Francis: “Great Majority” of Marriages today are Invalid

Francis: “Great Majority” of Marriages today are Invalid because People don’t realize it’s indissoluble — but “Fidelity” in Cohabitation = Real Marriage!

[UPDATE 17-JUN-2016 18:01 UTC: Vatican edits official transcript, changes Francis’ actual words “a great majority of” into “part of”. In either case, however, the fundamental problem remains: Francis believes sacramental marriages are invalid if people do not know or understand that marriage is permanent for life — how many such cases there actually are, is insignificant; the point is that Francis admits the principle! And he furthermore believes that fornication with only one and the same partner equals a real marriage!]

Francis simply cannot keep his jaws together. This is actually a grace for all who seek the truth, because the more he speaks, the more evident it becomes that there is not a single Catholic bone in this man’s body.

On Thursday, June 16, the “Holy Father” answered impromptu questions from the audience after a pastoral congress in the diocese of Rome. One question centered on the crisis in holy matrimony, to which Francis gave an explosive answer. Catholic News Agency has the story:

A layman asked about the “crisis of marriage” and how Catholics can help educate youth in love, help them learn about sacramental marriage, and help them overcome “their resistance, delusions and fears.”

“I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said ‘I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years.’ It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,” he said.

“It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say ‘yes, for the rest of my life!’ but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.”

Pope Francis attributed the marriage crisis to people who “don’t know what the sacrament is” and don’t know “the beauty of the sacrament.”

“They don’t know that it’s indissoluble, they don’t know that it’s for your entire life. It’s hard,” the Pope said.

He added that a majority of couples attending marriage prep courses in Argentina typically cohabitated.

“They prefer to cohabitate, and this is a challenge, a task. Not to ask ‘why don’t you marry?’ No, to accompany, to wait, and to help them to mature, help fidelity to mature.”

“It’s a superstition, because marriage frightens the husband. It’s a superstition we have to overcome,” the Pope said. “I’ve seen a lot of fidelity in these cohabitations, and I am sure that this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because of their fidelity, but there are local superstitions, etc.”

(“Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests”, Catholic News Agency, June 16, 2016; underlining added.)

Let’s start with a quick note on the headline used by Catholic News Agency, which is misleading: “Most marriages today are invalid, Pope Francis suggests”. No, Francis didn’t suggest that most marriages today are invalid, he said it outright. But perhaps this harsh truth was a bit too much to take even for the Novus Ordo reporters at the news agency and so they tried to tone it down.

In any case, Francis declares that the “great majority” of sacramental marriages are invalid. What’s a great majority? Seventy percent, maybe eighty? That’s a lot of marriages. We’re not talking about pseudo-marriages, where one or both would-be spouses are already married to someone else whom they “divorced” — we’re talking about marriages where husband and wife were actually eligible to marry in the first place and freely joined this holy union. Francis states nonchalantly that most of them are invalid. Precisely how does he know that? He doesn’t, of course — he made it up. And by him asserting it to be so, he has just ensured that tens of thousands of additional requests for annulments will be submitted in the months to come, to tear apart even more families under the guise of “mercy”.

Francis’ own attempt at a justification for his outrageous and gratuitous assertion that “most” marriages today are invalid, is that even though people pledge “until death do us part” in their solemn wedding vows, they don’t mean it. They don’t mean it because they “don’t know” — even though they are saying the words, in their very own vernacular language, in what is probably the most solemn moment in their entire life.

This is a really curious new principle Francis is underhandedly introducing here: We can no longer assume that people mean what they say, even in something so solemn as the very marriage vow on their wedding day! The reason why is simple for him: culture! There, that’s it. In today’s “culture”, words don’t mean what they mean. It’s all so provisional, you see, nothing is permanent anymore — heck, even the “Pope” resigns when he feels like it!

But there is more to be found here than a mere absurdity: Francis is undermining a fundamental principle of sacramental theology, which is that of the presumption of validity, a legal presumption that the necessary internal intention to confect the sacrament (to “do what the Church does”) is present in the minister when the matter and form of the sacramental rite have been properly applied — unless there is externally manifested evidence to the contrary:

A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do what the Church does.

Provided the minister seriously performs all the sacramental rites, there is no need for being doubtful about the validity of the sacraments, for it is presumed that the minister has the requisite intention, unless he externalty manifests the contrary.

(Rev. Raphael De Salvo, The Dogmatic Theology on the Intention of the Minister in the Confection of the Sacraments [Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1949], p. 105)

In Holy Matrimony, the ministers of the sacrament are the two spouses, who confer the sacrament on each other. The matter is, remotely, the right over the other’s body for the purpose of procreation and, proximately, the transfer of that right by signs and words. The form of the sacrament is the consent to that right, expressed in the marriage vow, which ends in “until death do us part” (see Rev. Henry Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology, vol. 4 [New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1935], p. 62). The sacrament of Holy Matrimony is indissoluble by its very nature and necessarily lasts until the death of one of the spouses.

But what about Francis’ casual claim that people “don’t know” what they’re saying while exchanging matrimonial consent? Believe it or not, the Catholic Church had already considered that scenario before Jorge Bergoglio ever came on the scene. The following excerpt from the great canon law professor Fr. Henry Ayrinhac deals a devastating and fatal blow to the latest Bergoglian poppycock:

190. § 1. In order that matrimonial consent be possible it is necessary that the contracting parties at least be not lacking in the knowledge that marriage is the permanent union of man and woman for the procreation of children.

§ 2. Such ignorance is not presumed in those who have attained the age of puberty.

1. We can not consent to what we do not know; the marriage consent is not possible without some, at least confused, knowledge of what constitutes the essential object of the marriage contract; and this is the mutual right and obligation to the conjugal act: ... Hence a person who would marry without having any idea of that right and obligation would not marry validly. Clear and explicit knowledge is not necessary. If one, knowing that the purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, would enter the contract with that in view and would consent to all it implies, although having no distinct idea of what is required for generation, there would be confused knowledge of, and consent to, what constitutes the essential object of the contract, and the marriage would be valid; even if the party was so disposed that if he knew what the act of generation really is, he would not give his consent. But at least that confused knowledge of the substantial object of the contract is necessary.

191. 2. Ignorance of the primary purpose of marriage is easily admitted in children. In the ancient legislation it was always presumed before the age of puberty; after that age, on the contrary, knowledge is presumed. The presumption admits of proofs to the contrary, but it would require strong evidence to obtain the annulment of a marriage on the ground of ignorance in a person of age to marry….

198. A simple error as to the unity, indiasolubility, or sacramental character of marriage, even if it be cause of the contract, does not vitiate the consent. Error as to the essential object of the contract vitiates the consent, like ignorance. Error as to the essential properties does not, as long as it remains simply an error of the mind, whether antecedent or concomitant. Thus, a man who intends to form a real contract of marriage, although he does not believe in its indissolubility or sacredness, will be married validly, provided he does not exclude those properties by a positive act of the will, even though he would exclude them if he thought of it. His consent is directed expressly to the marriage contract and by way of consequence to the properties which are inseparable from it. His prevailing intention is to contract marriage; his views on the properties of marriage are errors in the mind which do not affect the primary object of the will. If, however, he would exclude those properties and make that exclusion the primary object of his will, this then would prevail over his intention of marrying and the consent would be vitiated, because one can not will marriage without willing an indissoluble union. But this requires more than a theoretical error; it supposes a positive act of the will, placing a condition, making consent depend on something else than the substantial element of the contract. That positive act is a fact which must be proved and is not presumed. Hence the difficulty of annulling a marriage on the ground of error as to quality…

[200.] 1. When a contracting party utters externally and seriously words expressing consent, he is supposed [=understood] to consent internally. His consent is supposed to be absolute if it is expressed absolutely. “Nobody is to be considered as having said what was not on his mind.” This, however, is only a presumption, and if in reality the internal consent was wanting, no matter what the external words might have been, the contract would be null in itself and before God.

(Rev. H. A. Ayrinhac, Marriage Legislation in the New Code of Canon Law [New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1919], pp. 191-192; 196-197; 199; underlining added.)

The 1917 Code of Canon Law underscores the firmness of the presumption of validity in a sacramental marriage: “Marriage enjoys the favor of the law; therefore, in case of doubt, its validity ought to be maintained until the contrary be proved…” (Canon 1014). Notice it says “proved”, not, “until Francis decides otherwise.”

It is a general principle that when an act has been performed it ought to be considered valid until it is proved to be null. This applies in a special manner to marriage, which is a sacrament and indissoluble by divine law. To pronounce a marriage null without sufficient evidence is to run the risk of “setting asunder what God has put together.”

By the way, how is it that Francis can “lament” now with a straight face the fact that people are clueless about the nature and beauty of holy matrimony when it is precisely his beloved Modernist Vatican II Sect that has been educating the “Catholic” masses in the last five decades? Haven’t we been hearing, ad nauseam, something about “Great Renewal” and “New Springtime” since Vatican II? What happened?!

In any case, we have seen that the true Catholic teaching is that even if people do not know about or believe in the indissolubility of marriage, as long as they intend to enter the matrimonial union, their marriage is valid, unless they make a positive act of the will not to enter into a union that is indissoluble — and even that positive will, if not externally manifested, would have to be proved, not presumed, before a valid annulment could be issued.

But notice how devious the Argentinian impostor pope is: He is carrying out his subversion of holy matrimony and of the presumption of sacramental validity under the guise of lamenting a crisis in marriage, when the truth is that by these remarks, Bergoglio is exacerbating the crisis by colossal proportions.

Here we might add that it was Francis himself who, in September 2015, opened the bogus “annulment” floodgates even further, when he overhauled and “streamlined” Novus Ordo marriage annulments, which were already being given out like popcorn:

In his two motu proprio documents, Francis not only made receiving a declaration of nullity easier, faster, and free, he also added unheard-of new grounds for considering a marriage null and void, such as “brief conjugal cohabitation”, “defect of faith”, and “abortion procured to avoid procreation”! But not enough, for we can now add a new one to the list: “not meaning the marriage vow when you say it”! And this man wants people to think he is bewailing how many invalid marriages there are? Whom is he kidding?!

They think they’re married! But not to worry: Francis’ annulment factory is waiting in the wings in case it doesn’t “work out”…

But alas, we are not done yet, for the monster Jesuit from Argentina knows how to add insult to injury. Right after shedding crocodile tears over the terrible matrimonial ignorance which afflicts “the great majority” of people who think they’re validly married, Francis launches his next attack on truth and decency by claiming that cohabitating fornicators in marriage prep courses ought not to be told the truth about marriage: “They prefer to cohabitate, and this is a challenge, a task. Not to ask ‘why don’t you marry?’ No, to accompany, to wait, and to help them to mature, help fidelity to mature.”

So there we have it: This is precisely the reason — one of them, that is — why so many people in Francis’ religion are clueless about marriage: because they are never told by those who ought to tell them. And Francis is going to do all in his power to ensure that it will stay this way! He is the kind of man who first creates a problem, then bewails that the problem exists, and then offers more of the problem as the solution.

Instead of telling cohabitators in marriage preparation that they must separate and refrain from all sexual relations until they are married as a precondition to be even allowed to get married — how’s that for helping someone understand the beauty and uniqueness and exalted state of holy matrimony! — Francis proposes his cure-all of pastoral “accompaniment”, a term left, of course, conveniently undefined.

But it gets better: Francis claims that the cohabitating fornicators possess “fidelity” (!) which needs but “mature”! There goes the Novus Ordo doctrine of “elements” again: We now have “elements of marital fidelity” in two people who are habitually engaging in mortal sin against the Sixth Commandment, all in the spirit of Amoris Laetitia! At least we now finally know what Bergoglio meant in his 2010 book On Heaven and Earth, which he co-authored with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, when he said that “co-habitation certainly does not have the fullness, or the greatness of marriage” (p. 116). It sure doesn’t. But it won’t matter, because… accompaniment!

But we’re still not done — Francis tops himself yet again: “I’ve seen a lot of fidelity in these cohabitations, and I am sure that this is a real marriage, they have the grace of a real marriage because of their fidelity…” This is blasphemy!

Francis says here openly and without shame that in some cases of fornication — namely, when the two partners are particularly attached to each other in this mortal sin — God blesses them for their sin and rewards them with the “grace of a real marriage”! This is foul and disgusting beyond words! “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20)!

Words fail at the sight of such brazen and direct identification of evil with good!

At the same time, this frightful utterance is but Francis’ re-application of the same blasphemy once spoken by “Pope” John Paul II, who claimed that it is God Himself who is responsible for the firmness with which non-Christians adhere to their false religions: “...the firm belief of the followers of the non-Christian religions [is] a belief that is also an effect of the Spirit of truth operating outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body…” (Antipope John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, n. 6). Francis simply took the essence of John Paul II’s thesis and applied it to fornication. Voilà! Different scenario, same blasphemy — brought to you by the same Novus Ordo religion.

Of course, fornicators cannot practice fidelity because fidelity (“faithfulness”) refers to the marriage vow — you know, that little bit of text you said on your wedding day when you promised fidelity to your spouse “until death do us part”. If you meant it, that is.

As we explained in our in-depth podcast covering Amoris Laetitia, for Francis there is no essential difference between holy matrimony and fornication, between vice and virtue, between holiness and sin, between truth and error, between God and the devil. When a man and a woman sin long enough exclusively with one other, this constitutes a “real marriage” for Jorge Bergoglio. This is where we’re at. Let this sink in for a minute.

As we said in a recent post, Francis has completely done away with black and white — everything is now fifty shades of grey! The Novus Ordo Church is a sect straight from the pit of hell. Francis really couldn’t make it any clearer.

And to answer right up front the question Jimmy Akin’s next blog post will ask in its title: Yes, Jimmy, he did.

And for the record, by Divine Law and the teaching of the Roman Catholic church, the apostate, heretic and schismatic Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope precisely because he is an apostate, heretic, and schismatic.

Bergoglio is not a Catholic by his own acts hence it is impossible for him to be the earthly head of a body of which he is not even a member.

Same goes for all his post-1958 Vatican-2 heretical papal usurper buddies who were all formal heretics before their respective elections rendering them "null, void and worthless' as stated below.

CUM EX APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO - APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL IV, 15TH FEBUARY 1559 - (ROMAN BULLARIUM VOL. IV. SEC. I, PP. 354-357)

6. In addition, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine, decree and define:-]

that if ever at any time it shall appear that any Bishop, even if he be acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch or Primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, or, as has already been mentioned, any legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:

(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;

(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;

(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way;

(iv) to any so promoted to be Bishops, or Archbishops, or Patriarchs, or Primates or elevated as Cardinals, or as Roman Pontiff, no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted either in the spiritual or the temporal domain;

(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;

(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power, without any exception in respect of those to which they may have been promoted or elevated before they deviated from the Faith, became heretics, incurred schism, or provoked or committed any or all of these.

7. Finally, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity, We] also [enact, determine, define and decree]:-

that subject persons, be they members of anysoever of the following categories:

(i) the clergy, secular and religious;

(ii) the laity;

(iii) the Cardinals, even those who shall have taken part in the election of this very Pontiff previously deviating from the Faith or heretical or schismatical, or shall otherwise have consented and vouchsafed obedience to him and shall have venerated him;

(iv) Castellans, Prefects, Captains and Officials, even of Our Beloved City and of the entire Ecclesiastical State, even if they shall be obliged and beholden to those thus promoted or elevated by homage, oath or security;

shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs (the same subject persons, nevertheless, remaining bound by the duty of fidelity and obedience to any future Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals and Roman Pontiff canonically entering).

To the greater confusion, moreover, of those thus promoted or elevated, if these shall have wished to prolong their government and authority, they shall be permitted to request the assistance of the secular arm against these same individuals thus promoted or elevated; nor shall those who withdraw on this account, in the aforementioned circumstances, from fidelity and obedience to those thus promoted and elevated, be subject, as are those who tear the tunic of the Lord, to the retribution of any censures or penalties.

Comment # 14 above specifies Catholic teaching on the nullity of the election of candidates to the papacy if they were formal heretics, apostates or schismatics before being elected.

This has been the case of all those invalidly elected since 1958.

The following citations deal with the fall from the Office of the papacy by their own act if a valid pope were to defect from the Catholic Faith by heresy, apostasy or schism.

In other words, both possibilities have been covered in advance by Divine Law and by specific teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on this issue.

Four Doctors of the Church regarding defection from the Faith by a Pope.

St. Robert Bellarmine: "For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is "ipso facto" deposed."

St Robert Bellarmine, "De Romano Pontifice", ("On the Roman Pontiff"), liber II, caput 30:

"For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is "ipso facto" deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus, c. 3), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate - which means before any excommunication or judicial sentence. And this is what St. Jerome writes, adding that the other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ. Now, a Pope who remains Pope cannot be avoided, for how could we be required to avoid our own head? How can we separate ourselves from a member united to us?

"This principle is most certain. The non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope, as Cajetan himself admits (ib. c. 26). The reason for this is that he cannot be head of what he is not a member; now he who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian, as is clearly taught by St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2), St. Athanasius (Scr. 2 cont. Arian.), St. Augustine (lib. de great. Christ. cap. 20), St. Jerome (contra Lucifer.) and others; therefore the manifest heretic cannot be Pope.

Est ergo quinta opinio vera, papam haereticum manifestum per se desinere esse papam et caput, sicut per se desinit esse christianus et membrum corporis Ecclesiae; quare ab, Ecclesia posse eum judicari et puniri. Haec est sententia omnium veterum Patrum, qui docent, haereticos manifestos mox amittere omnem jurisdictionem.

"Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction,

Fundamentum hujus sententiae est. quoniam haereticus manifestos nullo modo est membrum Ecclesiae, idest, neque animo neque corpore, sive neque unione interna, neque externa.

"The foundation of this argument is that the manifest heretic is not in any way a member of the Church, that is, neither spiritually nor corporally, which signifies that he is not such by internal union nor by external union.

St. Alphonsus de Liguori on the fate of a heretical pope:

"Del resto, si Dio permettesse che un papa fosse notoriamente eretico e contumace, egli cesserebbe d'essere papa, e vacherebbe il pontificato."

--"Verita della Fede", part 3, ch. 8, no. 10.
In: Opere dommatiche di S. Alfonso de Liguori (Torino, G. Marietti, 1848), p. 720. (Opere di S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori, v. 8)

"For the rest, if God should permit that a Pope should become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would cease to be Pope, and the pontificate would be vacant."

St. Francis de Sales on papal infallibility and heresy:

"En l'ancienne loy le grand pretre ne portait pas le rational si non quand il estoit revestu des habits pontificaux et qu'il entroit devant le Seigneur. Ainsi ne disons nous pas que le pape en ses opinions particulieres ne puisse errer comme fit Jean XXII, ou etre du tout heretique comme peut etre fut Honorius. Or quand il est heretique expres *ipso facto* il tombe de son grade hors de l'Eglise et l'Eglise le doit ou priver comme disent quelques uns, ou le declarer prive de son siege apostolique et dire comme fit St. Pierre: Episcopatum eius accipiat alter. Quand il erre en sa particuliere opinion il le faut enseigner, adviser, convaincre comme on fit a Jean XXII le quel tant s'en faut qu'il mourut opiniatre ou que pendant sa vie il determina aucune chose touchant son opinion, que pendant qu'il faysoit l'inquisition requise pour determiner en matiere de foy, il mourut, au recit de son successeur en l'Extravagante qui se commence *Benedictus Deus.*"

St. Francis de Sales, The Catholic Controversy (Tan Books), p. 388 (part II, art. VI, ch. 14)

"Under the ancient law the High Priest did not wear the Rational except when he was vested in the pontifical robes and was entering before the Lord. Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII; or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, as some say, or declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as St. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric (Acts I). When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII, who was so far from dying obstinate or from determining anything during his life concerning his opinion, that he died whilest he was making the examination which is necessary for determining in a matter of faith, as his successor declared in the *Extravagantes* which begins Benedictus Deus." (Ib. p. 305-306)

St. Thomas Aquinas on loss of jurisdiction by heretics:

Summa, 2a 2ae, q. 39, art. 3. (Utrum schismatici habeant aliquam potestatem)

"...Potestas autem iurisdictionis est quae ex simplici iniunctione hominis confertur; et talis potestas non immobiliter adhaeret; unde in schismaticis et haereticis non manet; unde non possunt nec absolvere, nec excommunicare, nec indulgentias facere, aut aliquid huiusmodi; quod si fecerint, nihil est actum."

(Whether schismatics have any power.)

"...The power of jurisdiction, however [as opposed to the power of Orders, which he has just discussed], is that [power] which is conferred simply by the injunction of man; and this power does not adhere immovably; therefore it does not remain in schismatics and heretics. Hence they can neither absolve, nor excommunicate, nor grant indulgences, or anything of this sort. If they do this, the act is null."

Pope Innocent III (1198), Sermo 4:

"The Roman Pontiff has no superior but God. Who, therefore, could cast him out or trample him under foot – since of the pope it is said ‘gather thy flock into thy fold’? Truly, he should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God.

"Still the less can the Roman Pontiff glory [Minus dico] because he can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy; because he who does not believe is already judged.

"In such a case it should be said of him: ‘If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under foot by men'."

Code of Canon Law (1917), Canon 188.4:

Canon 188: "Ob tacitam renuntiationem ab ipso iure admissam quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine
ulla declaratione, si clerus ... (4) a fide catholica publice defecerit."

Canon 188: "There are certain causes which effect the tacit resignation of an office, which resignation is accepted in advance by operation of law, and hence is effective without any declaration. These causes are:
(4) if he has publicly fallen away from the Catholic faith."

Epistle Of Saint Paul To The Galatians 1 : 8-9

8] But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. [9] As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

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The Vatican Council (1869-1870) - (which defined papal infallibility)

"For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence, but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.

Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding."

[Chapter Four of the Third Session]

"For the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."

Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren [60].

[Chapter Four of the Fourth Session]

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In a conference given after his return from the Vatican I council, Archbishop John Baptist Purcell of Cincinnati related the following :

The question was also raised by a Cardinal, “What is to be done with the Pope if he becomes a heretic?” It was answered that there has never been such a case; the Council of Bishops could depose him for heresy, for from the moment he becomes a heretic he is not the head or even a member of the Church. The Church would not be, for a moment, obliged to listen to him when he begins to teach a doctrine the Church knows to be a false doctrine, and he would cease to be Pope, being deposed by God Himself.

(Abp. John B. Purcell, quoted in Rev. James J. McGovern, Life and Life Work of Pope Leo XIII [Chicago, IL: Allied Printing, 1903], p. 241; imprimatur by Abp. James Quigley of Chicago)

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