Fr. Z's Blog

There was obviously no love lost – in life or in death – betwixt Archbp. Carlo Maria Viganò and Francis. These days, Viganò is reported by LifeSite to be saying that cardinals created by Francis cannot legitimately elect a new Pope. According to Viganò they could only elect their own representative who would also usurp the papacy as Bergoglio did.

108 of the present 136 Cardinal Electors were created by Francis.

With respect, I think Archbp. Viganò is wrong.

I’ve written on this in the past. I believe much hinges on two points: what exactly Benedict did when he abdicated and whether or not it is possible to separate the essential element of being “Pope” (which term and parameters of office developed over time), that is being Vicar of Christ, head of the College of Bishops, from being Bishop of Rome. Both of these are “in” the person of the Successor of Peter.

However, Peter was Vicar of Christ and head of the College of Bishops before he was bishop of anywhere, for example, Antioch.

When Peter left Antioch, he was Vicar of Christ. He wound up in Rome and died in Rome, which some (most) theologians at the time of Vatican I thought “sealed the deal”, as it were, between the role of being Vicar of Christ and of being Bishop of Rome, making them inextricable.

Of course, if Rome had to be nuked because of a truly globe-threatening pandemic – as it was in Frank Herbert’s scary book The White Plague – and a telephone conclave elected the Cardinal of Tonga, then maybe the new Pope from Tonga would also be Bishop of Rome The Smoking and Irradiated Crater, in a new kind of Avignon papacy. Orrrr…. it might be simpler to say that the full universal jurisdiction and the charism of infallibility resides in being Vicar of Christ rather than being Bishop of Rome.  I think Michael O’Brien dealt with this in the end of his Father Elijah / Children of the Last Days series.  Anecdote: One day when I was chatting with Joseph Card. Ratzinger, he joked that he was glad Peter stopped in Rome and didn’t go to Germany: “Think of the efficiency with which we would be making our mistakes!”.

Yeah… like resigning.

I digress.

There are those who seriously doubt that Francis was duly elected because a) Benedict didn’t properly resign or he had a mistaken idea about what and why he was resigning (being “active”, being “Bishop of Rome and “Pope” while somehow remaining ontologically Vicar of Christ in a contemplative way) or b) because of irregularities of machinations of the St. Gallen Gang or c) Francis taught heresy, therefore whatever he might have been he lost it. Add variants. While there may be some room for discussion about the Benedict’s putative bifurcation of the papacy, I don’t think there was much doubt that Francis was Bishop of Rome. First, his backside was in the chair, as it were. He was accepted as such and governed as such. As a matter of fact, for the first years he didn’t call himself anything other than “Bishop of Rome” and he actively removed from himself the title “Vicar of Christ” and relegated that title to the status of “historic title”. I don’t think he referred to himself as “Pope” until after one of the Synods on… the Family?… when he was irritated that members were protesting (correctly) that procedures weren’t observed and things were being rammed through. Hence, whatever else Francis was (e.g., Successor of Peter as Vicar of Christ, Head of the College of Bishops), he certainly seems to have been Successor of Peter the Bishop of Rome.

Again, is it possible to separate the two?  Auctores scinduntur.  The death of Peter in Rome doesn’t seem to me to be all that compelling an argument.  What if the Romans had killed Peter in, say, Ostia rather than Rome.  Would the whole shootin’ match depend on Ostia?  Yeah… yeah… Roma caput mundi and all that.  Sure, I get it.    But, hey!  Peter could have decided to keep going to teach all nations as Christ commended and he might he next wound up in Carthage.   He still would have been Vicar of Christ in Carthage, but someone else would have been overseeing the community in Rome.

Now we come to the issue of Cardinals.

Cardinals are appointed by the Bishop of Rome and they are, technically, Roman clergy. They obtain titular churches in the diocese of Rome, or titular dioceses in the suburbs of Rome. The case of Cardinal Patriarchs is a little different, but you can see their close association with the Roman Pontiff by their arms, which bears the tiara. It was, in antiquity, the job of the Roman clergy to elect a Bishop of Rome. That’s what they do today. NB: Not all the clergy of Rome vote, but only the designated “hinge-men” who are electors (“cardinal” comes from the Latin word for “hinge”, cardo).

If Francis was at the very least only the Bishop of Rome all these years, he could create cardinals. The College of Cardinals (divided into three orders of bishop, priest and deacon) don’t have to be consecrated as bishops. They usually are now, but not necessarily. This distinguishes the College of Cardinals from the College of Bishops, which seems more strictly related to the Successor of Peter as Vicar of Christ rather than Successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome.

Moreover, while examples don’t immediately spring to mind as I type, I believe there were cardinals created by antipopes who were later accepted as cardinals who could vote for a legitimate Pope (again, “Pope” being a complicated office that comprises Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome – and for a long time now the head of a state – in one person who is Successor of Peter).

All of this is to argue that, like Francis or not, think we wasn’t the legitimate POPE or that he was, it is pretty clear that he could rightly name cardinals.

It is precisely the role of cardinals to elect popes.

Ergo, we don’t have to worry about the legitimacy of the Electors.   If they follow the procedure laid down in Universi dominici gregis and pick someone capable of accepting to be the Successor Peter with all that that entails, then there will be a legitimate Pope.  You might dislike their choice, but they have the right to disappoint, leave us unimpressed or thrill us.

Am I wrong?  Convince me.

May God grant us a Pope who is far better than we deserve.

(I’d settle for a Pope who doesn’t seem to hate me and hate what and whom I hold dear as a Catholic.)