Tag Archives: papal resignations

AP Confirms that Papal Renunciation is possible if Pope becomes “incapacitated”

Editor’s Note: Finally the MSM which has regurgitated the lies from the Vatican for nearly 9 days, has begun to break from that and speak the truth, which FromRome.Info reported last Wednesday, that Pope Francis might be about to abdicate. This is what he will have to do, to do that. — As always, stay with FromRome.Info to know today’s news yesterday.

However, what the AP reporter does not say, because they have not the foggiest idea about it, is that a papal renunciation cannot be made in advance, under a condition, nor by a legal representative.  Such a resignation would be invalid in Canon Law and jurisprudence, since it requires the presumption that a text written in advance (and the one referred to here was written in 2013) expresses the present will of the man who is the pope. A thing which cannot be verified if a pope is in a coma, for example, or cannot communicate.

Reading between the lines of Vatican News press releases

This morning, Vatican News, in its Italian Edition, said that Pope Francis was receiving oxygen through nasal tubes, and had undergone examinations including taking blood for tests. the results of which will be available this evening. FromRome.Info will report these findings as soon as they are made public.

However, the same Vatican News press release did NOT say he got out of bed and ate breakfast, which means that his doctors have confined him to bed. Also, it was not said that his condition is stable, as has been done for nearly a week.

Some men die suddenly by strokes or heart attacks or organ failures. Others progressively lose the vitality of corporeal life, and take continual steps down into dependency upon doctors and medicines and medical procedures, until their life is so frail that it hangs on a thread. To these the Lord shows great mercy by giving them plenty of time to die repentant. And it seems that the Lord Jesus has chosen this path for Pope Francis.

Giovagnoli: Why Pope Francis’ resignation looks more likely even if he recovers

Editor’s Note: Read the above article in English, here. Agostino Giovagnoli is a noted historian of the relations of the Italian Republic and the Apostolic See at the University of the Sacred Heart, which runs Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis is being cared for. In this article, he explains at length, that Pope Francis’ health is undeniably delicate and any return to his duties will likely result in a relapse. For this reason many high clerics are now talking about his resignation as more and more likely, even if not for now probably in the immediate few weeks or days.

Cardinal Ravasi: The Pope could resign if his health worsens

Editor’s Note: Though no longer a member of the Roman Curia, the mere fact that such a high profile Vatican statesman is thinking that a visit by Giorgia Meloni, yesterday, the current Italian Premier visited Pope Francis, means a lot more than both of them are telling, is significant. — As an ex-Minister of Culture at the Vatican Cardinal Ravasi knows well, that it is NOT a duty of the PM to visit a sick pope in hospital, unless he is about to announce something which will greatly impact Italian National Security, such as a resignation. — Cardinal Ravasi was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 and participated in the faux conclave of 2013. He is 83 years of age and can no longer vote in Conclaves, so he is more free to speak than other Cardinals.

In the latest Vatican News release, here, no mention is still being made of either the Pope’s medical team’s components — a thing which would give a more complete picture of what kind of ailments are part of his complex medical condition — nor of any prognosis of how long of a stay in hospital is required to bring his health condition back to normal, if this is even possible.

Pope Francis to abdicate the Papacy? — Here is the evidence

by Br Alexis Bugnolo

It appears that Pope Francis may be about to renounce the papal office. I base my inference upon 3 things: namely that Pope Francis has repeatedly said, that if his health became much worse, he would consider renouncing; second, that his health has become seemingly worse in a permanent sort of a way, and three, at midnight this morning, a source inside RAI TV, Vatican Section, was put on full alert for an important news story which would break today. — Since Pope Francis does not seem to be in such a rapid decline of health as to die today, I conclude that he has decided to renounce. This also seems to be supported by the fact that all three of his secretaries, Spanish and Italian, have been visiting him daily.

So I give notice to the readers of FromRome.Info that as soon as some sort of further developments in this story break, that I will inform them immediately. And as soon as we might have a text of the renunication, I will comment on its validity, form, and legal value.

As a background, let it be noted that on Dec. 18, 2022, just 13 days before the death of Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis was reported to already have signed a conditional Resignation, if in the future he should fall into an incapacitated state.

Boniface VIII’s Magisterial Teaching on Papal Renunciations

Translation and Commentary by Br. Alexis Bugnolo¹

Pope Boniface VIII, Quoniam (Sexti Decretalium Liber. I, Tit. VII, chapter 1):

Quoniam aliqui curiosi disceptatores de his, quae non multum expediunt, et plura sapere, quam oporteat, contra doctrinam Apostoli, temere appetentes, in dubitationem sollicitam, an Romanus Pontifex (maxime cum se insufficientem agnoscit ad regendam universalem Ecclesiam, et summi Pontificatus onera supportanda) renunciare valeat Papatui, eiusque oneri, et honori, deducere minus provide videbantur:  Celestinus Papa quintus praedecessor noster, dum eiusdem ecclesiae regimini praesidebat, volens super hoc haestitationis cuiuslibet materiam amputare, deliberatione habita cum suis fratribus Ecclesiae Romanae Cardinalibus (de quorum numero tunc eramus) de nostro, et ipsorum omnium concordi consilio et assensu, auctoritate Apostolica statuit, et decrevit:  Romanum Pontificem posse libere resignare.

Nos igitur ne statutum huiusmodi per ipsis cursum oblivioni dari aut dubitationem eandem in recidivam disceptionem ulterius deduci contingat:  ipsum inter constitutiones alias, ad perpetuam rei memoriam, de fratrum nostrorum consilio duximus redigendum.

My English Translation:

Since some debaters curious about those things, which are not very expedient, and desiring rashly to know more than is opportune, against the teaching of the Apostle (1 Tim. 6:4), have seemed to draw forth less cautiously a solicitous doubt, whether the Roman Pontiff (most of all when he acknowledges himself (to be) insufficient to rule the universal Church, and to support the burdens (onera) of the Supreme Pontificate) be able [valeat] to renounce the Papacy [Papatui], and its charge [oneri], and honor [honori]:  Pope Celestine V, Our predecessor, when he presided over the government of the same Church, willing to cut off the matter of any hesitation over this, having held a deliberation with His brothers, the Cardinals of the Roman Church (of whose number We were at that time), established and decreed by (his) Apostolic Authority, from the concordant counsel and assent of Ourselves, and of the same: that the Roman Pontiff can freely resign.

We, therefore, lest a statute of this kind, enacted through the same, be given up to oblivion or the same doubt be drawn forth furthermore in a repeated debate: judge that the same is to be registered among the other constitutions, ad perpetuam rei memoriam, (drawn) from the council of our brother (Cardinals).

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FOOTNOTES

  1. Many thanks to Dr. Cyrille Dounot, Professor of Law in the Faculté de Droit et de Science Politique, at the Université d’Auvergne, France, for making the Latin text of Boniface’s decree, Quoniam (VI, 1, 7, 1), available to me, from the Corpus Iuris Canonici, Vol II, Liber Sextus, Clementinae and Extravagantes, cum glossis, Lyons, France, 1584, cols. 197-199.

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MY COMMENTARY

Benedetto Caetani, the future Pope Boniface VIII, was born around 1235 A. D., of an ancient Roman family. He studied jurisprudence at the University of Bologna and served in the papal government during his long career. Pope Martin IV made him Cardinal Deacon of Saint Nicholas in Carcere, in 1281 A. D., and Pope Nicholas IV, Cardinal Priest of St. Martin in Montibus ten years later. He succeeded Pope Celestine V in 1294, after the former renounced the papacy.

Pope Boniface studied canon law in an age in which its study was confined to gathering the canons of the ancient Church and those decreed in historic synods and commenting on them to deduce the fundamental principles of law by which the Church would be rightly governed. His decree, Quoniam, must be seen in this light, as we can see from the text.

There are two motives for Pope Boniface in writing Quoniam. The historical and the ecclesiological. Historically, inasmuch as he was elected following the resignation of Pope Celestine V, and on account of his untimely demise shortly after being sequestered by Boniface to the Castle of Fumone, Italy, Boniface had good reason to enshrine in Church Law the affirmation that a pope can freely resign. Second, ecclesiologically, Boniface wanted to put to rest doubts that swirled around the nature of the papal office, whether it was a vocation which could only be accepted, and never rejected, or whether it was an office, in the sense of a duty or charge, which could be lain down just as much as taken up.

In its form, Quoniam, is a memorial rescript, that is, its a written document which records what was said and decided in consistory by his predecessor, Pope Celestine V, with the Cardinals. Pope Boniface’s authority to issue the rescript, therefore, is twofold: he was both an eye witness participant in the discussions and as Roman Pontiff he had the authority to determinatively decide upon questions of canon law.

While Boniface’s central purpose was merely to affirm a point of papal power, the matter of his rescript touches upon the nature of the papal office as it was conceived in the minds of Pope Celestine V and his cardinals:  as an office, as a duty, as a dignity.  The office is that of the papacy (papatus), a Late Medieval term derived from the popular address of the Roman Pontiff, pope, in Greek (papas).  The duty is a charge or burden (onus), not only a sober term for the magnitude and importance of the affairs it must conduct, but also a term which implies that this duty is bestowed from on high, a reference to Our Lord’s creation of the office in Matthew 16:18. Finally, the papal office is a dignity (honor), which distinguishes and elevates the one who accepts his canonical election above all others in the Church.

From Boniface’s rescript, by which he establishes Quoniam among the perpetual constitutions of the Church, we can see a direct and faithful reflection in the present Code of Canon Law, in Canon 332 §2, which terms the papal office a munus, affirms that a renunciation of munus is validly effected when the Pope acts freely, and requires a public act. In its final clause, Canon 332 §2 reaffirms that the power of renunciation lies solely in the papal office by denying that its validity arises from the act of renunciation being accepted by anyone at all.

Its clear, then, from the magisterial teaching of Pope Boniface VIII, that the papal office is not a ministry, but rather a unique dignity, office and duty, which in being renounced, must be renounced in its own nature according to what it is. That even those who doubted that a pope had such power, in Boniface’s day, affirmed these things are contained in the context of the doubt they raised, namely, whether a pope could renounce the papacy, its charge, and its honor.

Contrariwise, inasmuch as Pope Boniface affirms that a pope can renounce these things, he affirms that all three must be renounced to effect a papal renunciation, on this account, that in affirming the papal power extends over these, he implicitly asserts that if the papal power does NOT extend over each of these, then the renunciation has not taken place.

This follows from the rules of the science of Logic, which teaches that every negation must be understood strictly. Thus, since a renunciation is a form of negation, a renunciation of the papacy must renounce the office, the charge and the dignity. If one renounced only the exercise of the office and continued to exercise the passive ministry, retain the dignity of being called Your Holiness, giving the Apostolic Blessing, wearing the clothing which only the Pope can wear, it would be clear that one’s resignation had not occurred, because there is no renunciation of all right, unless all right be renounced.

Pope Boniface VIII, eminent legal scholar that he was, obviates these problems which arise from renunciation-law by using the intransitive form of the verb to resign [resignare] in his final affirmation of papal power. This is because, unlike “to renounce” [renuntiare], to resign implies of itself the renunciation of office and all its right, on account of its original meaning to re-signare, or undo the seal which enacted or approved a thing. In Latin, resignare, thus, has the meaning of annul or cancel, as well as resign, and recalls the powers invested in the office of Saint Peter, when Our Lord said: whatsoever you loose ….

The present Code of Canon Law by employing the verb to renounce [renunciare], thus requires that the object of the act munus, be a word which is full of meaning, rich in meaning, and encompassing all that is essential to an act of renunciation of papal office: the office, the charge and the dignity. The brilliance of the Latinity of those who prepared the New Code under Pope John Paul II is seen in this one word, munus, which means both gift [munus in Latin means gift, its used in the Liturgy for the gifts of the Magi], and office [canon 145 terms every ecclesiastical office a munus], charge [munus and onus in Latin share this meaning] and that which up-builds a person [munire in Latin means to build up, or fortify]. In English we see this in the words ammunition and munificence. On this account, if one were to renounce the papal office with any term which is not co-extensive with all three aspects of the Papal office, its clear that the renunciation would be incomplete, and therefore of no effect in law. Nay, since we men are creatures whose understanding is bound up with the words we use to express ourselves, its clear that if one were to use another term with deliberation, his consequent actions would reflect that partial renunciation and incomplete resignation. This should be now obvious to all, who have eyes to see.

UPDATE Dec. 5, 2022 A. D. : FromRome.Info has now published chapter II and offers for download the entire Sixth Tome of Decretals. See here.