AHC/WI: Sitting Pope excommunicated for Heresy/Apostasy

Your challenge if you choose to accept it is to have a sitting Pope excommunicated on charges of Heresy/Apostasy. Your POD can be anywhere from the foundation of the Papacy to the modern day.

Note: Having a Pope posthumously excommunicated does not count for the challenge.
 
rampaging schizophenia prehaps? ... aren't the Pope the last signer before someone is excommunicated? ... that or getting excommunicated by a completing pope (say Avignon)

That said ... the Patriarch of Constantinoble excommunicated the sitting Pope at the official start of the Schism
 
It's, by definition, really hard. Popes are supposed to be orthodox by their own position, they define and/or represent theological orthodoxy.

It did happened, however and the case is more or less concieved still nowadays.
Novatian, for instance, was excommunicated while being a pope (antipope for Roman church).

That's the trick : as long a pope began holding heterodoxial beliefs, critically at the point of being excommunicated, he would be considered as an antipope if he doesn't resign the title.

And to have someone being elected pope without nobody noticing his heterodoxial beliefs before the election, requires so much a theological and political blindness from people that are quite expert on both (Roman Curia is what was more close of a can of worms, historically and "I voted for an heretic as pope, and all I get was this lousy cassock" isn't going to help much), that it's really implausible.

That said ... the Patriarch of Constantinoble excommunicated the sitting Pope at the official start of the Schism
He didn't. Michael excommunicated the legates, not the pope.
 
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Pope Benedict XIII (elected 1394-1423) was excommunicated in 1417.

(Well, antipope, but that's the best I can get.)
 
The problem is only the Pope can legally excommunicate someone. So unless the reigning Pope go's crazy and excommunicates himself there's really no way for this to happen.
 
The problem is only the Pope can legally excommunicate someone. So unless the reigning Pope go's crazy and excommunicates himself there's really no way for this to happen.

That's not entierly true : there's "automatic" excommunication. By exemple, a pope going against core beliefs (let's say Christ's essence) of the Roman church would be automatically excommunicated.
 
That's not entierly true : there's "automatic" excommunication. By exemple, a pope going against core beliefs (let's say Christ's essence) of the Roman church would be automatically excommunicated.

Yeah but who's going to enact automatic excommunication? The Cardinals? If that's the case then I doubt it would be recognized by much of the Catholic world. So unless the Pope decides that Jesus isn't the son of God or something like that, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.
 
Yeah but who's going to enact automatic excommunication?The Cardinals?
Probably.

If that's the case then I doubt it would be recognized by much of the Catholic world. So unless the Pope decides that Jesus isn't the son of God or something like that, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.

As astonishing it may sounds, the pope isn't the God-King of Catholicia.

Going against the beliefs of a main religion, when even pissing enough people historically led to antipopes and schisms, isn't going to be respected because he's the pope, when his own actions made him being no longer such.
History is full of popes that were rejected by their "base" with Cardinals choosing another one, leading either to the desmise of the first, or at best making him an antipope.
 
The only way to see this happen would be with a stronger Byzantine presence in Italy. If the Eastern Emperor can enforce his authority over the Western Church, then it is unlikely that the office of the Papacy will develop as it did OTL. The title "pope" would still be used, and Rome could claim to have some sort of primacy, but at the end of the day any holder of that office could be excommunicated just as any other bishop.
 
Wouldn't the Western Schism count? Technically speaking the Avignon Papacy WAS the legal papacy and the only edge the Rome Papacy had during the same period was the virtue of actually being in Rome both of which were later declared null and void and excommunicated (though this was ignored) by the Council of Pisa in 1409. If we're counting either Pope as legit then that would meet the bar for excommunicating a sitting Pope though technically speaking the Council of Constance set the precedent for the Roman line being the only legitimate line after the fact.
 
have a liberal 20th century pope declares homosexuality, pre-marital sex, condom use, and abortion is not a sin, and we'll then sit back and eat popcorn, looking at all the quagmire that are sure to happen... :D
 
Wouldn't the Western Schism count? Technically speaking the Avignon Papacy WAS the legal papacy and the only edge the Rome Papacy had during the same period was the virtue of actually being in Rome both of which were later declared null and void and excommunicated (though this was ignored) by the Council of Pisa in 1409. If we're counting either Pope as legit then that would meet the bar for excommunicating a sitting Pope though technically speaking the Council of Constance set the precedent for the Roman line being the only legitimate line after the fact.

Speaking about Councils; if conciliarism had been succesful then a Church Council could have had the power to excommunicate a Pope who did stuff that the Council disagreed with (for example claiming Papal supremacy)
 
Speaking about Councils; if conciliarism had been succesful then a Church Council could have had the power to excommunicate a Pope who did stuff that the Council disagreed with (for example claiming Papal supremacy)

Conciliarism itself wasn't opposed to Pontifical power. They ended to be quite conservatives regarding institutional ecclesiastical power, and were more about being a necessary base to pontifical theocracy than replacing it.

They couldn't have gained such power over papacy without having damaged their own legitimacy that was taken from pontifical authority, shared with Councils.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
You know, when I first saw this, I thought it read:

Sitting Bull excommunicated for Heresy/Apostasy

Which would be an interesting scenario in its own right.

Best,
 
Here's the list of charges against John XII, copied from Wikipedia:

Liudprand of Cremona, a partisan of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, gives an account of the charges levelled against him at the Synod of Rome in 963:
"Then, rising up, the cardinal priest Peter testified that he himself had seen John XII celebrate Mass without taking communion. John, bishop of Narni, and John, a cardinal deacon, professed that they themselves saw that a deacon had been ordained in a horse stable, but were unsure of the time. Benedict, cardinal deacon, with other co-deacons and priests, said they knew that he had been paid for ordaining bishops, specifically that he had ordained a ten-year-old bishop in the city of Todi... They testified about his adultery, which they did not see with their own eyes, but nonetheless knew with certainty: he had fornicated with the widow of Rainier, with Stephana his father's concubine, with the widow Anna, and with his own niece, and he made the sacred palace into a whorehouse. They said that he had gone hunting publicly; that he had blinded his confessor Benedict, and thereafter Benedict had died; that he had killed John, cardinal subdeacon, after castrating him; and that he had set fires, girded on a sword, and put on a helmet and cuirass. All, clerics as well as laymen, declared that he had toasted to the devil with wine. They said when playing at dice, he invoked Jupiter, Venus and other demons. They even said he did not celebrate Matins at the canonical hours nor did he make the sign of the cross."

I think that some of them, like toasting the devil, fall within the general heading of heresy.
 
Conciliarism itself wasn't opposed to Pontifical power. They ended to be quite conservatives regarding institutional ecclesiastical power, and were more about being a necessary base to pontifical theocracy than replacing it.

They couldn't have gained such power over papacy without having damaged their own legitimacy that was taken from pontifical authority, shared with Councils.

This pretty much; every medieval church council leading up to Lateran IV was very much a body meant to reinforce and advance the standing of the Papacy. Even when you're looking at Constance and Pisa those were called because the Papacy as an institution was losing credibility and support with the intent of restoring it, not overthrowing it.

You might be able to get an outcome with stronger Church councils if the Council of Constance dictates are ignored by all parties and the Council, based on support from the lower ranks of the church hierarchy, pushes all the sitting popes and anti-popes aside in favor of taking the reigns directly.
 
I'm surprised that Papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals has not been raised (unless I missed it in my scan of the posts).

I know, this is Wikipedia...

"Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error[1] "When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church."[2]
This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870, but had been defended before that, existing already in medieval theology and being the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.[3]"

There are restrictions regarding Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture, but the ecclesiasticalese is more dense and impenetrable than legalese. Every time I think that there is a blocking restriction, I find a detour around it...I love my church!
 
I'm surprised that Papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals has not been raised (unless I missed it in my scan of the posts).

I know, this is Wikipedia...

"Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error[1] "When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church."[2]
This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870, but had been defended before that, existing already in medieval theology and being the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.[3]"

There are restrictions regarding Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture, but the ecclesiasticalese is more dense and impenetrable than legalese. Every time I think that there is a blocking restriction, I find a detour around it...I love my church!

Since that has only been dogma since 1870, and it is highly unlikely an institution as cohesive and siege-mentality ridden as the Catholic Church of the 19th and 20th centuries would risk a public airing of dirty laundry, it really means little for the thread. Can you really see anyone trying to do that to any recent pope?

The best chances for something like that are early on, when there still were institutional countweights that could challenge the papacy within the church structure. An Ecumenical Council in the 700s. A cabal of Italian bishops in the 900s. An imperial church council in the 1000s. Even an ambitious group of cardinals around 1450. Or, naturally, during the Western schism. But it's hard to see in the post-Tridentine church, harder post Vatican I.
 
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