut momenti, quia cum per
haeresim cecidisset a praelatione per consequens auctoritate iudicandi privatus
esset.” The following text is important, both for the problem of heresy and for
the question of the teaching authority of the pope: Ioannis a Turrecremata
in Gratiani decretorum primam doctissimi commentarii, D. 19, “Secundum
ecclesiae,” no. 10, vol. 1 (Venice, 1578), 176b: “Ad hanc dicendum iuxta
Huguccionem quod Romana ecclesia quandoque dicitur tota ecclesia, et tunc in
totum non errat, quia illa in totum errare non potest. Vel potest intelligi
ecclesia Romana pro papa et cardinalibus, adhuc illa non potest in totum
errare, sed bene aliqui errant, sicut hic papa [Anastasius] erravit, non
cardinales, imo ipsi intelligentes eum errare communicando Photino haeretico et
volendo occulte revocare Achacium recesserunt ab eo.”
The first Latin quotation in English:
If the Roman pontiff becomes a heretic, by the very
fact whereby he falls from the faith of Peter, he falls from the chair and see
of Peter, and consequently the judgment which such a heretic would make would
not be a judgment of the Apostolic See; indeed, it is not a judgment possessing
any authority, and must be said to be of no weight. For, since by heresy he had
fallen from his position of authority, consequently he would be deprived of the
authority to judge.
The second:
To this it must be said, according to Huguccio, that
the Roman Church is sometimes called the whole Church, and then it does not err
altogether, because it cannot err altogether. Or the Roman Church may be
understood as referring to the pope and the cardinals; even then it cannot err
altogether, although some may indeed err, just as this pope [Anastasius] erred,
but not the cardinals. Indeed, when they understood that he was erring by
communicating with the heretic Photinus and by secretly wishing to recall
Acacius, they withdrew from him