I know of no Traditional Catholic who hasn’t yet realized Francis is a scumbag.
Whore-hey. The pontiff of pachamama.
Has there ever been a Catholic pope ousted before?
Is there even a provision for that possibility, or is it kind of like you're stuck with them until they croak?
There are sedevacantists ("seat" + "vacant") who believe that the Seat of Peter has been vacant since Pope Pius XII, on account of claimant popes either not legitimately acquiring the papacy, or losing it on account of heresy.
Then there are beneplenists, who affirm Benedict is still the Pope. I am more sympathetic to this school but still reject it.
Then there are those who think Benedict merely resigned from the position of Bishop of Rome, while retaining the position of Vicar of Christ. I am much more sympathetic with this position, especially considered Benedict's resignation only mentioned that he was resigning as Bishop of Rome, and that Pope Francis removed "Vicar of Christ" from a recent papal yearbook. I find these details noteworthy, especially given what I have said to you before about the prophecy of St. Malachy. Nevertheless, I do not explicitly affirm this either. If asked, I would say Francis is Pope - both Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ - but that I acknowledge the possibility of this not being the case.
Anyway, all the schools of thought I've mentioned are quick to look back in the Church's tradition for similar "problematic" popes. Obviously there have been many antipopes - men who have claimed to be pope, even been acknowledged as pope by entire nations, but who have not been, and never been, truly the pope.
As for men who were actually pope, and then ceased to be pope, there is one case of resignation - I think I mispoke recently when saying Benedict was the first to ever resign as Pope; I think it happened once before. But as for a Pope ceasing to be Pope on account of heresy, this has not, properly speaking, ever happened, for "no one judges the See of Peter". Only a Pope has the authority to declare a Pope a heretic formally (a Pope may become a heretic materially and many traditionalists accuse Francis of this, but with formal declaration he would retain his ecclesiastical authority). To highlight this, there was the case of Pope Honorius, who was post-humously declared a heretic and I think even excommunicated. This was done by a Pope who reigned after Honorius' death, and also was declared at one of two councils. This was on account of writing sympathetically about the Nestorian heresy, if I recall correctly.
The argument runs that Pope Honorius, on account of this sympathy, became a heretic materially, but since he was never properly challenged, until after his death, he was never formally a heretic while Pope. Or something - it's all very complex and confusing. This hasn't really been an issue for most of the Church's history, so very little has been written or discussed about this, except in recent years, since the Francis pontificate began. So traditionalists have been sifting through Church documents and history, and the writings of Doctors of the Church like Bellarmine, to determine the case.
The problem, of course, is that, without the Church taking a stance on the matter, no one can know for sure - it is the same problem as Protestantism: without an authority to condemn certain interpretations and favour or even teach others, you could many permutations of belief. So the same has happened within the Church on this matter of Pope Francis, where there are sedevacantists, beneplenists, and all the rest. No one denies it is a confusing time.
So to answer your question, the authority of the Pope is so high that no one on Earth can pronounce judgment against him. There was an incident in Church history where an ecumenical council tried to undermine a Pope or Pope's teaching - I don't remember the exact details - which required that the Church reaffirm what had always been tacitly taught, that when push comes to shove, no one judges the Pope. Basically ecumenical councils only have the authority they have because / if they are ratified by a Pope. The inviolability of the Church hierarchy depends on this supremacy of the See of Peter. Understanding the nuances of papal authority and papal infallibility make this doctrine easier to accept - that not every statement or even writing of a Pope must be treated as infallible truth; heresy is in fact entirely possible. We have the Church's tradition so it can be recognized when anyone, even a pope, deviates from it. A solid understanding of how the Church's Magisterium functions is essential for avoiding total confusion during this time. Fr. Ripperger, in his very brief but exceedingly enlightening tracts, Magisterial Authority and The Binding Force of Tradition, helps make very clear the true function and balance of the Magisterium and the papacy.
From Magisterial Authority:
Pope Honorius I actually taught the Monothelite heresy in his two letters to Sergius. He was even condemned as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the decrees of which were approved by Leo II. Martin I, along with the Third Council of Constantinople, condemned the Monothelitism of Pope Honorius I.
So I guess it was Monothelitism, not Nestorianism.
Also, there is the example of the condemnation of Nicholas I who held that aside from the Trinitarian formula, one could simply baptize "in nomine Christi". Sometimes popes disagree on particular issues such as was the case with Pope Celestine III and Pope Innocent III who disagreed over issues pertaining to the Pauline privilege.
When all of the conditions for papal infallibility laid out by Vatican I are not met, we do not have certitude of the truth of a papal teaching. This does not mean a teaching not assuredly infallible is not true, but it then falls in a "lower" level of the Magisterium. When dealing with non-infallible declarations, we then must turn to the Tradition, and other statements within the Church's Magisterium, to see whether or not they accord. Obviously, as a matter of piety, the faithful are expected to provide initial assent to any Magisterial teaching, regardless of level - but if it is patently clear that there is conflict between a statement and the rest of the Tradition / Magisterium, and this can be well demonstrated, then assent is not required.
With all that said, off-the-cuff remarks about vaccines are scarcely a concern, since, unless spoken while preaching to the faithful, they don't even enter the Magisterium. The Church does have a couple of recent documents on vaccines - usually only addressing the issue of whether or not it is licit to take a vaccine if manufactured from cell tissue lines derived from past abortions. However, all of the (non-infallible but still requiring tacit consent) documents the Church has produced on this topic basically just affirm that, while unjust and contrary to conscience, taking a vaccine derived from aborted tissue can be acceptable in order to prevent widespread harm to oneself, one's family, and the general population - because receiving a vaccine derived from fetal tissue is considered only remote, mediate, material cooperation with evil, which is about as distant as one can get, and the duty to avoid such remote material cooperation is not binding if there is grave danger that may result from doing so. At first this sounds like claiming the end justifies the means, which in the Church certainly affirms is not the case; however, because the cooperation with evil is both remote and material (not proximate or formal), it is not the same as causing evil to bring about good, which would certainly fall under the following condemnation of CCC 1753:
Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation.
since the cooperation with the evil is remote (not causal) and material (not aligning one's intent with the abortion).
With that said, on grounds of conscience I would still be very opposed to receiving a vaccine derived from such tissue, and the Church documents I'm referencing make clear that, while acceptable to receive such vaccines, it is by no means (and cannot be!) a moral mandate, but must be voluntary, and one must listen to one's conscience.
Now, all of this so far ignores the issue of the actual safety of the vaccines themselves, and as far as I can tell, none of these Church documents actually address that. Everything the Church has to say about taking vaccines assumes they are safe and effective, and given that, enables Catholics to receive the vaccines, if derived from illicit tissue, in order to stop the spread of a deadly virus. The latest document from last year, found . says this:
We do not intend to judge the safety and efficacy of these vaccines, although ethically relevant and necessary, as this evaluation is the responsibility of biomedical researchers and drug agencies. Here, our objective is only to consider the moral aspects of the use of the vaccines against Covid-19 that have been developed from cell lines derived from tissues obtained from two fetuses that were not spontaneously aborted.
So the Church acknowledges that the "safety and efficacy" of vaccines to be taken are "ethically relevant", and yet She does not address them here, or in any other documents on this subject.
As far as I'm concerned, if a vaccine is known to be a possible danger, like we know the mRNA vaccines are, then to take it "for the greater good" would be a violation of CCC 1753, since that would be "sacrificing / risking the self to save the nation". Not only have I no moral duty to do this; I am forbidden form doing that, as a Catholic, since "the ends don't justify the means", and a formal acknowledgement of the danger of a vaccine to myself, and then taking it anyway, would be formal cooperation with evil, which definitely falls under "ends not justifying the means", whereas, arguably, mere remote and material cooperation does not.
All in all, this is just yet another case of Pope Francis speaking outside of the Magisterium in a way that is confusing, if not outright false.
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