The Nature and Limits of Papal Authority: A Call for Nuance
Every Christian denomination has a specific view on the nature and structure of the Church. This is an inevitability. Scripture and the Fathers of the Church makes certain claims on the nature and proper structure of the Church, and it is duty of theologians and clergy to attempt to properly interpret and implement these teachings.
For as long as the Catholic Church has existed, the Papacy has been an integral part of our Church structure. Since the earliest records of Christianity, the Church of Rome has had a bishop, and the early Church held the head of the Roman Church in high regard, as one whose juridical influence was not limited to the Diocese of Rome, or even the Italian Peninsula. This reality eventually laid the basis for the modern Catholic doctrines of Papal infallibility and Papal primacy.
The Catholic Church sees the Pope as the visible head of the Church: that is, insofar as Christ established a visible hierarchy for the Church, there are earthly authorities that govern the Church. The Pope is seen as the highest of the human authorities in the Church, so much so that there is no court of appeals (to borrow from the secular legal realm) higher than the Pope. This reality is of Divine origin: it traces its roots the Jesus declaring St. Peter to be the Head of the Apostles, the Rock upon which the Church is built (cf. Matthew 16:18).
Yet, while these doctrines have long been held by the Church throughout most of its history, this same doctrine has also been the cause of increasing debate throughout the modern era. During the Reformation, Catholic theologians had to work to demonstrate the roots of the Papal office in the Bible and early Church, as well as clarify certain elements of the nature of the Pope’s authority, in light of certain Protestant critiques of the traditional Catholic theology of the Papacy. In the late 19th century, the First Vatican Council was convened, which further clarified the traditional Catholic view on the nature and extent of the Pope’s authority, in light of secularist and anti-clerical tendencies outside the Church (which sought to destroy the Church or subject it to the authority of the State) and certain strains of modernism within the Church (who often called into question the traditional Catholic doctrines concerning the Papacy). Considering the importance of this topic for the Council, the lead up to, and immediate aftermath of, Vatican I was fraught with debates on the nature of Papal authority. Many of teachings of the First Vatican Council were further elaborated roughly a century later by the Second Vatican Council.
Yet, Vatican II, far from putting these debates to rest, only intensified them. Since the Second Vatican Council, many Catholics, both theological liberals and theological conservatives and traditionalists, have at various points been disillusioned by various decisions made by recent Popes, and have thus called into question whether such decisions are within the proper purview of the Pope’s authority. Many traditionalists, for example, saw the changes following Vatican II as potentially dangerous to the spiritual health of the Church, with some even using this as a justification for the rejection of the validity of the post-Conciliar Papal claimants. Under the reigns of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, many liberal Catholics found themselves in the same position as the traditionalists of the 1960’s and 1970’s, being disappointed by the moderation of some of the manners in which the reforms of the Council were implemented, and taking issue with the fact that these Popes reaffirmed certain traditionally held (though, in the contemporary era, hotly debated) doctrines, including the ban on contraception and female ordination. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, the tables have turned yet again, with conservatives and traditionalists decrying the often theologically ambiguous public statements of the Pope, his sometimes less than prudential curial appointments, and his rolling back of JPII and BXVI’s attempts at “reforming the reform,” including restricting the Latin Mass. Pope Francis has also published a series of decrees - most recently, and most controversially, Fiducia Supplians - which some in the Church fear will open a can of worms undermining the spiritual state of the Church.
Attempting to locate the exact limits or define the parameters of Papal authority has been a hallmark of modern Catholic theology, with (sometimes harsh) criticism of the Pope among even the average, everyday Catholic - something considered taboo in a previous generation - becoming much more widespread in today’s Church.
If one is going to attempt to define the limits of Papal authority, of if one is going to ask within what limits one may licitly criticize the Pope, there are certain principles that one should keep in mind when doing so. Unfortunately, such nuance is often lost on many people: popular Catholic theological discourse is divided between what are called “Popesplainers” - those who attempt to justify every word and decision made by the Pope, often falling into the trap of believing that any criticism of the current Pontiff is an act of disobedience - and those who blatantly and unscrupulously reject any Papal decision that doesn’t jive with their personal theological or moral opinions.
In an article published this past January for Crisis, I interviewed Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, on this exact topic. I believe His Eminence laid out certain principles that help us to create a balanced view on this topic - something I believe he is more than competent to do, considering his background - and that I believe people should keep in mind when attempting to address Papal pronouncements of a more controversial nature, or those that one, for various personal spiritual reasons, may be struggling to accept. Among them are the following:
As Vatican II put it: Christ did entrust the Church with the authority to pass on and interpret Divine Revelation, and to ensure that the Church would never waiver in this mission, He also bestowed onto the Church the charism of infallibility. Yet, this reality must be accepted in tandem with two other spiritual truths:
Infallible statements - that is, statements made by an act of the Magisterium guided by the Holy Spirit in such a way that it is protected from error in an absolute sense - are but one (the highest) expression of the Church’s authority. The faithful are obliged to submit their minds and wills in obedience to the authority of the Pope and their local bishop as expressed in all authentic expressions of their magisterial authority, even making non-infallible statements. Thus, our duty to obey the Church (or the Pope and bishops in specific) is not limited to infallible pronouncements.
Conversely, Papal infallibility does not grant to the Pope or the bishops, or the Church at large, an authority more fundamental than that of Divine Revelation. The parameters of Papal infallibility are defined by the limits of Divine Revelation, as passed on in Scripture and Tradition. No Pope, bishop, or Church Council as the authority to add to or reject any part of Divine Revelation, nor interpret it in a manner different than how God intended it to be understood.
This leads to another nuanced distinction: the Pope is the visible head of the Church, that is, the highest-ranking of all the human leaders of the Church; Christ is the Head of the Church in an absolute sense, as the Founder of the Church and from whom all the teachings and authority of the Church derive. To be a true Christian is to ultimately be a disciple of follower of Christ. The true Church is Christ’s Church; it ultimately belongs to Christ. Thus, to be Catholic does not reach its ultimate expression in being a “Papist,” that is, a follower of the Pope, something which implies that the Pope is the ultimate authority. This, in turn, does not negate the fact that, contrary to the standard Protestant view, there is a visible element to the Church: Christ, in founding the Church, established a hierarchical and Sacramental element to it. Nonetheless, since the Church was founded by Christ, all that the Church is and has is derived from Christ. It is for this reason, Cardinal Müller noted, that the clergy practice their authority not in their own name, nor in the name of the Pope, but in the name of Christ, from Whom they derive their authority.
Most Catholic theologians have historically been in agreement on the fact that the reality of Papal infallibility does not preclude the possibility of a Pope falling into error or heresy, or even schism.
This is something rooted in the fact that there is a distinction between the Papal office, considered as such, and the man who occupies this office. The promise of infallibility is something extended to the Papal office, not to the individual who occupies this office. The Pope, as a person, is not infallible, but is only infallible when making use of the authority of his Papal office (and, more specifically, in using his Papal office to make ex cathedra statements).
The number of instances of Popes falling into heresy, or any excommunicable offense, are rare, and those instanced that are brought up tend to be historically ambiguous. Nonetheless, because of the distinction between the Pope as a man and the office of Pope, by the start of the modern era, most theologians and canonists were in agreement that it was, at least in principle, possible for a Pope to fall into error, and formal heresy (that is, the intentional endorsement of an erroneous theological opinion) would cause one to lose the Papal office.
What eventually became the dominant position was that of St. Robert Bellarmine, who asserted that a Pope ceases to be Pope immediately upon falling into formal heresy. This position was seen as more probable by theologians and canonists than the position that a Pope could be deprived of his authority only by his hierarchical subordinates, since the latter position was seen as easily leading to either Gallicanism (the belief that Papal infallibility or Papal primacy are derived from the consent of the leaders of the local Church) or conciliarism (the belief that a Church Council has higher authority than a Pope). Both of these views seem to imply that those beneath the Pope have an authority equal to or greater than that of the Pope. St. Robert Bellarmine’s position is more in keeping with the Church’s traditional view that, while a Pope is elected by his subordinates, he does not receive the Papal authority, considered in itself, from those beneath him; rather, he receives his authority directly from Christ, and this authority can only be taken away by Christ.
Even though the faithful are not obliged to obey heretical pronouncements, even if they come from a Pope, and even though a Pope would lose his authority immediately after falling into formal heresy, what is often overlooked is that most theologians and canonists who study this topic, including St. Robert Bellarmine, believe that, while it is in principle for a Pope to fall into heresy, God would prevent this from happening in practice.
There can be, by definition, no canonical procedure to declare a Pope to be a heretic and remove him from his office, since this would contradict the ecclesiastical principle that “the First See [the See of Rome] is judged by no one”, and that only God can judge the Pope.
With these principles in mind, Catholics can easily avoid the errors that: 1)Every word proceeding from the mouth of the Pope is infallible or that Papal Infallibility means that the Pope can say whatever he desires , and 2)One can pick and chose which Papal pronouncements to follow, or take it upon themselves to declare the Pope a heretic.