Catholic Historian Dr. Mazza: Was Pope Benedict's "Munus Petrinum" Resignation "Erroneous" similar to Erroneous "Attempts at Marriage"?
Does Benedict's Resignation, so to speak, need an Annulment Process due to Impediments done Publicly by Cardinals & Bishops?
"[T]he Pope... WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306) - The Catholic Monitor
The ultimate question then is whether what was subjectively in Benedict’s mind was an accurate or erroneous understanding of the objective reality of the munus Petrinum in the Church’s ecclesiology. If one’s will acts on an erroneous appraisal presented to it by one’s reason, the WILL DOES NOT CHOOSE FREELY. Mistakes of this kind are most frequent in attempts at marriage. Marriage is an objective state of being that does not come into existence except from a free act of the will, which is dependent upon accurate knowledge:
error invalidates the act if it is an error concerning the substance of the act…Error affects consent, for the will in an act of consent elects an object presented to it by the mind. If the mind is in error, the object is imperfectly or incorrectly presented and choice made upon such a premise is not always the same choice that would have been made if the object were correctly known. - Dr. Edmund Mazza
Instead you get called a conspiracy theorist for not believing what the majority do. The death shots were pushed using social psychology and pear pressure. There were, in fact, no rational reasons to get one, just the appeal to known deceitful authorities and social psychology.
If this is the case, “conspiracy theorist” is not a pejorative but a title of honor. - The Catholic Monitor [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2022/03/christian-order-putins-war.html?showComment=1648285314333#c75219823935484109]
Might Francis's papacy be invalid even if most Catholics don't want to believe it?
Was Pope
Benedict XVI's resignation in "substantial error" and therefore not a valid "papal resignation similar to an invalid "attempt at marriage"?
It appears that Catholic
historian and scholar Dr. Edmund Mazza is saying that Pope
Benedict XVI, so to speak, needs an annulment from his erroneous "attempt at" resignation. Here are some impediments to a valid marriage:
Impediments
If one of the parties were prohibited from marrying by a diriment impediment (from the Latin for "interrupting"), the marriage is invalid. Because these impediments may not be known at all, the marriage is called a putative marriage if at least one of the parties married in good faith.
Diriment impediments include:
- One or both parties is below the absolute minimum age of 16 for males and 14 for females[10]
- Antecedent and perpetual impotence (not to be confused with sterility)[11]
- Ligamen, or being already married[12]
- The situation in which one party is a Catholic and the other has not been baptized (unless a dispensation is granted)[13]
- The man was ordained to holy orders[14]
- Either party made a public perpetual vow of chastity in a religious institute[15]
- Abduction with the intent of marriage (known as raptus), is an impediment as long as the person remains in the kidnapper's power[16]
- Impediment of Crime, bringing about the death of one's spouse, or the spouse of another, with the intention of marriage[17]
- Consanguinity, or close relationship by blood, even if the relationship is only by law[18]
- Affinity, or close relationship by marriage. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_nullity]
Here are some grounds for nullity:
Grounds for nullity
A marriage may be declared invalid because at least one of the two parties was not free to consent to the marriage or did not fully commit to the marriage.
Grounds for nullity include:
- Simulation of consent; that is, the conscious and positive exclusion at consent by either or both of the contracting parties of one or all of the essential properties or "goods" of marriage: a) exclusivity of the marital relationship; b) the permanence of the marital bond; c) openness to offspring as the natural fruit of marriage (canon 1101§2)
- Deliberate deceit about some personal quality that can objectively and gravely perturb conjugal life (canon 1098)
- Conditional consent, if the condition at the time of marriage concerns the future, or if it concerns the past or present and is actually unfulfilled (canon 1102[20])
- Force or grave fear imposed on a person to obtain their consent (canon 1103)
- A serious lack of the discretion of judgment at consent concerning the essential matrimonial rights and duties mutually to be handed over and accepted (canon 1095 n.2)
- Psychic incapacity at consent to undertake the essential obligations of marriage (canon 1095 n.3). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_nullity]
The Catholic historian Mazza below explains why Pope Benedict XVI's resignation appears to be in "substantial error" and is therefore not a valid "papal resignation":
De Mattei writes:
This doctrine [the distinction between Power of Order and Power of Jurisdiction]…has also been the common practice of the Church for twenty centuries, can be considered one of divine law, and as such unchangeable.[xxvi] Vatican Council II did not explicitly reject the concept of “potestas,” but set it aside, replacing it with an equivocal new concept, that of “munus.” Art. 21 of “Lumen Gentium” then seems to teach that episcopal consecration confers not only the fullness of orders, but also the office of teaching and governing, whereas in the whole history of the Church the act of episcopal consecration has been distinguished from that of appointment, or of the conferral of the canonical mission. This ambiguity is consistent with the ecclesiology of the theologians of the Council and post-council (Congar, Ratzinger, de Lubac, Balthasar, Rahner, Schillebeeckx…) who presumed to reduce the mission of the Church to a sacramental function, scaling down its juridical aspects…
Ratzinger…distanced himself from tradition when he saw in the primacy of Peter the fullness of the apostolic ministry, linking the ministerial character to the sacramental (J.Auer-J. Ratzinger, La Chiesa universale sacramento di salvezza, Cittadella, Assisi, 1988).[xxvii]
Benedict would counter that Vatican II taught that “collegiality is not based on a papally conferred jurisdiction, paralleling the sacrament of ordination as though that sacrament were merely an individual gift; rather, collegiality reaches into the very essence of the sacrament, which as such carries within it an intrinsic correlation to the community of bishops.”[xxviii] Or again, “the sacramental-ontological munus…ought to be distinguished from the canonical-juridical aspect.” This is why Benedict went to great pains NOT TO RENOUNCE THE PETRINE MUNUS AS SUCH in his 2013 “Declaratio.”[xxix]
But Vatican II was referring to the episcopacy, not the papacy.
The ultimate question then is whether what was subjectively in Benedict’s mind was an accurate or erroneous understanding of the objective reality of the munus Petrinum in the Church’s ecclesiology. If one’s will acts on an erroneous appraisal presented to it by one’s reason, the WILL DOES NOT CHOOSE FREELY. Mistakes of this kind are most frequent in attempts at marriage. Marriage is an objective state of being that does not come into existence except from a free act of the will, which is dependent upon accurate knowledge:
error invalidates the act if it is an error concerning the substance of the act…Error affects consent, for the will in an act of consent elects an object presented to it by the mind. If the mind is in error, the object is imperfectly or incorrectly presented and choice made upon such a premise is not always the same choice that would have been made if the object were correctly known.[xxx]
And
we might add in closing, that according to the Church’s law, a
resignation must also be “properly manifested” in order to be valid. But
since objectively Benedict renounced “the ministry” of Bishop of Rome,
and not the “munus,” there is ambiguity—not clear manifestation. In
fact, even if ministry meant the same thing as munus in canon law (which
it does not), or even if Benedict had explicitly mentioned “the munus”
of Bishop of Rome, we could not be sure whether he meant munus as office
[potestas iurisdictionis] in accord with canon law and centuries of
tradition or if he meant munus as rite [potestas ordinis], which he has
argued for decades is irrevocable:
The ministry [munus] of the bishop is not an externally assigned “administrative power,” but rather arises from the necessary plurality of the eucharistic communities (i.e., of the Churches in the Church) and, as representing these, is itself sacramentally based. The ruling of the Church and its spiritual mystery are inseparable. Only by dealing with this issue in such depth does the text [LG 22] make possible a “decentralization” of the Church that will progress beyond a merely opportunistic organizational change and move into the sphere of genuine spiritual renewal. [https://www.edmundmazza.com/2021/04/21/leave-the-throne-take-the-ministry-the-sacred-powers-of-pope-emeritus/]
Does Benedict's Resignation, so to speak, need an Annulment Process due to Impediments done Publicly by Cardinals & Bishops?
"[T]he Pope... WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis's Amoris Laetitia.