So here is a question for Roman Catholics: I have been told that a Pope cannot depart from Holy Tradition, for example, a Pope could not make an ex cathedra declaration that contradicted the faith of the Second Council of Nicaea and embraced iconoclasm, for example. If a Pope actually does violate the tradition of the church, have any well-respected Catholic canonists and theologians speculated on what recourse the faithful would have in such a scenario, and could you link me to it?
Also, could the Sui Juris Eastern Catholic Churches sever communion with Rome in the same manner that Orthodox churches can break communion with each other if one of them does something heretical? Is there any provision for the breaking of communion with a part of the Catholic Church that falls into heresy and for whatever reason it is impossible to do anything about it? For example, the state-appointed bishops who now control the churches of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association? I get the impression this happens automatically?
In terms of actual mechanisms of control and ownership, also, how does the structure of the Catholic Church compare with those of, for example, Anglican or Orthodox churches? Like, could American Roman Catholic dioceses use the recent supreme court ruling that allowed the Diocese of Fort Worth to leave the Episcopal Church with its property to break communion with Pope Francis temporarily in the same manner?
I would imagine there are precedents on a great deal of this, in part due to what is often called the Great Schism, specifically the period late in the Avignon Papacy where there were two antipopes, in addition to the legitimate pope, and if I recall one of the antipopes was in Rome. Also the Avignon Papacy is interesting in that it provides an example of Popes who were the Bishop of Rome, but were living in Avignon. During the Avignon Papacy, did the legitimate Popes of that period assume control of that diocese as well?
There are also several cases of important, non-titular bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches who are the Patriarchs of a city other than that in which they reside, specifically, Antioch. Due to the Ottoman genocide and other factors, there hasn’t been a bishop in Antakya for at least 108 years, probably longer. For many centuries, most bishops of Antioch have been in Damascus, or elsewhere. The Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were for a time courtiers in Constantinople, despite the continued presence of Christians in those cities, while for many years the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch lived in Tur Abdin, and now he lives in Damascus along with his Antiochian Orthodox and Melkite Catholic counterparts. The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch as one would expect resides in Lebanon, his official seat being in the town of Bkerke, with a summer residence in Dimane. Likewise his Syriac Catholic colleague is also based in Lebanon, in Beirut. And like his Coptic Orthodox counterpart, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria is based in both Alexandria and Cairo. So clearly, there was never a canonical problem with the Pope residing in Avignon during a period of time when Rome suffered from problems with security of the Lateran Palace and also habitability, with only one of the aqueducts still functioning, although I do understand the reasons why the Catholic Church really wanted the Pope back in Rome.
Rome itself is also interesting because it has four basilicas and the actual cathedral church is still St. John Lateran and not St. Peter’s, and all four of the major basilicas, along with the Lateran Palace and the Pope’s summer retreat have extraterritoriality.
By the way, in asking these questions, I do not want to give the impression that I am hoping for some kind of schism. On the contrary I am praying that the Roman Catholic Church remains resolute as it has been throughout my life, and that the sinister forces trying to change it are stopped, and that Pope Francis is blessed by the Holy Spirit with the courage needed to stand up for the faith and not to capitulate to the voices of the perverse liberals.
My only reason for asking these questions rather is in the event of a worst-case scenario, one which I assume Pope Francis would not be involved in, because it was my understanding from just a few months ago that he was resisting the push for “the Synodal Way” coming from the German bishops, and I admired him for that, and i assume his position hasn’t changed. Rather I am thinking about how liberals have illicitly seized control of the United Methodist Church in defiance of its own canon law, the Book of Discipline, because they disagreed with the outcome of a fairly conducted vote at the 2018 General Conference. Their ruthlessness is extraordinary. And in the past, heretics did occasionally have to be deposed from ancient patriarchates, for example, Pope George of Alexandria, who was an Arian who was sent in to intrude on the throne of St. Athanasius while the latter was in exile, until he was recalled by Emperor Julian the Apostate (whose title amuses me, because while obviously there is a distinction between apostasy and heresy, it isn’t much of a distinction, and so at times when I read about him, and then read about the horrible Arian Emperors who were manipulated into following that doctrine by the sinister Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia*, and I find myself thinking of the pathetic Emperor Julian “apostate from what?” To his credit, he did reinstall St. Athanasius, although his motives for doing so were obviously impure, in that he doubtless reasoned that the Church had embraced Arianism, because for a time in the 350s it looked like that, the era famously known in the West as “Athanasius Contra Mundum,” so he reckoned he could cause chaos by reinstating St. Athanasius, when the reverse actually happened, because George of Alexandria was spectacularly unpopular with the Alexandrians, and thus his plan backfired, just like his plan to create chaos by having the Jews rebuild their temple, which literally backfired due to a buildup of natural gas in the temple mount, which resulted in spectacular fireballs preventing the construction from going ahead. At times I really do feel like God has a sense of humor. Especially if we consider a sense of humor to be a virtue, since as St. Basil the Great wrote, God is the fullness of all virtues and perfections to their highest and ultimate extent.
I am going to go to the Traditional Latin Mass this Sunday that is near me, God willing (I have been feeling poorly and have not always been able to drive, but I have two options, a TLM operated by the FSSP at a nearby parish at 10:30 AM, and the FSSP in San Fernando, CA, which is within driving range of me, about an hour away I should think, has low mass at around 2 PM followed by choral vespers, which sounds lovely.
*not to be confused with the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who was, however, sympathetic to the Arians and who famously equivocated when signing the declaration of the Council of Nicaea)
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