Jacob W. Wood, Crisis Magazine (de católicos laicos)
Recently, Cardinal Burke stated that, if Pope Francis were to endorse a position on marriage and sexuality that were contrary to the tradition of the Church, that he would be obliged to «resist» the pontiff. Although the cardinal clarified that he was speaking of a purely hypothetical situation, he hit upon a nerve that gets struck from time to time among Catholics — in instant messages, in passing, on Facebook, though almost never in print — «What if?» What if Cardinal Kasper’s ideology takes over the upcoming Ordinary Synod on Marriage and the Family? What if the behind-the-scenes machinations of his supporters ultimately win the day? What if the Pope lets civilly divorced and remarried Catholics receive communion?
Fr. James Schall identified the dilemma last year, when he pointed out that the elephant in the room is the question of heresy. If Church discipline of excluding Catholics who have obtained a civil divorce and remarriage from Communion is based on infallible Church doctrine about sin and repentance, and if the pope tries to change that discipline, wouldn’t that make the Pope a heretic concerning that doctrine?
In the finest tradition of Jesuit discourse, Fr. Schall insisted that we talk about the elephant rather than staring at it. I agree because I know that God is not going to let us down, and neither is Pope Francis.
What is a heretic?
In order to even talk about the elephant, we have to identify it. A «heretic» is someone guilty of a heresy. According to the Catechism, «heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.» A heretic differs from an «apostate», who is guilty of «apostasy» (the total repudiation of the Christian faith, not just some part of it), or a «schismatic», who is guilty of «schism» (separation from the unity of the Church, without necessarily denying some or all of the Christian faith) (CCC 2089).
In a more technical sense, the denial of some truth of the Faith can actually be two things: a sin and a crime. It is a mortal sin, because it is directly contrary to the theological virtue of faith, «by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself» (CCC 1814). It is a canonical crime, because the Church criminalizes certain, very dangerous sins like heresy, so that the Church can compel those who commit them with penalties to carry out the promises of their baptism (Code of Canon Law, Canon 1311). The penalties for the crime of heresy include automatic excommunication (Canon 1364 §1); for clerics, automatic removal from any ecclesiastical office that the heretic might have possessed (Canon 194 §1, no. 2); for religious, automatic expulsion from their religious order (Canon 694, §1, no. 1).
It is important to remember, though, that not everyone who happens to deny some truth of the Faith is culpable for the mortal sin of heresy; nor is everyone who is culpable for the mortal sin of heresy penalized for the canonical crime of heresy in the same way. To be fully culpable for the sin, a person has to have full knowledge of what the Church teaches in a particular matter and make a conscious decision to reject the Church’s teaching in that matter (CCC 1859), or a person has to willfully fail in his or her duty to seek the truth (CCC 1791). To receive the maximum penalty for the crime, a person also has to be at least 16 years old, be aware that heresy is a canonical crime, and not be subject to a long list of other exclusions and exceptions (Canons 1322-24).
Since believing something wrong doesn’t automatically make you culpable for the sin or guilty of the crime, theologians usually make a distinction between people who aren’t consciously and deliberately rejecting the Church’s teaching and those who are:
- A material heretic is someone who does not realize that they believe something heretical. Provided that their ignorance is not their own fault, material heretics are neither culpable of the sin nor guilty of the crime.
- A formal hereticis someone who does realize that they believe something heretical and makes a conscious and free decision to believe it. Formal heretics are culpable for the sin, and can also be penalized of the crime provided that they meet the appropriate conditions (age, awareness, etc.).
Can the Pope be a heretic?
Most theologians would agree that a Pope could be a material heretic, just like any other well-meaning but misinformed Catholic. He wouldn’t be culpable for any sin or guilty of any crime. He could, in fact, remain in a state of grace, and, endowed with the virtue of faith, lead the Christian faithful in the faith delivered once for all to the apostles. His material heresy might even appear in his non-infallible teaching, although God gives him special help to avoid that (CCC 892). But Catholics firmly believe that it could never appear in his infallible teaching. (CCC 891)
Theologians are divided as to whether the Pope could ever be a formal heretic, because they don’t agree on two things:
1. Does the grace promised by Christ to Peter preclude the possibility of a Pope falling into formal heresy?
2. If it doesn’t, would a heretical Pope lose his office as a consequence of the sin of heresy, or as a penalty for the crime of heresy?
There were always some people who believed that God would simply not allow the Pope to become a formal heretic, because it would be against Christ’s promises to Peter. But from the twelfth century onwards, a lot of Catholic theologians didn’t. That’s when Gratian, the most important medieval canon lawyer, included in his Decretum a warning to errant popes that he attributed to St. Boniface:
If the Pope, remiss in his duties and neglectful of
his and his neighbor’s salvation, gets caught up in idle business, and if
moreover, by his silence (which actually does more harm to himself and everyone
else), he nonetheless leads innumerable hoards of people away from the good
with him, he will be beaten for eternity with many blows alongside that very
first slave of hell [the Devil]. However, no person can presume to convict him
of any transgressions in this matter, because, although the Pope can judge
everyone else, no one may judge him, unless he, for whose perpetual stability
all the faithful pray as earnestly as they call to mind the fact that, after
God, their own salvation depends on his soundness, is found to have strayed
from the faith. (Decretum,
Part 1, Distinction 40, Chapter 6)
So, no one can convict a Pope of being remiss in his
duties, because no one stands above the pope in judgment—unless the Pope is a
heretic, and then… Then what? Unfortunately, Gratian didn’t fill in the blank.
But since Gratian’s Decretum became
required reading for theologians and canon lawyers, the question became
unavoidable for subsequent generations of Catholic theology.
The two most important answers came from
sixteenth-seventeenth century Jesuits: Francisco Suarez and St. Robert
Bellarmine.
Suarez took it as a given that a Pope could be a
formal heretic. He then considered two possibilities for what happens next:
First possibility: The
Pope loses his office as a consequence of the sin of heresy, because people who commit
that sin cease to be members of the Church, and God deposes a Pope who is no
longer a member of the Church. (Suarez, De
fide, 10.6.2)
Suarez rejects this possibility for two reasons.
First, falling out of a state of grace might mean that you aren’t a member of
the Church in the way that you’re supposed to be, but it doesn’t mean that
you’re not a member of the Church —otherwise you’d be kicked out of the Church
every time you committed a mortal sin. Second, if Catholics are supposed to
believe that God deposes popes, then Scripture, the Tradition of the Church,
and the pronouncements of the Magisterium ought to have said something about it
— but they haven’t. Besides, if God deposes popes, you could never be sure if
the Pope was really the Pope — what if he was a secret heretic and God had
secretly deposed him? How would you ever know? (Suarez, De fide, 10.6.2-4)
Second possibility: The
Pope keeps his office if he commits the sin of
heresy, but loses his office if he is convicted of the crime of heresy. (De fide 10.6.6)
Suarez thinks that, just like Christ bestows the
papacy on the man whom the Church elects, so also Christ takes away the papacy
from the man whom the Church convicts (De
fide 10.6.10). So, if a Pope commits the sin of heresy, all
the other bishops of the world have the right to try him for the crime of heresy, even
against his will (De
fide 10.6.7). If they were to convict him, he could be
considered deposed from the papacy by Christ, and the Church could elect
another Pope.
Bellarmine was more hesitant about the whole question.
Unlike Suarez, he did not take it as a given that the Pope could be a formal
heretic. Actually, Bellarmine considered it «probable» that God would prevent
the Pope from ever being a formal heretic (he says it twice: De Romano Pontifice 2.30
and 4.2). Nevertheless, Bellarmine was willing to consider what would be the
case if the
Pope could fall into formal heresy.
If we assume that the Pope could be a formal heretic,
Bellarmine thinks Suarez’s opinion is wrong. Suarez allows the bishops to judge
the Pope. But one of Gratian’s basic rules is that no one can judge the Pope.
Sure, Suarez has Christ carrying
out the judgment, but it is only because the other bishops of
the Church have pronounced the
judgment first.
Instead, Bellarmine adopts the position that Suarez
rejected: the Pope loses his office immediately by committing the sin of formal heresy,
because people who commit that sin cease to be members of the Church, and God
deposes a Pope who is no longer a member of the Church. It’s true that the
bishops could still get together and make a declaration that God had deposed
the Pope, but their declaration would not be a judgment in any real sense, only
an acknowledgement of what God had already done. (De Romano Pontifice 2.30)
Suarez and Bellarmine both have good points, but I
think they each show how the other misses the mark. Suarez is right that, if
Catholics are supposed to believe that God deposes popes, then Scripture, the
Tradition of the Church, and the pronouncements of the Magisterium ought to
have said something about it. But Bellarmine has something important to
contribute, too: if God doesn’t depose popes, then no one can, because no one
can judge the pope. And besides, it’s not even agreed that the Pope could ever
be a formal heretic, anyway.
Where does that leave us?
First, God has not abandoned his flock to the whims of
heretics. Our Lord prayed for St. Peter’s faith (Luke 22:32), he promised
Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church that was
founding upon him (Matthew 16:18), and, on the day of Pentecost, he sent
his Holy Spirit upon that Church, with Peter at its head, to proclaim the
Gospel to all nations (Acts 2). Catholics shouldn’t expect, and shouldn’t go
looking for falsehood in the successor of St. Peter. God is always faithful to
his promises.
Second, because God is faithful to his promises, there
is no evidence that Pope Francis has committed the mortal sin of formal heresy,
the canonical crime of formal heresy, or that he is even a material heretic
with regard to any of the Church’s teachings, including the Church’s teaching
on marriage and sexuality. Much to the contrary, he
has said that he considers himself a «Son of the Church»
in this regard, he
has endorsed a traditional understanding of the relationship
between the sexes, and has
condemned the «ideological colonization» that breaks down
God’s plan for the family. Sure, he has expressed
support support for the way in which Cardinal Kasper wrote on
marriage and the family, but he has never publicly and definitively
endorsed what Cardinal
Kasper said.
So what is all the fuss about? About something Pope
Francis might do or
say but has not actually done or said? Then why don’t we follow
Gratian’s advice? Let’s pray for Pope Francis as earnestly as we can, because
like Gratian said, our own salvation depends in many ways on the guidance he
gives us as members of the flock of Christ. Even better, let’s pay attention to
how we pray. Certainly Pope Francis needs our prayers. But prayers motivated by
love for him are more meritorious than prayers motivated by fear of what he
might do in spite of the graces that God offers him to fulfill his divinely
appointed duty. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:8), and each one of us — clergy
and laity alike — always stands in need of an increase of that love. Not that
there will be less to work for — the latest revelations of impropriety at the
Extraordinary Synod warn us against such naïveté — just less to fear as we grow
in the confidence of Christ, and as we trust in the victory that God has
already won in Christ, into which he leads his Church daily through the
Successors of St. Peter: «I have said this to you, that in me you may have
peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world.» (John 16:33)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário