Who is Right, Athanasius Schneider or Robert Bellarmine?

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For the last few years, debate has swirled among traditionalist Catholics as to whether Francis may be a heretic. Implicit in the discussion has been the assumption that if he were a heretic, then he would forfeit his papal office and/or make himself liable for judgment or official deposition by the rest of the Church.

The debate often seemed to turn on the differences between material heresy, formal heresy, manifest, notorious or public heresy and so on, and the possible juridical component of some of those definitions - who had the ability or right to pronounce or judge it, if such an official judgment was necessary.

Curiously, among the traditionalist circles and sources that I participate in and follow, the debate seems to have recently somewhat quieted. Unfortunately, this has occurred because the general answer, however we might niggle over the precise definitions, seems to be now fairly widely agreed on, in private if not widely in public - Francis is probably a heretic.

Interestingly, it was Bishop Athanasius Schneider who implicitly confirmed that the debate may now be over. In his recent On the Question of a Heretical Pope, published in March, Schneider didn't name Francis as a heretic. But that was the elephant in the room. The purpose of his piece was to ask (and answer) the next question: Assuming he is a heretic, what do we do? Or, rather, Schneider's essay was largely addressed to what the bishops should do.

His answer was that they can and should do nothing.

To be fair, Schneider didn't mean literally nothing - there are all sorts of things that he argued might be done, ranging from prayer to publicly calling out or correcting any further heretical papal claims or actions - but on the question of whether, say, an imperfect council should be called to depose the pope (or declare that he has deposed himself), his answer was forcefully in the negative. Schneider wanted to definitively settle the issue. The question of papal heresy would now be in one sense moot. Even a heretical pope remains pope.

There are two parts to Schneider's argument, the first we might call the practical positive argument. It can be summarized simply: Deposing an heretical pope just wouldn't work and/or it would do more harm than good: 

The theory or theological opinion allowing the deposition of a heretical pope or the loss of his office ipso facto because of heresy is in practice unworkable.

A few paragraphs later he continues:

A formal schism, with two or more pretenders to the Papal throne – which will be an inevitable consequence of even a canonically enacted deposition of a pope – will necessarily cause more damage to the Church as a whole than a relatively short and very rare period in which a pope spreads doctrinal errors or heresies.

And later:

The deposition of a heretical pope will ultimately foster the heresy of conciliarism, sedevacantism, and a mental attitude similar to that which is characteristic in a purely human or political community.

It is not my purpose here to pronounce on the soundness of this part of the argument. Certainly, it is thoughtful and well-presented and deserves a high level of consideration. Schneider, an auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan is not only one of the most implacable defenders of Catholic tradition alive today but appears to have an extensive knowledge of theology and history. Anyone would be a fool to dismiss his well-considered opinions out of hand.

But there is a second part of his argument, and this is what I wish to focus on here. Schneider is well aware that the view that a heretical pope should not or cannot be deposed is not the historically accepted view among Catholic theologians.

In his I am With You Always: The Divine Constitution and Indefectibility of the Catholic Church, the late Catholic historian Michael Davies sums up what is the accepted view:

The problem which would face the Church if a legitimately reigning pope became an heretic has been discussed in numerous standard works of reference. The solution is provided in the 1913 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia: "The Pope himself, if notoriously guilty of heresy, would cease to be pope because he would cease to be a member of the Church." Many theologians have discussed the possibility of a pope falling into heresy, and the consensus of their opinion concurs with that of The Catholic Encyclopedia. The Pope must evidently be a Catholic, and if he ceased to be a Catholic he could hardly remain the Vicar of Christ, the head of the Mystical Body. St. Robert Bellarmine taught: "The manifestly heretical pope ceases per se to be pope and head as he ceases per se to be a Christian and member of the Church, and therefore he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers" [part of I am With You Always is excerpted here].

Bellarmine would go on to cite St. Cyprian (AD 200-256):

This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction, and outstandingly that of St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2) who speaks as follows of Novatian, who was Pope [antipope] in the schism which occurred during the pontificate of St. Cornelius: "He would not be able to retain the episcopate, and, if he was made bishop before, he separated himself from the body of those who were, like him, bishops, and from the unity of the Church." 

According to what St. Cyprian affirms in this passage, even had Novatian been the true and legitimate Pope, he would have automatically fallen from the pontificate, if he separated himself from the Church [from De Romano Pontifice Book II, Chapter 30, excerpted here].

Thus, an educated reader might ask, how could Schneider be right and all the rest of Catholic tradition be wrong?

Schneider knew that he had to give sort of an answer. He did so by claiming that in fact the purported tradition isn't the tradition. Or if it is, it's only a relatively recent tradition that has no magisterial or determinative theological authority. It is worth quoting Schneider at length, here: 

The theory or theological opinion that a heretical pope can be deposed or lose office was alien to the first millennium. It originated only in the High Middle Ages, in a time when pope-centrism arrived at a certain high point, when unconsciously the pope was identified with the Church as such. This was already in its root the mundane attitude of an absolutist prince according to the motto: “L’État, c’est moi!” or in ecclesiastical terms: “I am the Church!” 

The opinion, which says that a heretical pope ipso facto loses his office, became a common opinion starting with the High Middle Ages until the twentieth century. It remains a theological opinion and not a teaching of the Church and therefore it cannot claim the quality of a constant and perennial teaching of the Church as such, since no Ecumenical Council and no pope has supported such an opinion explicitly. The Church, however, condemned a heretical pope, but only posthumously and not during the term of his office. Even if some saint Doctors of the Church (e.g. St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Francis de Sales) held such an opinion, it does not prove its certainty or the fact of a general doctrinal consensus. Even Doctors of the Church have been known to err; such is the case with Saint Thomas Aquinas regarding the question of the Immaculate Conception... 

The theory – deposing a heretical pope or the loss of his office ipso facto because of heresy – is only a theological opinion, that does not fulfil the necessary theological categories of antiquity, universality, and consensus (semper, ubique, ab omnibus). There have been no pronouncements of the universal ordinary Magisterium or of the Papal Magisterium, that would support the theories of the deposition of a heretical pope or of the loss of his office ipso facto because of heresy.

Note that as far as I can tell, Schneider provides no sources for his central historical assertion.

So here are the positions:

Schneider:

The theory or theological opinion that a heretical pope can be deposed or lose office was alien to the first millennium.

Bellarmine:

This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers.

Just so as there is no confusion, the point is this: not only does Schneider differ with Bellarmine on the theological question itself (which Schneider fully admits), he also differs with him on the historical facts (which Schneider is silent on). There is, not to put it too finely, a yawning difference between the two claims, though one that could presumably adjudicated by looking at the historical evidence.

I suppose we might start with St. Cyprian.

This post, uncharacteristically for me, isn't intended to answer a question so much as to ask one. And the question is important. Schneider argues that the theological views of Bellarmine and many other Doctors of the Church concerning the deposition of a heretical pope are only opinions, opinions based on a relatively recent sort of theological trend or fad stemming at least partly from medieval and post-medieval political theories. Davies and others have written that these "opinions" are in fact historically universal among the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. As far as I can tell, this more accepted view is based at least partly on the writings of Bellarmine himself.  

Who is right, Bishop Schneider or Robert Bellarmine?