CARDINAL BELLARMINE
Nothing can better illustrate the development of thought on the
papal power after the Council of Trent than the theories of Cardinal
Bellarmine. A nephew of one Pope and friend of another, a Jesuit,
resident in Rome, a Cardinal in 1600, he strikingly represents the
extreme tendencies of the Italian School. He put forth to the world in
his volumes of _Controversies_ a systematic and elaborated conception
of supremacy and Infallibility certainly unsurpassed.
The supremacy of Peter is upheld on the ground that our Lord said to
him in the Apostles’ presence, “Feed my sheep.” In this injunction
all sheep must be included. And therefore the Apostles themselves are
sheep whom Peter must feed. While the Apostles, it may be admitted,
derive their jurisdiction direct from Christ, the Bishops receive it
direct from the Pope. Confirmation of this principle is sought in the
relation of Moses to the Elders, and also in the monarchical character
of the Church’s constitution. According to Bellarmine, it is essential
to the monarchical idea that all authority reside in one, and from
that one be communicated to others. The Bishops are not successors of
the Apostles; since the latter were not ordinary but extraordinary and
delegated pastors, and as such have no successors at all. From these
principles the relation of the Collective Episcopate, or Ecumenical
Council, to the Pope may be readily imagined. Existing theories as to
Papal Infallibility are grouped by Bellarmine as four. First, that
the Pope, even with an Ecumenical Council, can be a heretic and teach
heresy, and has actually so done. This is the opinion of Lutheran
and Calvinist. Secondly, that the Pope, if he speak apart from an
Ecumenical Council, can be a heretic and teach heresy, and has actually
done so. This is the Parisian view, held by Gerson and Pope Hadrian
VI. Thirdly, that the Pope cannot possibly, under any circumstances,
be a heretic nor teach heresy. For this opinion Bellarmine only quotes
one writer (Pighius), of whom Bossuet observes that nobody endorses
his absurdities. Fourthly, that the Pope, whether he can be a heretic
or not, cannot define anything heretical to be believed by the whole
Church. This Bellarmine calls the most prevalent opinion of nearly all
Catholics. He admits that various advocates of it interpolate various
conditions of its exercise, such as consultation with his advisers,
mature reflection, and so forth. But he thinks that they would deny
that these conditions can ever be unfulfilled; on the ground that God
who designs the end must also arrange the means.
Of these four opinions Bellarmine proceeds to pronounce the first
heretical. The second he will not venture to term actually heretical,
because its advocates are, so far, tolerated by the Church. This
audacious statement should be read in the light of the entire previous
history of Christendom. Yet Bellarmine holds it erroneous, and
proximate to heresy; and that it might deservedly be declared heretical
by a decision of the Church. The third opinion he pronounces probable,
but not certain.
The last is most certain, and to be taught. He supports it by
asserting that no appeal is ever permissible from a Pope to a General
Council; that not only the Pope himself is inerrable in matters of
faith, but even the particular Roman Church in Italy cannot err.
This opinion at least is pious and most probable; although not so
certain that the contrary can be called heretical. But, even with
this, Bellarmine does not feel that his wonderful construction is yet
secure. Accordingly he asserts that it is probable, and may be piously
believed, not that the Pontiff cannot officially err, but even that
as a particular individual he cannot be a heretic, or pertinaciously
believe anything contrary to the faith. This appears to Bellarmine
essential to protect the Pope’s official Infallibility. For how, he
asks, could a Pope, if inwardly heretical, strengthen his brethren in
faith and teach the truth? No doubt the Almighty could extort a true
confession from the heart of a heretic just as He put true words in the
mouth of Balaam’s ass. But, to Bellarmine’s reflection, this procedure
would be violent, and hardly in accord with that Providential Wisdom
which sweetly disposeth all things.
After this elevation of papal authority to the highest height, there
necessarily follows a corresponding depreciation of the value of the
Collective Episcopate and its utterances in Council assembled. General
Councils, before the Pope confirms their decisions, may err, unless
the Fathers in defining follow the Pope’s instructions. He is aware
that the School of Paris, and all who maintain the supremacy of the
Council over the Pope, will reject this. The Parisian Doctors hold
that a General Council cannot err even apart from papal confirmation.
But if it could not err then it would be final; and if so, where
would be space for papal confirmation? Accordingly Bellarmine could
not possibly endorse their view. He knows that his opponents will
retort: General Councils anathematise those who contradict; they do not
restrain their anathemas until the Pope has confirmed them. Bellarmine
answers: They must certainly mean that their anathemas are conditional
on the Pope’s endorsement!
What forces Bellarmine to these eccentricities is his opinion that no
authority was given by Christ to the Universal Church but only to St
Peter. Consequently, if the General Council represent the Universal
Church, yet it cannot possess what the entire Body did not receive.
To Bellarmine’s view the Supreme Pontiff is simply and absolutely
above the Universal Church, and above the General Council; so that no
judgment on earth can be superior to his. If the objection be urged
that on this theory the Church is left in case of trouble without a
remedy: Bellarmine answers, No; there is the divine Protection. We may
pray God to convert the Pope, or to take him away before he ruins the
Church.
It is certainly one of the ironies of history that the volume of
_Controversies_, in which these theories are contained, was placed
on the Index by Pope Sixtus V. as deficient, in certain respects, in
the regard which a Catholic owed to the Holy Father. In the curiously
self-laudatory pages of Bellarmine’s _Autobiography_ there still
survives his own comment on this act of papal authority. He informs
us that in the year 1591 Gregory XIV. was reflecting what he ought
to do with the Vulgate edited by Sixtus V. There were not wanting
men of importance who held that the use of this edition ought to be
publicly prohibited. But Bellarmine suggested, in the Pope’s presence,
that correction was better than prohibition. Thus the honour of Pope
Sixtus would be saved, and the book produced in an emended form. He
advised, therefore, a republication after correction, with a preface
stating that in the first edition various errors, typographical and
other, had, through haste, crept in. Thus, says Bellarmine, he did
Pope Sixtus good in return for evil. For Sixtus placed Bellarmine’s
work on _Controversies_ upon the Index of Prohibited Books, because it
rejected the direct dominion of the Pope over the whole world. But,
when Pope Sixtus was dead, the Congregation of Sacred Rites ordered the
prohibition of Bellarmine’s work to be erased.[97]
[97] Cf. Döllinger und Reusch, _Die Selbstbiographie des Cardinals
Bellarmin_, p. 38, and notes pp. 106–111.
The theories of Roman theologians made great advances in the sixteenth
century. But it is curious to note that some of the most extreme are
yet considered inadequate and defective by papal writers since the
Vatican Decrees. Torquemada was a theologian devoted to the enhancement
of the Apostolic See.[98] For him the plenitude of power existed in
the Pope alone. Was it not written there shall be one fold and one
shepherd? For him all the other Apostles derived their jurisdiction
from St Peter. And, accordingly, all Bishops derive their jurisdiction
immediately from the Pope, and not from Christ. But notwithstanding all
this, Torquemada does not come up to Ultramontane requirements. The
German infallibilist, Schwane, is not satisfied with him as an advocate
of Papal Infallibility.
[98] Ghilardi, _De Plenitudine Potestatis, R.P._ p. 15.
“Infallibility of the Pope,” says Schwane, “could not be passed
over in silence by a papal theologian as eminent as Torquemada.
Nevertheless, he has not realised this doctrine in all its
purity.”[99]
[99] _Hist. Dogm._, v. p. 377.
Torquemada, it appears, had such regard for papal freedom of will that
he could not deny the possibility of its erroneous exercise, even in
the discharge of the highest papal function. But while admitting that
the Pope might err in an official utterance to the whole Church, he
evaded the disastrous consequence to the doctrine of Infallibility by
affirming that such a misuse of authority would constitute the Pope a
heretic, and, as such, _ipso facto_, Pope no longer. Thus he secures
the Papal Infallibility by maintaining the self-deposition of any Pope
who teaches erroneously.
Schwane remarks acutely enough that Torquemada’s defence of Papal
Infallibility virtually places the supreme decision not in the Pope but
in a General Council of the Church. For it manifestly tends to ascribe
to General Councils the right to revise all papal dogmatic decrees,
in order to ascertain whether they are heretical or not; whether they
proceed from one who is really Pope, or from one who, having taught
erroneously, is not Pope at all.
To avoid these dangerous tendencies Torquemada, according to Schwane,
ought to have denied the possibility of the Pope’s misuse of free will
in his _ex cathedra_ pronouncements; and this on the ground that the
promises of Christ cannot fail to secure their own fulfilment, and
must accordingly override the metaphysical possibility of mistake.
This theory of the unconditional character of Christ’s promises, of
the almost mechanical necessity of their realisation, irrespective of
the human will and human compliance, constantly meets us in recent
Ultramontane developments. Torquemada, however, knew nothing about all
this, or did not see his way to accept such theories. There remain,
therefore, grave discrepancies, according to recent Roman writers,
between this papal theologian of the sixteenth century--papal though
indeed he was,--and the doctrine as it shaped itself in the Vatican
Decrees. This inadequacy of its defenders, as judged by the standard of
the nineteenth century decision, is a not unimportant feature in the
doctrine’s development.