Fr. Serafino: Your Excellency, I also want to reflect on another very delicate issue, which is a thorn for the Church and for the faithful, the role of the Pope in the Church. There are two attitudes in this crisis of the Church, in this unprecedented crisis. In some way, there are people who normally say that the Pope, every time he speaks, is the messenger of the Holy Spirit, so you have to obey, no possibility to criticize him, no possibility to respectfully, as you do, let him understand or let him see that there is something wrong, so whatever he does is correct.
On the other hand, there is the opposite attitude, people saying a Pope can never teach something wrong, so the Pope, in whatever he does, is in fact infallible. They share the same opinion. Now, if the Pope teaches something which is not correct, he is even heretical or paving the way for heresy, it means that he is not the Pope, is invalidly elected, and you know there are many theories, many hypotheses nowadays about a kind of sede vacantism, that the Pope is not the Pope. What do you say, how do you respond to this new sede vacantism rampant, unfortunately?
Bishop Schneider: Well, both attitudes are not Catholic, because the attitude that a Pope’s every word is infallible contradicts the doctrine of the Church and the experience of the Church, and the Church never taught this. The dogma of infallibility is very precise and says the Pope speaks infallibly. Infallible means he has the assistance of the Holy Spirit, a negative assistance, not even a positive one, that the Holy Spirit keeps him, or protects him, so that he will not speak an error when he speaks ex cathedra, which means in a solemn, definitive way for the entire Church. And he must evidence this, that he is doing this; he cannot simply leave us. And there is in the Code of Canon Law, there is a canon which reads that nothing in the Church’s pronouncement is assumed as infallible unless it is clearly indicated as infallible. This is very important.
Therefore, it must be indicated that this pronouncement is definitive for all. It must express this as they did in the past. All infallible teachings are always marked with a clear formulation, such as that this is a definitive statement, that all must accept, that it is a divinely revealed truth, and so on. And this is only rarely and clearly indicated. On other occasions, the Pope does not have the assistance of the Holy Spirit of infallibility. This is a logical consequence of the dogma. Otherwise, the dogma would have no meaning if it were unrestricted. It is restricted.
Therefore, we would otherwise make the Pope God, we would divinize a human being, and we cannot divinize someone who is human. And we have demonstrations from the history of the Church. The most famous example was Pope Honorius I in the seventh century, who, as Pope, wrote in his ordinary magisterium two letters to the patriarch of Constantinople, where he expressed himself quite ambiguously, which was not acceptable, and therefore he was condemned by three ecumenical councils because of these statements. He was condemned, and by his successors also. So this is a demonstration that the Pope is not always in all his statements infallible. Then we have the case of John XXII in the fourteenth century, when he publicly, in his homilies, propagated the material error that there is no beatific vision before the second coming of Christ, which contradicts Holy Scripture and the entire previous tradition. He was admonished by theologians of the Sorbonne and by a cardinal. He did not accept the admonitions; he persisted, but thanks be to God, before he died, he repented and retracted his errors.
And with Pope Francis, we have the same case. For example, when he wrote to the bishops of Buenos Aires that the norms to admit adulterers and divorced people to Holy Communion are possible, he approved this. The Vatican declared that this answer of the Pope is part of the authentic magisterium and was published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. This is wrong. It is contradicting divine revelation, or at least undermining it. You cannot publicly admit evident adulterers to Holy Communion. It is not necessarily a formal heresy, but it is at least seriously problematic. And therefore, the Pope cannot be infallible in these cases.
Then the consequence is sede vacantism, or that the Pope loses his office when he pronounces error. But this is not correct, because the Church is in the hands of God. It is impossible that he loses office in this way, because this would contradict the dogma. When he is speaking outside of ex cathedra definitions, errors are possible, but he does not cease to be Pope. And therefore we must distinguish: the Pope is infallible only in specific cases.
Now, because of this wrong point of view of both parties, which you mentioned, the consequence is sede vacantism, or the idea that the Pope loses his office when he teaches error. But this is not correct. The Church is in the hands of God, not in the hands of a Pope. We must pray for him and not follow him in error. We must keep the faith and admonish him out of love, not hatred, but love. Because otherwise, we would also be culpable if we follow him in error. Therefore, it is a positive attitude when we do not obey a clearly erroneous or ambiguous statement, and we keep our faith and pray for him.
The Pope is not the boss of the Church. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pope is only the vicar of Christ, a representative and servant. He is not the successor of Christ. He is the successor of Peter. These people who absolutize the Pope are effectively transforming him into something divine, but he is not. The Church is always in the hands of Christ.
We have examples from the Fathers and the saints, such as Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Bridget of Sweden, and Saint Hildegard of Bingen. They admonished the Popes of their time, sometimes very directly. Saint Catherine of Siena even wrote, “Most Holy Father, you are sweet Christ on earth, but if you will not convert, please renounce the papacy.” And she was canonized and declared Doctor of the Church, in spite of these very tough expressions.
Fr. Serafino: Which are very important. And thank you for this reassurance, Your Excellency. So, you say clearly that the Pope can teach, unfortunately, errors, but the fact of teaching errors doesn’t mean that he loses his office, patron office, the city’s vacant.
Bishop Schneider: No, it doesn’t, it will, it will finish in confusion, tremendous confusion, simply it’s against common reason, common sense, and again, the Pope is not God. The church is not in his hands. This is Christ’s hands. We have to stress this. The church’s hands of Jesus Christ.
Fr. Serafino: There is a common root, I think, to this issue, which is from a kind of conciliarism applied to the Vatican. The Vatican was the only council of the church. Now we have come to the pope as the only person in the church, the church completely absorbed into the person of the pope. Now the council is for the church. First, there is the church, and then there is the council, and then there is the pope for the church, but behind the church and the pope, there is Christ. Christ is the rock, in fact. Right.