An Papa Hereticus Deponi Potest by the late Andre Perlant

As soon as the sham popes had started destroying the Church, specious pleas appeared to make Catholics believe that it was not possible for a pope to preach or promulgate heresies, for the real dogma about papal infallibility foresees that the charism of truth is granted only when a pope claims that what he is teaching is infallible. It was then legal that merely pastoral directions might lead a Christian flock to the poisoned pastures of obvious heresies. The next step was taken by the Econian School that persuaded deluded innocent., that a pope could enforce error., it was necessary to protest and follow the established Tradition despite disobedience which far from entailing schism or heresy became a theological virtue: isn't better to obey God than a scandalous Roman Pontiff? To-day surviving "sede vacantists" are almost everywhere preached the last verisimilar, but nefarious, false doctrine that, although a pope may lamentably fall into heresy, luckily the Catholic doctrine has providentially asserted that a heretical pope was automatically deposed at the very moment his heresy became manifest. A twofold demonstration is proposed for this baleful dogma that would greatly impair papal claims to obedience in normal times, and which today is an excuse for the status-quo, i. e. being contented with a merely episcopalian surviving Church. The first proof alleged is that theologian discussing whether a pope may or may not fall into heresy indisputably shows that the Church has acknowledged the potentiality. This is blatantly to bemock the Christian people, for the argument should be valid to promote any heresy, though condemned as this one has been. To delude readers the liars no longer rely on misinterpreting the definite proclamation of the General Council of Vatican (1870). They only partially quote St. Robert Bellarmine when he deals with the question that was still freely discussed in his (XVIth) century: An papa hereticus deponi potest. (Must a heretical pope be deposed?) For admittedly Bellarmine examined what solution was to be given to the problem and answered that a heretical pope was not, to be deposed, because he would be so automatically (depositus not deponendus). By this imperfect quotation they imply and afterwards overtly profess that St. Robert Bellarmine supported the thesis, that a pope may turn heretical during his pontificate. But if you read the XXXth chapter of Liber II in the first tome of the complete 'Opera Bellarmini' you find the reverse in the first paragraph, under the title 'An papa hereticus deponi potest' you find at once what follows. "I answer that there are five solution, to be found to the problem. The first is the one Albert Pighio has given in his works (On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 8, book II): A Pope cannot be heretical; therefore there never can arise any cause whatsoever that may bring about his being deposed. This judgment is probably true and can easily be justified, as we shall see later in the proper place. This truth however is not certain and is generally objected to. Therefore it is worth while studying what answer is to be given to the dilemma of a heretical Pope." It is then evident that St. Robert Bellarmine would not have discussed this cruel hypothesis if he lived after 1870, when a General Council fixed the doctrine that a pope a faith can never fail and that he tells the Truth infallibly when speaking ex cathedra. Ye must also not forget that as a

private individual a pope may say erroneous things and remain as good a catholic as any of us who never speaks assured of the Holy Ghost's assistance we cannot be branded as heretics if we do not pertinanciously cling to our wrong utterances. To further demonstrate what Bellarmine's opinion was really, let us read a paragraph of the 'caput VI. liber IV, tomus II' of his treatise 'De Pontifice Romano' whose books all explain what was later to be defined as part of the deposit of the faith (depositum fidei). The title of the fourth book is 'De potestate spirituali'. Before writing this sixth chapter, the saint deals with the four theses extant on ex-cathedra infallibility. He promptly discards the first two of them.The first heretical proposition is this: "A Pope even when speaking in his capacity of Supreme Pontiff, may prove heretical, even when he defines a tenet with the assistance of a General Council. (the same things as an Ecumenical Synod in good catholic English of Greek extraction) The second heresy says: "A Pope is liable to teach heresy only when lacking the assistance of a General Council." St. Robert Bellarmine contradicts this opinion of Gerson's. He does not want however to substitute himself for the Magisterium, for he write. We dare not say that this opinion is heretical, for we can see that its exponents have been tolerated by the Church till today. Nevertheless it sounds quite wrong and so near to heresy that the Magisterium could justly dub it heretical." This wish was achieved in 1870. Therefore the only theses left are those in which it is said that a Pope cannot teach anything heretical. St. Robert Bellarmine does not support the moderate one that alleges: "Irrelevant of his being or not being a heretic, the Roman Bishop (Pope) cannot in any case define some heretical doctrine and declare it to be believed by the whole Church as an article of the True Faith." The Saint exactly like St. Alphonsus de Ligouri who protested that it is not possible to distinguish and separate private character from public behavior in a pope's personality, rejects the dichotomy (man and function). On the contrary he argues that there can be but one person who is elected Head of the Mystical Body of Christ, a person assisted by the Holy Ghost to discharge his function. His confidence in Peter's faithfulness is as absolute as in the trustworthiness of his successors. The sixth chapter confounds all the liars about the saints admitting the frailty of the Pope's faith: "It is probable and piously to be believed that the Supreme Pontiff not only cannot err as the vicar of Christ, but also that, considered as a private person, he cannot become a heretic by believing and pertinaciously adhering to anything contrary to the Deposit of Faith. This is proved by the benevolent charity of Divine Providence. Indeed the Supreme Pontiff cannot and must not preach any heresy, for moreover he is obliged to teach the Truth. He actually does so, without any doubt, since the Lord has charged him to strengthen his brother's faith, explicitly adding: I have begged (prayed in the Douay Rheims) for you that your faith may not fail. This means at least; from your Chair you shall always preach the True Faith. But, I ask you, being a heretic, how is the Roman Bishop to strengthen his brother's faith, how will he manage always to preach the Holy Faith? To be sure, yes, God may compel even a malevolent heart to proclaim the truth it is denying habitually, and He once wrang words out of the mouth of Balaams sheass. But keeping people under constraint would be quite unusual a bondage inflicted by God's Providence that is only using mild benevolence in all things. In the second place History affords this demonstration a practical Proof, for up to now, no Pope has ever been found to be a heretic. St. Robert Bellarmine then devotes six chapters reviewing all the cases of all the popes that have been accused of heresy. He particularly shows that Honorious I has been the target of calumnies though he was blamelessly

orthodox. It is then obvious that the double proof of a Popes accidental landing in heresy or worse, cannot be found anywhere in 'De Pontifice Romano'. We do find the reverse: a confutation of the lies about Tradition. If not conscious of lying, the specious advocates of the possibility of a Pope turning into a heretic would simply quote the 1870 dogmatic definitions on the subject, for these are bound to give the summary of the Catholic Tradition in their articles. Here is a quotation from the dogmatic constitution entitled 'Pastor Aeternus' "The Holy Ghost was not promised to Peter's successors that they might herald any new doctrine He would reveal, but in order that they should, with his assistance saintly preserve and faithfully expound the Revelation the Apostles had received and transmitted, i.e. the Deposit of Faith." And now there follows the practical proof: "Their apostolic doctrine has been received by all the venerated Fathers, revered and followed by all hallowed doctors, for they knew that saint Peter's Holy See remained untainted by any error whatsoever, according to what our Lord and Saviors's had promised the Prince of His disciples: "I have begged for thee that thy faith should not fail: and after coming back confirm thy brothers!" The crowning final definition is the well known dogma: then the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra i.e. when he fulfills his office that of Pastor and Doctor of the whole Christian flock and decrees that a doctrine about faith or morals is to be received by the universal (or catholic) Church, he fully enjoys the Divine Assistance that was promised to him personally through blessed Peter, he exerts the infallibility with which our Divine Redeemer has desired to endow His Church .. . One is not allowed to understand this as a restrictive definition, firstly because it is less difficult to preserve the deposit than to explain what it consists of. to pass a judgment on contested points than to repeat all that has been clearly transmitted. Secondly the context of 'Pastor Aeternus' leaves no doubt about what the catholic Tradition means. Immediately before the wording of the defined dogma, we can read indeed the epitome of the depositum fidei on that point, for it is always useful to repeat what liars will afterward endeavor to transmute: "This charism of Truth and unfailing Faith has therefore been granted to Peter and his successors so that they might fulfill their preeminent office of procuring universal salvation; in order that they should keep the whole of Christ's flock away from the poisonous pastures of heresy and feed it with celestial teaching." We must believe what, the Church has always said about her divine constitution, and not Satan's accomplices who have constantly lied about and shamelessly abused Christ's envoys. The question of papal infallibility was already sealed in the capital formula of 519 which is carefully shrouded in deep silence, though it was canonised by the Fathers of the fourth Constantinopolitan General Council and repeated by the catholic Vatican one. This formulary was proclaimed jointly by St. Hormidas (Pope Symmachus' deacon who succeeded his master in the Holy See) and Byzantium's emperor Justin I, and it accounted for the reunion of the west and East felicitously acheived: "We desire in all things to adhere to the communion of the Apostolic See, wherein the whole solidity of the Christian Faith resided, whrein religion is preserved immaculate. - A century before St. Augustine had already written: "Roma locuta, causa finita." (Rome has spoken., the case is closed.) Then Rome has given a solution to a pending question, there is no denying it, for it is God's voice. Augustine repeated what Constantine had proclaimed a few years before at the Council of Arles which put an end to the Donatists schism (A.D, 316). This constant doctrine could not be asserted again and again whenever there was any trouble to settle as in Bellarmine's protestant

revolutionary period. The Vatican Council and all the saint Doctors indeed taught nothing new. Let us give a conclusion what Leo IX did write in 1053 to Michael Caerularius, when the latter was leading the Eastern Church into a renewed longlasting schism: Will there appear a man foolish enough to dare think that a wish of Him for whom wanting is equivalent to achieving may effect nothing to the present end? Hasn't the See of the Prince of the Apostles, the Roman Church, either through Peter himself of through his successor refuted, vanquished and condemned all the heretical errors? Hasn't it strengthen the brother's hearts in Peter's faith, that till now has never failed and will never fail unto the end. -Those who love Truth will always be given opportunities to hear the Good Shepherd's Voice and they will recognize it. Let them not be scandalised if a sham Pope has managed to rule as Satan's vicar from Peter's very Chair! Now we have 'the abomination of desolation in God's temple, now redeeming sacrifice is no longer offered in it. Now all nations cry out with admiration: 'Peace, peace at last."; now a world government is being established. Let us be joyful too, let us lift up our heads, for all this has been foretold in the Christian Deposit. As for Roncalli crawling up into Peter'. Chair, be sure that he never became God's vicar: as Paul IV warned urn, a heretic's (and a fortiori an apostate's) election into the papal function is null and void. This is the sole possibility: Roncalli was not a member of Jesus' Church when he was elected. If he had been God's vicar the gates of Hell would not have prevailed against him, he would not hurry have started carrying out his apostatic aggiornamento. Completed on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1989;Jean Andre Perlant 55 rue Bras Marie 64340 Le Boucau, FRANCE