[BlatherNaut]

The main issues, in the case of Francis, revolve around the indissolubility of marriage, the nature of the papacy itself, and the approval of gay life as normal. The first is a question of reason and revelation – Moses allowed divorce, Christ did not; the second of revelation; and the third, homosexuality, of reason.

[BlatherNaut]

Ping

[piusv]

This author should really learn more about sedevacantist views before opining on/making statements that involve them.

[Sherman Logan]

Bellarmine and Suarez thought the Church, in the persons of a General Council or the assembled Cardinals would have to declare the pope a heretic and depose him.

Uhh, this has been tried several times. Generally wound up with two popes, and if I remember right, sometimes three or four at a time, all claiming to hold the Keys of Peter.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Piffle!

All popes have been human and “of the flesh”.
Everyone, even any assigned the position of “Il Papa” has been heretical, just ask Paul.

Tilting at windmills; nothing to see here folks.

[Alex Murphy]

The technical issue of an heretical pope goes back to Reformation discussions, led by the Jesuits, Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suarez, among others. Jacques Maritain, Yves Simon, and John Courtney Murray brought up the issue in discussing the difference between political and ecclesiastical authority. We read in Romans that the authority of an emperor, as that of a pope, comes from God, but in differing ways.

John Locke’s opposition to the divine right of kings was an aspect of this issue. The divine right of kings was not a medieval doctrine, though it did go back to oriental despotism, to the divinization of Alexander the Great and the Roman emperors. Authority came directly to the king, not through the people, as the Aristotelian mind had it. Divine right was designed to protect the king from assassination by elevating him to a divine status.

IMO the core issue is that of delegated vs absolute authority. If authority is delegated, then it can be rescinded by the grantor. If authority is conferred and rendered absolute, then it cannot be revoked. Protestants and Western Civilization leans towards the former. Catholicism leans toward the latter with regards to popes, bishops, and priests.

[The_Reader_David]

Pope Honorius I of Rome was anathematized as a monothelite heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

From the eighth through the eleventh century, all Popes of Rome in their oath of office confirmed the council’s anathema. Somehow when the Patriarchate of Rome left the communion of the Holy Orthodox Church, this custom ceased, and the pretense that no Pope of Rome had ever been a heretic, became established in the West.