Michael Fighting
"Michael…who standeth for…thy people," — Dan. 12:1-12
The Laity May Elect a Pope
Permission from Pope Nicholas II allowing the laity to elect a Pope was granted in 1059, This Pope declared that: "It certainly would be correct and even lawful" to resume the former mode of election (by the clergy and people of Rome), because Pope Leo the Great had approved it. Pope Nicholas further stated: "If the perversity of depraved and wicked men shall so prevail that a pure, sincere, and free election cannot be held in Rome, the cardinal bishops, with the clergy of the Church and the Catholic laity may have the right and power, even though few in numbers, of electing a pontiff for the Apostolic See wherever it may seem most suitable." (For the complete text, see http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/medieval/papalel.htm) Even before this edict was issued, the practice of the Church for nearly 1,000 years established a precedent equally valid as that of election by the cardinals only.
The history of papal elections reveals that many popes have been elected by cliques, relatives and friends within the College of Cardinals, or, before its institution, the clergy and laity. This has been consistently true because even though the popes went to great lengths to prevent such politicking, their decrees often were ignored. Popes have been appointed in the past by the Roman emperor alone. Or the people and clergy unanimously acclaimed some men pope without the formality of election. In the very early days of the Church, the popes indicated their successor prior to their deaths, although this practice was discontinued early on. Some popes were elected through simony, although this was eventually condemned.
Teenagers and laymen have been elected pope. St. Peter was married with children when Christ chose him as the first pope, as was Pope Alexander VI and Pope Adrian, who left the married state to become a priest. Unqualified and very simple men have sat in St. Peter's See. Sinful and weak men have held the papacy alongside saints and martyrs. The faith of the one elected and the ones electing, the necessary qualifications, the solid canonical basis of the election and the recognition of the pope by true Catholics — these were always the criteria used to judge the validity of a papal election. In the Middle Ages, on two different occasions, only three cardinals elected a pope, (1216 and 1227). On two different occasions, nine cardinals elected. On one occasion seven cardinals voted and on another occasion, 10 elected. This occurred after the law enacted by Nicholas II in 1059 designating the electors as cardinal-bishops only, that is the bishops of the six suburb-icarian sees surrounding Rome. Eventually the entire College of Cardinals (which never exceeded 60 although the limit was set at 70), did indeed elect the majority of the popes. But the overriding factor always was the Catholicity of the electors. No official protest to Pope Michael's election demonstrating a lack of said Catholicity, errors in the count of votes or coercion to vote was ever forthcoming.
The largest council ever held in the history of the Church was the Vatican Council, with only 744 bishops, at one time or another, in attendance. (The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325-1870 by Rev. Philip Hughes, 1960 ) This is a far cry from 5,000. Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val flatly denied that "the supremacy and infallibility of St. Peter depend upon the acceptance or approval of those…committed to his care, to be sustained, governed, and to be fed. For the Church was not established after the manner of a Parliament, and if the Rock, the Ruler, and the Shepherd were to be dependent upon the votes or the approval of those who are committed to his care, the whole principle and constitution of the Church established by Christ would be overturned…" (The Truth of Papal Claims)
At first, those investigating the possibility of a papal election in the 1980s believed that an imperfect council could be convened to facilitate the election. The Imperfect Council idea was first proposed by St. Robert Bellarmine, but no other supporting opinions could be found for calling such a council as prescribed in Canon 20. Above all a papal election must be canonical, as the Church demands, to ensure validity. It also was possible that such a council would be lengthy, fractious and might not result in a papal election, so those calling for the election abandoned the idea as dangerous by. Today's call for an illegal council not convened by the Pope is injurious to unity and only a further confirmation of Traditionalists' already schismatic stance. In all the opinions given below by theologians on the ability of the people and clergy to elect a Pope in an emergency situation, none of these theologians endorse a council, and Bellarmine himself just barely allows for it.
1. "A Council…acting independently of the vicar of Christ…is unthinkable in the constitution of the Church…Such assemblies have only taken place in times of great constitutional disturbances, when either there was no pope or the rightful pope was indistinguishable from anti-popes. In such abnormal times, the safety of the Church becomes the supreme law, and the first duty of the flock is to find a new shepherd, under whose direction the existing evils may be remedied." (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, Councils; Rev. J. Wilhem; www.newadvent.org)
2. "The function of the electors, whoever they may be — cardinals as at present, or others as in times past — is to designate the person who is to occupy the vacant See of Rome. The mode of designation has not been determined by God by any divine law, and so it remains free to be determined by ecclesiastical law." (Urbs et Orbis, by Rev. William Humphries 1919)
3. "When any bishop is elected Supreme Pontiff, either by cardinals or by the people according to the times, from whom does he obtain the supreme power of jurisdiction? From Christ, of course…" (Speech given by the Bishop of Grenada at the 22nd Session of the Council of Trent; Concilium Tridentuum Editio Gorresiana, Vol. IX, # 50; 1919)
4. "For the Church without doubt has the authority of providing for itself a head, although it is not able, without the head to decide about many things…as Cajetan rightly teaches…and presbyters of the Roman Church taught in the epistle to Cyprian." (De Conciliis, by St. Robert Bellarmine, Ch. 14, "Certain Doubts Are Explained")
5. During the vacancy of the Apostolic See, the Church possesses only the power of proceeding to the election of a new pope, either through the cardinals, or in default of them, by other ways." (The Church of the Word Incarnate, by Rev. Charles Journet, Prof. at the Major Seminary of Fribourg)
6. Rev. Journet asks: In whom does the power to elect a Pope preside? Cardinal Cajetan replies: "The Pope can settle who the electors shall be and change and limit in this way the mode of election…" Journet comments: "In the 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, not in the strict sense, (since devolution is strictly to the higher authority in case of default of the lower) but in the wide sense, signifying all transmission, even to an inferior…" [Cajetan writes]: "In the case of ambiguity" (if it is unknown who the true cardinals are or there are antipopes), then the power "of applying the papacy to such and such a person devolves on the universal Church…In default of the Roman clergy, the right will belong to the Church universal." (ibid)
7. In his work on the Great Schism, the historian Walter Ullmann quotes the jurist and canon lawyer Baldus de Ubaldis. He calls Baldus "perhaps the greatest jurist of the late 14th century." (The Origins of the Great Schism, 1948) One of Baldus' students was the future Pope Gregory XI and another Francis Cardinal Zabarella. In his first Consilium, Ullmann relates, Baldus observed that "Canon Law lays down the dictum that in doubtful situations the man elected [unless a manifest heretic] has to be held as Pope." He also taught that a Pope could not be legally deposed long before the Church condemned this as an heretical proposition. It appears, therefore, that Traditionalists are a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes, for above all a papal election must be canonical. That a doubtful Pope is no Pope was the hue and cry of the Gallicanists. It is a principal revived and mouthed today by Traditionalists. In the absence of cardinals and clergy, it is not the "ecclesia universalis" who are called to vote for the Pope but the "fidelium congregatio," or the congregation of the faithful, "a term used by Nicholas III in the Sext. 1.6.17." (ibid) This was the teaching of Francis Cardinal Zabarella in the 14th century. Only those who were not stubborn heretics or schismatics — those who kept the faith and were distinguished from the rest in some way — could actually represent the Church.
The Church is not a democracy as some, especially Americans would like to hold. All have rights, but with those rights come responsibilities. Those who forfeit membership in the Church cannot invoke their right to represent the Church at a council or vote in any election. Pope Pius IX condemned the teaching that "Authority is nothing more than numbers and the sum of material strengths," (Syllabus of Errors, DZ 1760) the evil proposition behind the teachings of Martin Luther and the errors of Josephism and Febronianism. Might does not make right, but vice versa. Only the truth will set us free, as Christ taught, and numbers are no indicators of superiority. A papal election is not a political event where the side with the most flash and "Chutzpah" captures the prize. It is not based on ostentation and show, although the ritual of former days, always symbolic of religious truth, is sorely missed. It is not a triumphant display of one-upmanship where "the best man wins." God alone designates His vicar through the electors, who are only a conduit necessary to His will. The people on a one-time emergency basis elected a Pope, but this changes nothing in the monarchical structure the papacy has always maintained.
The danger of democratic notions applied to the Church is apparent in Pope St. Pius X's condemnation of the Sillon. "Authority, so they concede, comes from God, but it resides primarily in the people and expresses itself by means of elections or, better still, by selection…It is an error and a danger to bind down Catholicism by principle to a particular form of government. This error and this danger are all the greater when Religion is associated with a kind of Democracy whose doctrines are false… The end result of this developing promiscuousness…can only be a Democracy, which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion …more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the 'Kingdom of God'. — 'We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind.'"
Here we see the abominable teachings of the Novus Ordo church on the divinity of man and globalism. Why would those presumably wishing to distinguish themselves from this church in every way associate their movement with one of the very principles responsible for the subversion of the Church — false democracy — the hue and cry of Giovanni Montini and his family? Pope St. Pius X continues: "Our predecessor of happy memory… taught, among other things, that 'Christian Democracy …must seek to give human society the form and character which God, its Author, has imparted to it.' [He] denounced 'A certain Democracy which goes so far in wickedness as to place sovereignty in the people'…The leaders of the Sillon…have adopted a program and teaching different from that of Leo XIII." There are even further disturbing signs of other subversive influences lurking beneath this illicit convening of Traditionalists to presumably elect or confirm an antipope. These undesirable influences are cloaked in an attempt to fulfill private prophecy and identify themselves with a medieval concept of monarchy. We have good reason to believe that this attempt, however, is a Trojan horse of the most dangerous type that will ally this false democracy and pretense of nobility with an even more sinister form of government.
Those now rallying behind the banner of yet another false council are treading in the very footsteps of the Novus Ordo church. False, heretical clergy will call a council and confirm or elect yet another antipope. They then will proceed to "define" articles of Faith. Thus the final or "wild" beast of the Apocalypse, "seven devils worst than the first," will complete the fulfillment of the Scripture prophecies concerning the latter days. The promoter behind the current council website has implied that he and his funders are courting those Sedevacantists who may soon emerge from the St. Pius X Society should B16 make the Lefebvrites an offer of their own Tridentine rite within the NO. So be it. Scripture commentators have observed that God will use the enemies of the Church to bring the latter days to a close. Those who follow the Traditionalist beast, in wonder at its numbers and the pageantry that follows in its train, will have the appearance of Godliness and nothing more.
Pope Pius XII on October 5, 1977 in an audience on the lay postolate confirmed: Even if a layman were elected pope, he could accept the election only if he were ready and willing to be ordained. But the power to teach and govern, as well as the divine gift of infallibility, would be granted to him from the very moment he accepted election, even before his ordination.
They shall not have part in the holy things, till a Pontiff shall arise who shall show them truth. Offertory from the Mass for Election of a Pope (III Esdras 5:40)
