Can The Church Depose An Heretical Pope?: Establishing The Crime Written by Robert J. Siscoe

Pope meets with altar servers in St Peter's Square

Can The Church Depose An Heretical Pope? 

Establishing the Crime

Written by Robert J. Siscoe

Heresy consists of two elements, namely, the matter (which exists in the intellect) and the form (which exists in the will).

The Matter: The material aspect of heresy is a belief, or proposition, contrary to what Catholics must believe with Divine and Catholic Faith. Doctrines that must be believed with Divine and Catholic Faith are truths that have been revealed by God (contained in Scripture or Tradition), and which have been definitively proposed as such by the Church, either by a solemn pronouncement, or by virtue of Her Ordinary and Universal Magisterium. (43) Two points are to be noted in this explanation: To qualify as heresy on the material level, the doctrine denied must be 1) a revealed truth, and 2) it must have been definitively proposed as such by the Church. (44) Not all errors are qualified objectively as heresy.

The Form: The formal aspect of heresy is pertinacity, which is the willful (conscious and stubborn) adhesion to a proposition (teaching) that is at variance with what must be believed with Divine and Catholic Faith. Simply put, pertinacity exists when a person knowingly rejects an article of Faith, or willfully embraces a condemned heresy. Without pertinacity in the will, the subjective element of heresy does not exist, and consequently the person in question would not be a heretic in the true sense of the word.

Footnotes:
43) See Was Vatican II Infallible, Part I and II, R. Siscoe, Catholic Family News, June and July 2014
44) Sources of Revelation, Van Noort (Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1961), pp 220-221