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Is Pope Francis a Heretic?
I want to call your attention first to this from respected Vatican journalist Edward Pentin:
The well-known and respected Dominican theologian Father Aidan Nichols has put his name to an historic open letter to bishops claiming Pope Francis is guilty of heresy and calling on them to formally correct him.
The letter, released on April 30, the feast day in the traditional calendar of St. Catherine of Siena — the 14th century saint famous for her criticism of Pope Gregory XI — states that Francis has on occasions “knowingly and persistently” denied what he knows is divinely revealed Church teaching.
Such words and actions, the signatories continue, “amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, on the moral law, and on grace and the forgiveness of sins.”
They add that they have taken this measure “as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.”
The signatories call on bishops to investigate the claims they put forth, and then correct Pope Francis by calling on him “to reject these heresies.”
If he should “persistently refuse,” they call on the bishops to declare that Francis has “freely deprived himself of the papacy.”
Pope Francis has not been without controversy over doctrine during his papacy. From his encyclical letter on stewardship of the environment, Laudato Si, to his post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia, to his interviews with the Italian atheist Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis has seemed to want to live up to what he infamously told a small group of friends: “It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.”
In questioning the Pope on doctrine, we first had the dubia, a set of five questions from 4 Cardinals of the Church asking for clarification on some points of doctrine in Amoris Laetitia. Then came a letter from clergy and scholars to the college of cardinals of the Church pointing out the “heresies” the authors found in Amoris Laetitia. Then came a filial correction letter to the Pope, expressing grave concern about many papal pronouncements, but stopping short of claiming heresy.
But this newest letter is different:
“We limit ourselves to accusing him of heresy on occasions where he has publicly denied truths of the faith, and then consistently acted in a way that demonstrates that he disbelieves these truths that he has publicly denied,” the authors state.
They clarify that they are not claiming Pope Francis has “denied truths of the faith in pronouncements that satisfy the conditions for an infallible papal teaching.”
“We assert that this would be impossible, since it would be incompatible with the guidance given to the Church by the Holy Spirit,” they state.
In light of this situation, the authors call upon the bishops of the Church to take action since a “heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil.”
Pope Francis may just ignore this as he has ignored all that has proceeded, but it is hard to see how he can.
Stay tuned.
Father Aidan Nichols Signs Open Letter Charging Pope Francis With Heresy https://t.co/HicjdNEubE
— Edward Pentin (@EdwardPentin) April 30, 2019
Open Letter to Bishops published on the liturgical feast of two Dominicans: Pope St. Pius V (new calendar) who proclaimed Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church, and St. Catherine of Siena (traditional calendar), Doctor of the Church: https://t.co/WCKybXK68g
— Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) April 30, 2019
Published in Religion & PhilosophyFr Fessio of Ignatius Press coming out of retirement to underscore this document and to urge the Holy See not to ignore it.
Unprecedented.
Might this indicate that the conservative Old Guard has finally faced reality and is taking the gloves off? https://t.co/MjRkPd1GYv
— Regina Magazine (@ReginaMagOnline) April 30, 2019
I am out my depth here, but can someone be infallible and also a heretic?
The question of a pope being a heretic is as they say, nuanced.
The pope is not infallible. He only enjoys that charism in certain situations.
I think the second quote in the OP does a pretty good job of addressing your question. Or maybe not since you asked the question.
I usually look to canon lawyer Ed Peters for information on these tough canonical questions. He has not, as far as I can see, written on this yet except for a few tweets.
Yes and no.
We believe that the Holy Spirit protects the deposit of faith from heretics and error. By “the deposit of faith” I mean necessary beliefs on reality and morals, as opposed to downstream explications and private revelations (like faith in Marian apparitions). The Church has endured scandalous popes and bishops before, yet required beliefs have not been uprooted or misled in two thousand years.
We also believe that all people, even saints, are imperfect. God often manifests His greatness through the weak and sinful. God brings good even from the consequences of disasters and ruin, including those willfully caused by sin.
So the Lord has allowed individual shepherds to mislead Christians into heresy and sinfulness while simultaneously defending formal doctrine from being corrupted by those errors. Popes and bishops may express falsehoods, but may not encode them into Church law and perennial instruction.
We have all occasionally heard a fool, a scoundrel, or an ignorant person express something true or beautiful. Conversely, we have all heard an admirable person saying something false or destructive. Infallibility regards the defense of established knowledge, not whatever theological theories a pope might express. But a heretic may express an infallible truth, like a wise and loving bishop may spout nonsense.
Bottom line: Church teaching on necessary faith and morals cannot be changed even by a pope. Our theology deepens with each generation. But it is never reversed or undone.
While I believe that the Catholic Church has become so corrupt as to be virtually in league with Satan, I don’t believe that the doctrine should be easily dismissed.
The reality is that without radical change, every single institution is subject to entropy, and after 18 centuries the Church is deeply entropic. The only question I have is: Is Francis contributing or combating?
What are some of the specific doctrines he is accused of denying? (a lot of links and all but do we have a Cliff Notes version for people like me with short attention spans?)
Well, as Hillaire Belloc famously said:
As to your question on Francis: confusion has been the feature of his papacy so he has certainly contributed to the decline into disorder.
In “so grave and unprecedented an emergency,” the authors of the open letter write:
Off the top of my head:
This actually enhanced my confusion rather than solved it. Are they saying that, if Francis had said the same things in a different form–“in pronouncements that satisfy the conditions for an infallible papal teaching,”– that there would be no question he was infallible? Or are they saying the matters on which he is speaking are outside the realm of what can “qualify” for infallibility? Sorry if this appears dim, but I’m trying to work through where the lines are drawn here.
I’ll use the Amoris Laetitia example to get at what I think the authors are saying. Prior to AL, Pope Francis confirmed perennial Church teaching that those living in sin (adultery) cannot be admitted to Holy Communion. And then comes along AL, with it’s wink-wink of the infamous footnote to paragraph 351, upon which the Germans and Argentinians and Maltese and others read said footnote to say that Holy Communion could be given to adulterers. Of course, in spoken word, Francis continues to affirm what the Church teaches but he does nothing to correct the wayward bishops who implement his teaching in AL. He can’t directly come out and say that now those living in sin can receive Holy Communion, because the Holy Spirit protects him from doing this, but he is, through “pastoral policies”, allowing this to happen.
I am no expert and know only what I have read. A pope is not infallible unless he speaks “Ex Cathedra”. The seriousness is underlined by Pope John XXIII saying something like, “I am not infallible. I am infallible only if I speak Ex Cathedra. I never have and never will.”
You can imagine the problems that would arise if a pope decided to speak infallible truth and contradicted Church teachings.
If a pope said anything in any form or situation that contradicted formal Church teaching, his words could not be authoritative. Our shepherds serve to guard and share the deposit of faith, not to create it. Popes are powerless to contradict formal instruction as inherited.
A pope can say all sorts of ridiculous things in ways that do not alter Church teaching. That is part of the problem in the modern era. With phones, television, and internet, we now hear everything a pope utters and not just formal letters or edicts. Many Catholics struggle to understand their relation to popes because media confuse the weight of each expression.
Also, the pope’s absolute pastoral authority as institutional monarch of the Church bureaucracies can lead to mischief. Pope Francis has made many dubious appointments and dismissals.
The Church teaches that Christ is “the end of revelation” which means all information necessary for salvation of souls has been available since Christ’s resurrection. Our theology deepens as that available knowledge is explored, debated, and enriched by human experience. But the necessities of faith do not change or multiply. Insights may be added, but they only build upon established wisdom.
Good comment Aaron.
I look forward to hearing what my bishop has to say about this.
@Bishopoftyler
bishopstrickland.com
There’s really only 2 cases in the entire history of the Church where a Pope unambiguously exercised the power to infallibly define a dogma: the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.
I read somewhere that John Paul II strongly considered issuing an infallible pronouncement that women could never be ordained priests, but Cardinal Ratzinger talked him into toning it down a notch. Not sure if that’s true or a legend, but in any case JPII ultimately issued a very strong statement on the teaching but stopped short of invoking the formal language of an infallible definition.
My initial reaction is to agree with Ed Peters, based on what I’ve seen so far the case for negligence is a lot stronger than the case for heresy. As you aptly summarized:
It seems to me he has very skillfully avoided publicly saying anything that directly contradicts Church teaching. He has certainly permitted, and sometimes encouraged, shall we say “creative” interpretations and implementations of traditional teaching. Presumably that’s why he never answered the Dubia: in order to allow the Germans and Argentinians and Maltese to do as they please without formally committing himself to teaching heresy.
Where is the Athanasius of today? Is it Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakstan?
This is a subtle misunderstanding of what the Church is. It is an organism (Organism) with institutional features. The Body of Christ, enlivened and protected by the Spirit.
There are, it seems, individuals with external trappings of being a member who are “in league with Satan” (many of these abusive, perverted priests and bishops cannot possibly be followers of Christ, imo), but the Church itself can never, ever be that corrupted. We are promised, “the gates of Hell shall not prevail.”
I don’t have Scott’s knowledge and understanding of the Church’s theological legalisms, but the idea of an “infallible Pope” just doesn’t jive with Christ’s teachings to me. It seems to be an unnecessary inflammatory overreach of Vatican power and has harmed the teaching of Christ’s Good News in my opinion.
Christ’s teachings, from my point of view, were meant to be understood by the great mass of the Laity, and not to have to be interpreted by some Vatican theological expert to be understood. So parsing whether some act of a Pope is within the scope of Papal Infallibility, when we know that so many of the this Pope’s and previous Pope’s actions were clearly fallible, has cast a stain on the credibility of the Church as a whole to most people. This is not a good thing however you slice it.
It’s hard to see how many of this Pope’s actions are from who is following the words of Christ. He has cast a callous, blind eye to the murderous and evil deeds of the Left only to promote much of their teachings as somehow within and subservient to Christ’s teachings. This is clearly evil nonsense. That said I’m not sure whether I could say he is a heretic or not under the theological definition, but if that label is helpful in reversing many of his opinions and actions that have clearly undermined the classic fundamental teachings of the church so be it. His actions are not what I would want from a Pope who should be a faithful and unambiguous follower of Christ.
To add fuel to the fire, this book came out a few years ago:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/231823/the-last-pope-by-rob-howells/9781780285696
Of course, it was published after Francis became Pope, so it’s quite possible the author is making the facts fit the prophecy. Still, I seem to remember another book with a similar title which came out well before Francis . . .
There are difficulties for believers, and I don’t count myself among that group now, but there have always been difficulties. It isn’t ever going to be easy. I’ve never heard the words of Jesus. He died a couple thousand years before I was born. I can’t read Hebrew, Aramaic, or ancient Greek, so I can’t read the words as they were written. I have to rely on interpreters. To me, it is much less an act of Faith to believe that, on matters of doctrine, the Church Jesus established will be correct than it is to believe that all the interpreters got it right. Notice that I said “on matters of doctrine” because this pope is clearly an idiot on political and climate matters. The idea of papal infallibility rests on the idea that a pope will not misunderstand God’s Will and that Jesus will not let him intentionally mislead his flock. Hard to believe or trust a God or Messiah that would let that happen.
I think the question of authority is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for those who are afraid to come into full communion with the Church. We see in Matthew 16:16-19 that Jesus gives the keys of the kingdom of heaven to Peter, as well as the power to bind and loose. And we see in Luke 22:31-32, that Jesus prays specifically for Peter that his faith will not fail and that he strengthen the brethren. And it is in the Gospel of John, when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, that Jesus instructs Peter to “feed my sheep”.
As @josephstanko pointed out in comment #13 there are very few times that papal infallibility has been claimed. It is the misunderstanding of what papal infallibility is that leads to statements like yours.
The pope’s job is to defend the faith. In my view, Pope Francis has not done a good job of this.
I would suggest that’s a problem with understanding Magisterial authority and papal infallibility. The Church doesn’t dictate the minutest detail of meaning of Christ’s words. Not even the pope does that. Private revelation is allowed for. Magisterial authority is invoked when doctrine is in dispute. Without some living voice of authority over interpretive tradition, we end up with a fractured faith of 40,000 denominations, and counting. Jesus did say, “that they may be one” — not 40k+.
Infallibility has historically affirmed what the Church (the Body — the “mass of laity” through a more “general” revelation) has already professed — the Immaculate Conception and the (bodily) Assumption of Mary.
These are the means God has provided to protect what He wishes to reveal, generally, through the Church Jesus established.
St. Malachy’s “prophecy” was accurate right up until his own time, and then it fell apart and doesn’t describe the popes who came after. So, yes, it would seem Howells isn’t the first to retrofit his “predictions.”
Perhaps the biggest false claim the Pope has made is a sentence in the Abu Dhabi Document “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together”:
This is outright nonsense, if not heresy. Bishop Athanasius Schneider asked for a correction from the pope during his ad-limina visit. This can only not be heresy if one reads “willed by God” as God using his permissive will, and not his positive will. Bishop Schneider asked for a correction from the pope, and got one – with the pope saying: “You can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God.” Yet the pope has not updated or changed the document to reflect this clarifying point – instead he has sent it out as is to Catholic universities for study. It is typical of this Peronist Pope – he says what his audience wants to hear.
Professor Roberto De Mattei on “The Most Terrible Schism the World Has Ever Seen”.
To be fair to Frankie the Hippie Pope, the tower babel story is in the bible, and god did in fact (if you consider genesis to be literally true) separate us and scatter us around the planet. And god did create multiple sexes. The part about multiple religions seems to fly in the face of the great commission, but maybe I am missing something.
I attended a class last night facilitated by a great catechist whose chief complaint is Francis’s changing of the Catechism regarding the death penalty. Many of the other controversies are ambiguous enough to allow false teaching to develop, but I agree with the catechist, this is a reversal. It is more than the camel’s nose under the tent — it’s at least his shoulders, too.
Yes, thank you. So much craziness has occurred under Bergoglio’s watch that one forgets a lot of it.
From Ignatius His Conclave:
Back when WFB, Jr. was still at National Review I was a supporter. I guess if one writes enough checks, he gets attention. So, I received a lot of Buckley’s books. In one, he mentioned that while there have been popes who were less than Christian as far as character is concerned, none promulgated doctrinal errors. Will this jerk who holds the position now be different?
Serious question. If the Pope goes way off on core doctrine, what is the process to resolve that? Is there some sort of RC Mueller investigation or a recall vote (“Oh I see a puff of white smoke being sucked back down the chimney . . .”)?
Goodness gracious. There are certainly human problems, but in league with Satan? What exactly leads you to something that??? And before you answer, are you Catholic?