What is the mechanism by which a statement by the Pope is ruled in error? I’m not being sarcastic, what is the process?
“The document seems not to be consonant with 2,000 years worth of Church teaching, theology, practice, and spirituality,” said Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Rome-based Dignitatis Humanae Institute. “Where is the Catholic content? Where are the insights only a Catholic would say? With the caveat this is only a provisional document, at this stage it hasn’t been sufficiently explained how can there be good fruits based on something that the Church has always taught was intrinsically sinful.”
Royal said that in a “media environment like the one we live in now, the message that gets transmitted is uncertainty” and that “only kind of ratifies people’s autonomy to go ahead and do whatever they want.
“This is not Catholicism,” he said. “It’s hard to know exactly why we’re so anxious to be able to talk to people. Certainly we want to be respectful to all persons, but that shouldn’t be the centrality of what the Church is up to. The Church has, in the modern world, got many more difficult things to address.”
The Pope can hold a personal opinion that is in error, but so long as it is on a matter that does not touch on doctrine and morals, or if it is, so long as he does not attempt to invoke the authority of his office to declare it to be true, he is simply wrong. No canonical process is required.
As for the situation in which the pope attempts to use his authority to declare as true something that is clearly contrary to doctrine and morals, he would have fallen into heresy and apostasy, and would have deposed himself.
I don’t know how recognition of this situation would work in practice, and probably not even the most learned of canonists would either, because the Church has never been faced with this event.
Some say that the Holy Spirit would prevent the Pope from abusing the charism of his office in this way, but this is to retreat into a pious truism without addressing the question.