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To: dsc
Why would a person not say that Francis has excommunicated himself latae sententiae, and is therefore no longer the pope?

As others have said -- "The First See is judged by no one."

It isn't as simple as being excommunicated latae sententiae -- and there is no mechanism in Canon Law (at least not in the 1983 Code or its 1917 predecessor) by which to depose (or even judge) a Pope.

In the past, St. Robert Bellarmine and others had theorized how it might be that a manifestly heretical Pope could be deposed, but even those arguments (which I don't have at hand) would presuppose that *someone* (probably a portion of the College of Cardinals) would declare that the Pope has lost his office by virtue of his teaching, placing him in schism with the Church. With the See being empty, a new Pope could be elected.

But this is dicey -- because this is merely theory, not law; also, there would be those who would question the validity of the action (and thus the validity of the new Pope). If it is even possible, it would be likely that we would enter into a new era of a great schism, where we would have Pope and anti-Pope, with nobody really sure which was which.

In my opinion, the cure would be worse than the disease because of the upheaval it would cause. Pray that God will heal his diseased Church.

40 posted on 02/09/2018 1:02:02 PM PST by GCC Catholic (Trump doesn't suffer fools, but fools will suffer Trump. Make America Great Again!)
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To: GCC Catholic

“In my opinion, the cure would be worse than the disease because of the upheaval it would cause.”

Without knowing how much harm Bergoglio will do, I couldn’t guess.

“Pray that God will heal his diseased Church.”

Don’t see what else I can do.


43 posted on 02/09/2018 1:17:07 PM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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