Only Cardinals Can Elect a True Pope.

The main goal of gathering an Imperfect General Council is to deal with a problem that exists at the head of the Church. Therefore, before any potential election happens, the General Council must focus on giving a diagnosis of the present crisis at the head of the Church. Next, provided the conclusion reached by the General Council is that the Holy See is vacant, the next step would be to discern how a true pope can be given to the Church today. Accordingly, the General Council would have to determine who the legitimate electors are today and how a valid election can be held. Unam Sanctam, in its work towards the gathering of a General Council does not wish to tell everyone what has to be done, but believes, rather, that this will belong to the Church assembled in the Holy Ghost.

Now, to answer the objection nevertheless, here are a few considerations:

There are three points to make in response to this objection:

a) The question of the legitimacy of today’s Cardinals will have to be addressed by the General Council.
b) The law that Cardinals must be electors is subject to change.
c) The law itself permits alternative options in our current situation.
 

In addition, we shall address the claim that Pius XII has irrevocably determined that the Cardinals alone can perform a papal election.
 

a) The question of the legitimacy of today’s Cardinals will have to be addressed by the General Council.

This is the first point to make clear. If we could all be certain about the validity of the Cardinals themselves and of their elections, there would be no discussion to have. However, there is serious ground in the law itself to question the validity of today’s Cardinals. To see this, let’s begin with the definition of a Cardinal according to Canon Law:

Canon 232 § 1: “Cardinals are men freely selected by the Roman Pontiff from throughout the whole world who are at least constituted in the presbyteral order [and who] are notably outstanding for their doctrine, piety, and prudence in conducting affairs.”

Therefore, Cardinals are selected by the Roman Pontiff, have [at least] valid priestly ordinations, and are “outstanding for their doctrine and piety.” Do the current Novus Ordo Cardinals fit this description?

​

• Firstly, we would already have to assume that the apparent Roman Pontiffs following The Second Vatican council have been legitimate in order to conclude that their appointments of Cardinals have been legitimate. If the General Council concludes to the lack of legitimacy of some or all of the pretenders to the papacy in the last few decades, their nomination of Cardinals also would have to be declared invalid. This is a first point.
   

• Secondly, many consider the new rite of ordination to be doubtful. This is another problem that will require the decision of the General Council. The priestly ordination of cardinals ordained according to the new rite could very well be invalid. [1]
   

• Finally, it is evident that the present cardinals are not “distinguished for their doctrine and piety,” since they all seem publicly to profess a non-Catholic religion.

 

This leads us to conclude that the truth could very well be the inverse of the objection: if the objection is that we must have recourse to Cardinals lest we form a new sect, the problem is that we might not have Cardinals at present precisely because they have formed or joined a new sect. Once again, Unam Sanctam, independently of the conclusions that each of its members may have reached, wants to hear the voice of the assembled Church and no longer the voice of individuals.

That the Novus Ordo system could very well be declared a sect by the General Council is clear from the shared, public adherence we witness today in many of the hierarchs to non-Catholic doctrine and from the very definition of a sect:

“...any Christian denomination which has set itself up independently of [the Catholic] Church is a sect. According to Catholic teaching any Christians who, banded together refuse to accept the entire doctrine or to acknowledge the supreme authority of the Catholic Church, constitute merely a religious party under human unauthorized leadership.” [2]
 

This is a point we will return to later, but we invite our objectors to find any other requirement for determining a sect. For example, some might claim that a sect does not come into existence until the Church declares it so. We invite proof of this. If this is not forthcoming, we can conclude that a sect is defined, at least in part, by its shared rejection of Catholic doctrine as a group. Given that this seems to be a defining characteristic of the Novus Ordo religion and given that the current Cardinals adhere to this religion, the General Council could very well conclude that they are not Cardinals according to the legal definition. This we leave to the General Council.

Furthermore, the elections performed by these Cardinals could also be called into question by the General Council and deemed contrary to law. If certain papal claimants of the past decades were declared illegitimate by the General Council, their laws would also be rejected, and therefore current elections could also be considered invalid. This would be because the current Cardinals would not have performed elections according to the rules laid down by lawful popes. Changes to the rules of papal election were made multiple times following the Second Vatican Council and the General Council would have to determine whether or not they were valid. [3] The 1917 code of Canon Law for example states that the number of Cardinals is limited to 70:

Canon 231: § 1. “The Sacred College [of Cardinals] is divided into three orders: episcopal, to which belong only those six Cardinals over the various suburbicarian dioceses; presbyteral, which consists of fifty Cardinals; and diaconal, which [consists of] fourteen [Cardinals].”

However, at present there are over 240 Novus Ordo Cardinals, with 120 as electors [4], begging the question as to which 70 of these 120 or 240 should have their votes counted during an election if modern legislation concerning the conclaves were not legal. If we should say that the legality of those laws should not be taken into account, we should conclude that the law need not be followed, and thus the objection becomes void.

Therefore, in brief, the legal status of current Cardinals must be examined carefully by the General Council and we cannot exclude that it be deemed illegitimate. Do we have valid Cardinals at present given that their approval of the new religion makes them highly doubtful, enough to justify alternative approaches?
 

b) The law that Cardinals must be electors is subject to change.

The law that Cardinals are the papal electors is ecclesiastical law (human law), not Divine law, and it is subject to change, proven by the fact that it has changed throughout the past. In earlier periods, priests and deacons were electors. Later, it was the clergy of Rome and bishops also who had a part in papal elections. The Church was a thousand years old before she definitively chose Cardinals as her electors, and for good reason. For the thousand years that followed, they had proven to ensure stable and efficient elections. [5]

However, if an ecclesiastical law is long-standing and has proven to be very efficacious, that does not make it immutable. Ecclesiastical laws ought to be followed until they become a hindrance to Divine law and the mission of the Church:

“Human laws however, must be subordinate to the Divine law, or at least, must not contradict it…” [6]

And St. Thomas Aquinas, when speaking of human law, states:

“...[human] laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good… Secondly… through being opposed to the Divine good… or to anything else contrary to the Divine law.” [7]
 

If we have no Cardinals at present or they are sufficiently doubtful that we cannot have faith in the validity of their elections, the human insistence on the use of Cardinals would lead to the conclusion that the Church is in a state of paralysis and is now powerless to provide for her head, both of which are contrary to Divine law and the good of the Church.

Furthermore, if the use of Cardinals were not subject to change, the existence of alternative suggestions in the case of their extinction would be unintelligible. However, we see many such suggestions:

 

The Catholic Encyclopaedia: “Should the college of cardinals ever become extinct, the duty of choosing a supreme pastor would fall… upon the remaining Roman clergy.” [8]

 

St. Robert Bellarmine: “If there were no papal constitution on the election of the Supreme Pontiff; or if by some chance all the electors designated by law, that is, all the Cardinals, perished simultaneously, the right of election would pertain to the neighbouring bishops and the Roman clergy, but with some dependence on a general council of bishops.” [9]

Cardinal Cajetan: “So long as there are clearly designated electors, namely, the Cardinals as things stand today, the universal Roman Church does not take their place. But if all the Cardinals should die, then the Roman Church itself succeeds immediately: the Church from which Linus was elected before any human electoral laws were known to us. Yet since the part is included within the whole, and within the universal Church the Roman Church is included, if in such a case a general council, with the Roman Church in concord (that is, with her assent), were to elect a Pope, then the man so elected would truly be Pope.” [10]

Notwithstanding therefore what the General Council will decide on the matter, it is clear that the use of Cardinals as papal electors is subject to change if this law should stand in the way of the good of the Church, and alternatives have been suggested.
 

c) The law itself permits alternative options in our current situation.

As we have seen, the legitimacy of current Cardinals will have to be called into question by the General Council. However, if they were to be considered illegitimate, the Church must retain the ability to elect a new Pope. Not only is this for the good of the Church, but it is a matter of Divine Faith: Catholics know that St. Peter will have perpetual successors [11], and therefore will always have the means to provide one. Therefore, we can conclude from this Divine Faith that without valid Cardinals, the Church must have other valid means for electing a new pope.

Firstly, let us consider these arguments from Cardinal Cajetan. After a brief discussion about whether or not the Church can change laws or follow new laws without the approval of the Pope, and after generally denying this idea, Cajetan nonetheless states:

“There is, however, a case of permission, that is, where the Pope has made no contrary determination, and a case of ambiguity, that is, where it is not known whether someone is truly a Cardinal, and similar cases. In such situations, when the Pope has died or is otherwise uncertain, as seems to have happened at the beginning of the great schism under Urban VI, it must be maintained that in the Church of God there exists a power to apply the papacy to a person, provided the necessary requirements are observed, so that consciences are not left in perplexity. In that event, by way of devolution, this power seems to pass to the universal Church, as though there were no electors determined by the Pope to represent her in this act for the good of the Church. For it has already been shown that the care of the Church was committed by Christ not to the Church herself, but to Peter; and therefore Peter’s determination, for the exercise of the act of election in the Church’s name, prevails both over the Church’s own determination and over the Church’s own act, since it is done in the Church’s name, not by the Church’s authority.” [12]

That is to say, whilst the laws currently in force call for the use of Cardinals, and whilst laws usually cannot be overruled without the express authority of a living pope, Cajetan presents an exception: in a case in which either the pope or Cardinals are doubtful (both of which could apply to our case), the power to elect would devolve to the Universal Church; and this is not done contrary to the Will of Christ, or against the will of a pope, but instead is authorised according to his presumed will. To justify this, Cajetan invokes the same “good of the Church” that we have already mentioned.

We see this same principle in Canon Law:

Canon 20: “If on a given matter there is lacking an express prescription of law, whether general or particular, the rule is to be surmised, unless it concerns the application of a penalty, from laws laid down in similar cases; [then] from the general principles of law observed with canonical equity; [then] from the style and practice of the Roman Curia; and [finally] from the common and constant opinions of the doctors.”

This Canon is most pertinent to our situation because whilst we have express rules for performing a papal election with valid cardinals, we have no express prescriptions for how to proceed should all the Cardinals have become extinct; defected, or rendered doubtful. Nonetheless, Canon Law clearly states that an alternative rule can be deduced from alternative means. In his commentary on the Code of Canon Law, Professor of Canon Law Rev. Charles Augustine outlines the four principles within Canon 20, and we take the second to be the most relevant:

“The second means of deciding cases is recourse to general legal principles based on the equity of Canon Law. That equity is a means of practical interpretation and application is evident, for reason dictates that, if a law is deficient in a particular case, it should be applied according to the principles of law, indeed, but with a human feeling.” [13]

Therefore, from this alone we see that the law gives permission to discern new rules in extraordinary cases, either from previous practices or from the principle of law itself. It is also very interesting to note that the author states “with a human feeling.” This affects a larger, parallel discussion about the very nature of Catholic Law; being based upon Roman Law, it looks to principle first and the general, natural discernment of the situation.

For now, it is sufficient to conclude that the law itself allows for alternatives to the use of Cardinals and therefore the use of alternatives does not constitute a denial of the law.

Augustine proceeds to outline the fourth principle:

“The last mode of propounding or expounding a case is the authority of the school. That the professional canonists have exerted a decisive influence since the time of Gratian, not only upon decisions but on lawmaking itself, is well known. The ‘school’ itself distinguished a threefold class of opinions: communissima, when all authors agreed; communis, when several weighty authors held the same opinion; controversa, when there was disagreement among canonists. And it was always regarded as rash to deviate from the opinio communissima. The Code mentions the ‘common and constant opinion’ of the school as a guiding principle in deciding a doubtful case, and justly so because such a consensus is sufficient for moral certainty.” [14]

Therefore, it is clear that a consensus amongst theologians, doctors, and canonists can support the discernment of alternative means. Even if we do not here conclude the exact means for electing a new pope, and rather leave it to the General Council, theologians nonetheless agree that an alternative of some kind would be possible.

Therefore, looking for alternatives in this situation is concordant with Catholic law, in accordance with Catholic principle. Given the potential invalidity and doubtfulness of the current Cardinals, it is a Catholic duty to look for alternatives if Catholics are to stay true to their faith that St. Peter will have perpetual successors. Therefore, in this case the particular ecclesiastical law can (and must) give way to the requirements of Divine law.
 

Additional objection: Pope Pius XII has determined that only the Cardinals have the sole right to elect a pope and therefore no other alternatives are possible.

This argument is based upon the constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis by Pope Pius XII (which in turn refers to Vacante Sede Apostolica by Pope Pius X). Particularly, the passage which reads:

“32. Ius eligéndi Romanum Pontificem ad S. R. E. Cardinales unice et privative pertinet, excluso prorsus atque remoto quolibet cuiuspiara alterius Ecclesiasticae dignitatis, aut laicae potestatis cuiuslibet gradus et ordinis interventu.

[32. The right of electing the Roman Pontiff belongs exclusively and inalienably to the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, with the complete exclusion and removal of any intervention whatsoever by any other ecclesiastical dignity or by any secular power of whatever rank or order.]” [15]

The argument is therefore that because this ruling expressly and explicitly states that none other than the Cardinals can elect a pope, and because no other ruling has abrogated this, leaving it in force, we must absolutely adhere to this ruling without recourse to any alternatives. There are two problems with this argument. The first is that it assumes that we already have valid Cardinals and the second is that insistence upon this argument leads to a reductio ad absurdum. The former point has been addressed by our answer (c.f. Objection 2. a above), and so we will turn to the latter point.

The insistence upon this argument leads to a reductio ad absurdum because the Novus Ordo Cardinals themselves do not follow the rules laid down by Pius XII and therefore, according to this premise, would not and could not perform valid elections if such laws were still pertinent to our situation. In a speech given in support of his constitution, Pope Pius XII said the following:

“It is well known that our predecessor, Pope Sixtus V, with his Constitution Postquam verus of 3 December 1586, after noting that in ancient times the Sacred College had been too small and in more recent times too large, set the number of Cardinals at seventy, in imitation of the seventy elders of Israel, prohibiting with very strict clauses that for any reason, even the most urgent, that number should be exceeded. Without doubt, the Roman Pontiffs who succeeded him would not be bound by these provisions if they deemed it appropriate to increase or decrease the number; however, there is no record of any of them ever having derogated from this law, which was also explicitly confirmed in canon 231 of the Code of Canon Law.” [16]

And indeed, Canon Law states:

Canon 231: § 1. “The Sacred College [of Cardinals] is divided into three orders: episcopal, to which belong only those six Cardinals over the various suburbicarian dioceses; presbyteral, which consists of fifty Cardinals; and diaconal, which [consists of] fourteen [Cardinals].”

And Pope Sixtus V originally stated:

“...perpetuo statuimus, et ordinamus, ut in posterum connumeratis omnibus cuiusque ordinis episcopis, presbyteris, et diaconis cardinalibus, qui nunc sunt, quique in futurum creabuntur, cuncti simul numerum septuaginta nullo umquam tempore excedant, ac talis humerus quovis praetextu, occasione, vel causa etiam urgentissima minime augeatur.

[...we do perpetually establish and ordain that in future, when all the cardinals of each order, bishops, priests, and deacons, who are now in office and who shall be created in future, are counted together, the total number shall never at any time exceed seventy, and that the number shall in no way be increased by any pretext, occasion, or cause, even the most urgent.]” [17]

Therefore, this limit of 70 cardinals is a rule that has been permanently in force; set to be established perpetually, has never been officially abrogated up to Vatican II, and was re-confirmed by Pope Pius XII. Therefore, by the logic of the argument of this objection, this rule must also be adhered to without exception to assure validity. If, therefore, this law is not adhered to, it follows from the logic of the argument that not only are the elections performed by the current Cardinals invalid, but the entire organisation of the Cardinals would have to be regarded today as illegitimate.

This rule has certainly been broken because there are currently over 240 total Novus Ordo Cardinals, with over 120 “electors”. [18] The limit of 70 was overruled by Paul VI in 1975. [19]

Some claiming the vacancy of the Holy See might argue that therefore the legitimate thing to do would be to retain the conclusion that only the Cardinals can perform an election, while waiting for them to change their rules of constitution and election, to be returned in conformity with those of Pius XII with their numbers at 70, at which point a valid election could be performed. However, this is not possible because if the rules were changed and rendered invalid in 1975 by Paul VI, it therefore follows that all papal elections after this time were invalid. This is fatal to the argument of such people because Cardinals must be appointed by a validly elected pope. [20] If all of the popes since 1975 have been invalidly elected, according to their premises, then all of the Cardinal appointments since that time have also been invalid according to this same argument. All Cardinals appointed prior to 1975 are now dead, as are all those who were appointed by Paul VI. [21] Therefore, there are no valid Cardinals and no validly elected popes to appoint new ones. From the same logic of the argument that we must adhere categorically to the rules set down by Pius XII that only cardinals can perform a valid election, we would also have to conclude that there are therefore no cardinals and no possibility of appointing new cardinals, which invalidates the same argument.

There might however be recourse to the claim that despite this invalidity, the Church would nonetheless supply what is necessary for the validity of Cardinal appointments and Cardinal papal elections, despite contravention of the rules. To this we answer that such an argument is an admission that the Church can supply for what is necessary in exceptional cases when the explicit rules cannot be followed, which itself invalidates the strict necessity of using Cardinals for a papal election, and in turn offers support for special power supplied to an Imperfect General Council in an exceptional case of necessity.