Month: June 2024

“It is declared by Paul IV in Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, and confirmed by St. Pius V in Inter Multiplices, that the election of a heretic to the papacy is invalid, even if he receives universal acceptance and obedience (adorationem, seu ei praestitam ab omnibus obedientiam) from the whole Church.”
(Kramer, Paul. To deceive the elect: The catholic doctrine on the question of a heretical Pope, p. 13. Kindle Edition.)

“…..as Pope Paul IV ruled, and based his ruling on the doctrine, (taught solemnly but not ex cathedra), in Cum ex apostolatus officio (and then confirmed and renewed by St. Pius V in Inter Multiplices), that an external heretic, (even an occult one), even if canonically elected cannot validly occupy the throne of Peter. If he would be proven to have been a heretic before being elected, he would not be the pope and his election would not be valid, even if his election would have been procedurally correct; and that would be so even if he had been generally accepted as pope. This doctrine was taught by medieval canonists since the time of the early Decretists in the twelfth century, and was raised to the level of the papal ordinary magisterium by Paul IV, who made it the basis of his ruling, which he enacted as a statute for the universal Church.”
(Kramer, Paul. To deceive the elect: The catholic doctrine on the question of a heretical Pope, p. 38. Kindle Edition.)

“The virtue of faith as the absolutely necessary disposition for a man to validly receive and preserve the form of the Supreme Pontificate can also clearly be seen to be the basis of the teaching of Paul IV in Cum ex apostolatus officio, which, although not dogmatically defined, was the basis of disciplinary canonical provisions set forth in that decree which clearly remained in force until 1983 (and some of which can be argued to remain in force even after the 1983 code), but its doctrinal basis, founded on divine law, remains perpetually valid. The doctrine expressed in that decree teaches that if one who has been elected pope is discovered to have been a heretic before his election, that election would be invalid. This teaching was already found in the writings of some of the early Decretists.”
(Kramer, Paul. To deceive the elect: The catholic doctrine on the question of a heretical Pope, p. 410. Kindle Edition.)

“The question of a true and valid pope falling into heresy is not even considered as a possibility in Cum ex apostolatus officio, which simply declares that the pope is judged by no one and presumes that he is not a heretic – and thus the doctrinal basis of its teaching is clearly Opinion No. One.”
(Kramer, Paul. To deceive the elect: The catholic doctrine on the question of a heretical Pope, p. 412. Kindle Edition.)

“It is declared by Paul IV in Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, and confirmed by St. Pius V in Inter Multiplices, that the election to the papacy of even an occult heretic who is discovered afterwards to be a heretic is invalid, even if he receives universal acceptance and obedience (adorationem, seu ei praestitam ab omnibus obedientiam) from the whole Church. That rule remains forever in force, even if the statute of human positive law, i.e. the ‘merely ecclesiastical law’, were to be abrogated, because it is easily shown to be a statutory application of a precept of divine law. The decree states that even if the heretic pope-elect not yet known to be a heretic would receive obedience from all, his election is null and void, and needs only to be declared so. The ruling is founded on the doctrinal principle that a heretic per se is an incapable subject of the papacy. Thus, not only would a public heretic be an incapable subject of the papacy for the reason that as a manifest heretic he would no longer be a member of the Church, but heresy per se and simpliciter renders a man an illegitimate subject of the papacy, so that a heretic is simply incapable of assuming the form of the papacy and thereby being conjoined to it.”
(Kramer, Paul. On the true and the false pope: The case against Bergoglio, p. 216. Gondolin Press. Kindle Edition.)

“Thus it can be seen that it is not merely a point of law but a doctrine of divine revelation that a heretic as such is intrinsically incapable of assuming or preserving in himself the form of the pontificate, and that a true and valid pope cannot defect into formal heresy. Consequently, as a strict corollary, it is according to divine law that universal acceptance effects a sanatio in radice for a canonically invalid election only if the one who is elected is not a heretic, and therefore, is a capable subject and as such, valid matter for assuming the papacy; and for there to be a sanatio in radice by universal acceptance, that universal acceptance must be absolute, which is to say, unconditional, unequivocal, and exclusive; so if a heretic were capable of validly assuming the papacy and would be elected and universally accepted (which in reality would be impossible), he would be constituted a valid pope according to divine law, and therefore no merely human law would have the power to overrule divine law and deprive him of the papacy, for which reason it is evident that the above cited provision of Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio on the invalidity of the election of secret heretic to the papacy, even if he has been universally accepted, is not a merely human law, but pertains to divine law. Secondly, for the same reason that no merely human law could cause a pope to fall from office ipso facto by his heresy, but only one that is founded on divine law, no pope who validly obtains the papacy by sanatio in radice according to divine law can be deprived of the papacy by papal decree of a previous pope, because: 1) Par in parem non habet potestatem, and more importantly, 2) No pope has the power to nullify the law of God. Yet it was decreed in that cited provision of Cum Ex that one who is elected pope and is later discovered to be a heretic is not a valid pope even if he would have been universally accepted, which can only be possible if that provision itself pertains to divine law, because it decrees an exception to the principle of universal acceptance, which itself pertains to divine law. Thus, it follows strictly that it is of divine law that a heretic is simpliciter et absolute an incapable subject of the papacy; and consequently, if a man exhibits the dolus of formal heresy, it is proven with absolute certitude by that fact alone that his election was invalid and he is not a valid pope even if he were to receive universal acceptance. Conversely, since it is by divine right that one who is truly accepted universally is the true pope, a heretic could not actually receive such unconditional, unequivocal, and exclusive universal acceptance, but the acceptance would be defective, and therefore would at best only exist according to appearance, as it indeed does, or at least did for some time in the case of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.”
(Kramer, Paul. On the true and the false pope: The case against Bergoglio, pp. 220-221. Gondolin Press. Kindle Edition.)

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