Can the Pope Teach Heresy in his Non-Infallible Magisterium? Some Preliminary Thoughts

In the first place, I would like to say that I am extremely sympathetic to any attempt to uphold a high view of the teaching ministry of St. Peter in the mystery of the Church. If the throne of St. Peter is the Cathedra Unitatis (Chair of Unity) and the foundation upon which the unity of the Church is built, it would only make perfect sense for that entity to be pristinely orthodox and divinely protected. To the degree that this Chair of Unity can become a “see of pestilence” (to quote Bishop Vincent Gasser), the very purpose and design of it begins to lose rational sense, if not all.

It is for this reason that I am slightly puzzled as to why the bishops at the 1st Vatican Council did not themselves harp on a stronger and more general set of conditions upon which there is a divinely applied protection to the teaching ministry of the Pope as the occupant of the supreme pontificate. One can speak about how the logical foundations of the Papacy, being expressed in Patristic citations such as the Formula of St. Hormisdas which says that the Apostolic See, on the basis of the Tu es Petrus promise, the Catholic religion is always preserved unsullied, preclude even the possibility of a Pope to promulgate, in his non-infallible mode of magisterial teaching, a direct denial of a dogmatic teaching (that which is de fide).

This makes a lot of sense to me, and I resonate. In fact, I’ve written quite a bit on how the 1st-millennium texts that describe the divine pedigree of the See of Peter seem to have a general infallibility to every official teaching of the Pope. That is, texts such as the utterance of Philip the legate @ Ephesus (431), the Formula of Hormisdas, the Tome of St. Agatho, and the Tome of Hadrian to Nicaea 787, all give a picture of a teaching ministry that is more generally under the protective arm of the Holy Spirit in light of the Petrine institution by Christ in the Apostolic College. Restricting it to simply ex-cathedra utterances, which many folks think only happened twice in Church history, and merely within the last 200 years at that (!), is simply not seemingly compatible with the Patristic descriptions of the Papacy.

Having said that, I reiterate my puzzlement at how the bishops at the 1st Vatican Council, having rehearsed all of this, and even going further in adorning the divine purpose of the establishment of the Papacy, felt it sufficient to show that this divine protection only expresses itself in a way that is protected from error in the ex-cathedra modality alone. In other words, when I read Pastor Aeternus, I see an argument that is being built from its start and culminating in its definition of infallible teaching. However, the argument I see being built up should have concluded with something much more strong, general, and applicable to the broader exercise of Papal teaching. But what we see is that they only reached the strict conditions of ex-cathedra. Rather disappointing, in my personal opinion, from a certain vantage point.

Because V1 only reached this very strict condition of infallibility, the Council has since then rendered it a logical implication that if the Pope is not teaching in his ex-cathedra modality, then he is not a recipient of the charism of infallibility in those teaching utterances. And if he is not infallible, then that means he can teach errors in a wide variety of magisterial modes. As my readers know, this has led to problematic discussions on just how erroneous a Pope can be in his official magisterium. Today, it is permissible for theologians to hold that a Pope can go so far in error (on faith and morals) so as to commit a heresy in his magisterial mode (non-infallible as it may be). Some others think, quite understandably, that is such a thing were to occur, it would be an effective turning over of the very logical purpose of the Papacy.

When one reads Pastor Aeternus saying, “This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors… so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, so the whole flock of Christ might be kept away from them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine,” one might infer thereafter that if Pastor Aeternus is right about this, then we should also say it is impossible for a Pope to directly and implicitly deny a clear dogma even in his non-infallible magisterium.

Of course, I sympathize with this. However, Pastor Aeternus never arrived at such a conclusion despite its building argument about the “gift of truth” and “never-failing faith”. Rather, the apex of the argument of Pastor Aeternus was rather restrictive towards ex cathedra modality alone. In other words, when Pastor Aeternus says “gift of truth” and “never failing faith”, they understood this to be actualized in the ex-cathedra modality and speak to nothing else. Now, as I said above, this is disappointingly so because the ex-cathedra modality is so fine, strict, and minimized. But the reality is that the Petrine argument in 1870 only reached the conclusion of such a strict condition.

Moreover, I would say that even if we could arrive at the conclusion that the Papal protection implies an impossibility of the Pope to directly and explicitly reverse a dogmatic truth, that is also still too restrictive, because it leaves the possibility of the Papal magisterium to indirectly and implicitly reverse a dogmatic truth as well as directly and explicitly reverse a widely upheld truth that is not dogmatic, and these two latter phenomena, if applied regularly, would equally turn the logic of the Papal function on its head. In other words, positing a divine protection against direct and explicit heresy against a universally known dogma in the Pope’s non-infallible magisterium seems still only a small addition to the already strict condition of ex-cathedra infallibility.

If the Pope were still open to indirectly and implicitly reverse a universally known dogma, and if he were still to be open to directly and explicitly reverse a widely known truth (that comes a hair less than dogma at the current magisterial consciousness), then we can potentially still be seeing high levels of damage from the throne of St. Peter which equally shakes the foundation of the Papacy. Our efforts to procure a protection against Papal heresy (canonically defined by the 21st century) in his non-infallible magisterium might end up being redundant in light of this. Now, one might say that souls are still safe under a Pope who seeks to go wild in promoting indirect and implicit denials of clear dogma or by promoting direct and explicit reversals of things which aren’t dogmatic (at least, yet), but that kind of safety is the 1st millennium’s damnation. We might have to wonder how manufactured “safety” really is in this whole scheme. If we determine the meaning of “safety” based upon a pre-engineered definition of what avoids harm, then such a safety is artificial.

Consequently, the logic of the Papacy only really makes a comfortable circle if we can extend the protection to everything in the Pope’s magisterium, whether ex-cathedra or in any form of magisterial promulgation. That would be very nice, wouldn’t it? That would make it so much easier to fit with it being a divine help to the Church without having to resort to private judgment at all. And it would make the whole project that Pastor Aeternus claimed with Christ & Peter vis-a-vis the universal Church make a whole lot more sense. The only reason we don’t do this is because we know, historically, that this simply has not been reality.

In other words, historical facts stand in the way. The situations of Pope Honorius, Vigilius, Liberius, Nicholas I, and the acceptation of Haec Sancta Synodus (Constance 1415), just to name a few, stand in the way of saying that the Pope is infallible in his entire magisterium. Haec Sancta is a rather brutal piece of history to discuss, and so I’ll leave that for another time. What is interesting about Vigilius and Honorius is that the contemporary bishops in both the Greek and Latin hierarchies understood the errors of Vigilius and Honorius to be “heresy” which injured those around them, including the whole church. For example, when the bishops at the 5th Ecumenical Council (Constantinople 553) excommunicated Vigilius, they did so because they believed he had become Nestorian, which would mean that they understood his constitutions (constitua 1 & 2) to the whole Church to be an explicit and direct denial of the Council of Ephesus (431) and Cyrillian Christology.

Now, I sincerely doubt Vigilius truly made such an error directly or explicitly, but the simple fact is that the Ecumenical Council at the time did think the Pope directly and explicitly denied Cyrillian dogma of Christ’s unity. Very similar is the condemnation of Pope Honorius. In the official sentence contra Honorius, albeit posthumously, they state that his errors were harmful to souls. Granted, what “heresy” meant to the 1st millennium Episcopal College is not what developed in the Latin canonical tradition especially with the influence of scholastical doctorship. I myself think the contradiction existing in the 2 constituta of Vigilius deserves to be looked at once again because I don’t think English scholarship has really adequately dealt with the issue there. One notable scholar, Fr. Klaus Schatz SJ, has the following to say (see bold especially):

“𝘐𝘵 [𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭] 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘐𝘐, 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘸 18:20 (“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦…”): 𝘯𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘊𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩” (Papal Primacy, 53)…”𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘺..” (ibid, 54).

Fr. Francis Sullivan likewise shared concern:

“𝑂𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒. 𝑁𝑜 𝑑𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑑𝑢𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑏𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑒… 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙, 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑟, 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑉𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑢𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ‘𝑇ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠’. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒍 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒍𝒚 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒚 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒍 𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚. … 𝑉𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑢𝑠’𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑠𝑜 𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ, 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑦𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑐𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑛.” (Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church, pages 68-69).

I have to admit, in my wrestling with the data, the 5th Council’s explicit denial of Papal supremacy has been the biggest puzzle for me, and I’ve not seen this resolved by any thus far in English. I have my own theories, included in my book, but more so in my Academia articles. There might be works in French or German that seek to tackle the issue that I don’t know about. I think Ignaz Von Döllinger’s criticism remains standing, from a historical standpoint, especially since it strikes at the heart of Newman’s concession that if he were to ever find a proven instance of a Pope seeking to teach the universal Church erringly (ex cathedra), that he would admit that his entire argument for Catholicism would be ground to powder.

In conclusion, I really would like to go as far as asserting further guaranteed protections to the non-infallible Papal magisterium, and I would like to go even further, since any kind of damage done from the throne of St. Peter is unwanted, but I think the 1st Vatican Council did not see to it that this further implication outside of ex cathedra teaching was in store. Bishop Fessler (secretary general of V1) response to a known German critic in True and False Infallibility seems to restrict infallibility to very tight and minimized conditions. Secondly, asserting that the Pope is only further protected from explicit and direct heresy in his magisterium still leaves open wide enough potential damage that would equally shake the divine purpose of the Papacy. And lastly, the consciousness of the 1st millennium Episcopate on the damage that was done by Honorius and Vigilius, not to mention Haec Sancta, seem to leave it as historical facts (unless we ignore them as mere appearances) that prove the Papacy went to the brink of universal error in a matter that deserved public anathemas.