“those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power, without any exception in respect of those to which they may have been promoted or elevated before they deviated from the Faith, became heretics, incurred schism, or provoked or committed any or all of these."

St. Robert Bellarmine quotes Pope St. Celestine I as follows: "The authority of Our Apostolic See has determined that the bishop, cleric, or simple Christian who had been deposed or excommunicated by Nestorius or his followers, after the latter began to preach heresy shall not be considered deposed or excommunicated. For he who had defected from the faith with such preachings, cannot depose or remove anyone whatsoever." [Emphasis added.]

The canonist Coronata explains, "III. Appointment to the office of the Primacy. 1^o What is required by divine law for this appointment: (a) The person appointed must be a man who possesses the use of reason, due to the ordination the Primate must receive to possess the power of Holy Orders. This is required for the validity of the appointment. Also required for validity is that the man appointed be a member of the Church. Heretics and apostates (at least public ones) are therefore excluded." [Emphasis added.]

St. Thomas teaches, “…the power of jurisdiction is that which is conferred by a mere human appointment. Such a power as this does not adhere to the recipient immovably: so that it does not remain in heretics and schismatics; and consequently they neither absolve nor excommunicate, nor grant indulgence, nor do anything of the kind, and if they do, it is invalid." (S. Th. II-II, Q. 39, Art 3.) [Emphasis added.]

St. Thomas, in the same place, quotes St. Cyprian as follows, “He who observes neither unity of spirit nor the concord of peace, and severs himself from the bonds of the Church, and from the fellowship of her priests, cannot have episcopal power or honour.”

St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, "… it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is ipso facto deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus, c. 3), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate - which means before any excommunication or judicial sentence. And this is what St. Jerome writes, adding that the other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ." (De Romano Pontifice).

Against these authorities it has been objected that on occasion Holy Church seems to have waited for some time after an heretic publicly defected from the faith before declaring the fact and replacing him in any offices he might have held. But this objection carries no weight whatsoever, because it is also true that declared schismatics and heretics are sometimes capable of validly absolving from sin, and yet nobody thinks that they have ordinary jurisdiction. What they are able to receive is extraordinary jurisdiction, supplied by Holy Church for the act itself, for the good of souls. Canon 882 lays down that “in danger of death all priests, though not approved for confessions, can validly and licitly absolve any penitent from any sins and censures, although reserved and notorious, even if an approved priest is present.”

And Canon 209 states that “the Church supplies jurisdiction both for the external and the internal forum: (1) in common error; (2) in a positive and probable doubt whether of fact or law.” Hence if a bishop were to become a public heretic and thus lose his ordinary jurisdiction together with his ecclesiastical office of bishop, but the people of his diocese were ignorant of the law and believed that he still had jurisdiction, then the Church would supply it on an act-by-act basis, for the good of souls.

This is sufficient explanation for why Holy Church has on occasion, to avoid greater evils (such as large-scale schism), permitted an heretic to remain materially in a see after he had lost it by public heresy. Hence the judgement of Pope St. Celestine I as follows: "The authority of Our Apostolic See has determined that the bishop, cleric, or simple Christian who had been deposed or excommunicated by Nestorius or his followers, after the latter began to preach heresy shall not be considered deposed or excommunicated. For he who had defected from the faith with such preachings, cannot depose or remove anyone whatsoever."

Nestorius, by his public defection from the Catholic Faith, lost his office as Patriarch of Constantinople, and from then on he was incapable of exercising authority in Holy Church. His excommunications and depositions from office were invalid. But he remained materially (that is, physically only) in the see of Constantinople for some time after he lost any right or authority. If, in that period, when many thought that he still had jurisdiction, he had absolved penitents in the confessional, then Holy Church would have supplied the jurisdiction required for those acts, on an act-by-act basis. But this supplied jurisdiction is only given for the good of souls. Any acts (such as excommunications against good men) which are not for the good of souls, are invalid and of no effect whatsoever.


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