(3) In whom does the power to elect the Pope reside? If the Pope is not concerned to designate his successor directly, it belongs to him, on the other hand, to determine or modify the conditions of a valid election: "The Pope" says Cajetan, "can settle who the electors shall be, and change and limit in this way the mode of election to the point of invalidating anything done outside these arrangements" (De Comparatione Auctoritatis Papae et Concilii, cap. xiii, no. 201). Thus, resuming a usage introduced by Julius II, Pius IX decreed that if a Pope should chance to die during the sitting of an Oecumenical Council, the election of his successor would be made not by the Council, which would be at once interrupted ipso jure, but by the College of Cardinals alone (Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani, Rome 1872, p. 104 et seq. ). This same provision is recalled in the constitution Vacante Sede Apostolica, of Pius X, 25th Dec. 1904.In a case where the settled conditions of validity have become inapplicable, the task of determining new ones falls to the Church by devolution, this last word being taken, as Cajetan notes (Apologia, cap. xiii, no. 745) not in the strict sense (devolution is strictly to the higher authority in case of default in the lower) but in the wide sense, signifying all transmission even to an inferior.
It was in the course of the disputes on the respective authorities of Pope and Council that the question of the power to elect a Pope came up in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On this point Cajetan's thought is as follows.
He explains first that the power to elect the Pope resides in his predecessors eminently, regularly and principally. Eminently, as the "forms" of lower beings are in the angels, who, however, are incapable in themselves of exercising the activities of bodies (Apologia, cap. xiii, no. 736). Regularly, that is to say as an ordinary right, unlike the Church in her widowhood, unable to determine a new mode of election save "in casu", unless forced by sheer necessity. Principally, unlike the widowed Church, in whom this power resides only secondarily (no. 737). During a vacancy of the Apostolic See, neither the Church nor the Council can contravene the provisions already laid down to determine the valid mode of election (De Comparata, cap. xiii, no. 202). However, in case of permission (for example if the Pope has provided nothing against it), or in case of ambiguity (for example, if it is unknown who the true Cardinals are or who the true Pope is, as was the case at the time of the Great Schism), the power "of applying the Papacy to such and such a person" devolves on the universal Church, the Church of God (ibid., no. 204).
Cajetan affirms next that the power to elect the Pope resides formally—that is to say in the Aristotelian sense, as apt to proceed directly to the act of electing—in the Roman Church, including in that Church the cardinal bishops who, in a way, are suffragans of the Bishop of Rome. That is why, according to the canonical rule provided, the right to elect the Pope belongs in fact to the cardinals alone (Apologia, cap. xiii, no. 742). That again is why, when the provisions of the Canon Law cannot be fulfilled, the right to elect will belong to certain members of the Church of Rome. In default of the Roman clergy the right will belong to the Church universal, of which the Pope is to be Bishop (ibid., nos. 741 and 746).
Unfortunately it's completely irrelevant.
The Popes during the Avignon Captivity were virtually appointed by the French King (after they deposed and murdered two who opposed King Phillip) at the behest of the Cathars (knowingly or not).
Or are you saying that Guillaume de Nogart was acting as God's chosen agent? Then that would mean that the Pope's he had killed weren't supposed to be Pope, wouldn't it? But gee, those were actually elected by the College of Cardinals, so where does that leave your "authoritative" proof?
Quit spouting dogma and learn a little history.
Oh, and to the three folks who have posted to me on this topic, simply stating, repeatedly, "your argument makes no sense" and then not providing anything remotely related to the point I was making causes your "arguments" to be completely bogus. Assertion does not make for debate.