Sick From Heresy
The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that “Pope Honorius was much respected and died with an untarnished reputation.” It also reminds us that, forty years later, “he was condemned as a heretic by the sixth general council”—and by his successor Pope Leo II, who pronounced: “We anathematize . . . Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted.”
The error of this hapless seventh-century pope was to give aid and comfort to Monothelitism, a heresy which claimed that Christ had only one will (a thesis that is problematic because it blurs the distinction between Christ’s divine and human natures). In a letter to a bishop who sought clarification on the matter, Honorius appeared to affirm this thesis himself.
This was not an ex cathedra definition, so Honorius’s lapse is consistent with the conditions of papal infallibility. The issues were technical and difficult, and despite his regrettable wording, it can be argued that Honorius did not intend to affirm the heresy. He was condemned all the same, very harshly and repeatedly. The seventh and eighth general councils of the Church repeated the sixth council’s condemnation, as did the oath taken by every new pope for several centuries.
A pope’s first duty is to safeguard the deposit of faith and to pass it on undiluted. What matters, then, is whether his words and actions actually do that. It is irrelevant whether he also did some good things or had good intentions. A sentry whose carelessness lets in the enemy is liable to be court-martialed, even if he also kissed a baby or two or occasionally uttered a pleasing bromide.
During the twelve years of his own pontificate, Pope Francis made statements no less doctrinally problematic than those of Honorius, and he did so on many more occasions and on a much wider variety of topics. For example, on several occasions, he suggested that the plurality of religions is willed by God. In several documents, he or officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith under him condemned the death penalty in a manner that gives the impression that it is always and intrinsically wrong—a thesis that is contrary to the clear and consistent teaching of scripture, tradition, and all previous popes. Fiducia supplicans authorized blessings for same-sex and adulterous couples, directly contradicting both past doctrine and the common sense of anyone who takes seriously the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.
Then there is the exhortation Amoris laetitia, notoriously ambiguous insofar as it can be interpreted to allow, in some cases, absolution and Holy Communion for those in invalid and adulterous marriages who are sexually active and lack a firm purpose of amendment. Such an allowance would contradict Christ’s teaching on divorce, Saint Paul’s teaching on worthiness to receive Communion, and the Church’s interpretation of those teachings for two millennia.
One could argue that of all his controversial acts, this was the most scandalous. When Christ issued his austere teaching on divorce, he acknowledged that “Moses permitted” divorce, but then declared, “And I say to you” that divorce is forbidden. Now, the law of Moses was given to Moses by God Himself. So who has the authority to override it? Who would have the audacity to declare that “Moses permitted” such-and-such but “I say” differently? Only God Himself. Christ’s teaching against divorce is therefore nothing less than a mark of His very divinity. To put oneself in opposition to that teaching would thus implicitly either deny Christ’s divinity or, blasphemously, put one’s authority above even His. It would be to declare, “Christ said such-and-such, but I say differently.” Absolutely no one other than God Himself, not even a pope (whose mandate is precisely only ever to preserve Christ’s teaching), has the right to do that.
This list could be expanded, but the point is made. Unlike the matter Honorius was addressing, Pope Francis’s problematic utterances did not involve abstruse metaphysical issues that the Church had not yet fully worked out. They concerned matters of basic doctrinal principle that have long been settled. If a pope had said such things in any previous generation in the Church’s history, the outcry would have been loud and universal. If any other priest or prelate had said them even today, all but the most liberal of Catholics would denounce him for heterodoxy.
Yet, though Pope Francis has certainly been criticized for these words and actions, the world at large, including even most of the Catholic world, has met them with a shrug. Saint Jerome famously said of his times that “the whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” Today the world finds itself liberal and modernist, but with a self-satisfied nod rather than a groan. It judges the pope to have been, if anything, still too conservative.
But while the Church has often been made sick from heresy, it always recovers. It vomited out Arianism. It vomited out Monothelitism, which is why Honorius’s reputation sank. And it will vomit out today’s liberalism and modernism too. When it does, the adulation Pope Francis received upon death may prove as ephemeral as that which Honorius enjoyed.
This essay is part of a symposium on Pope Francis’s life and legacy. Read the rest here.