The Council of Constance Considered as Unfair Final Exam Question

Originalism comes for the Catholics

“If They Made Me Pope” is on a (hopefully brief) hiatus, since I’ve fallen behind on writing the next entry.

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Question 1: Given the rules of conciliar infallibility and the facts of the Council of Constance, ought the central definition of Haec sancta synodus be understood by Catholics as an infallible doctrine to be held with divine and Catholic faith? Why or why not?

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I’ll start by telling you the rules, as best I can, then you be the judge.

The Catholic Church teaches that ecumenical councils¹ have authority to teach infallibly.² Catholics believe that this power to “teach as one with authority” (Mk 1:22) is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given to the Church at Pentecost, in fulfillment of Christ’s promise to St. Peter that “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against His Church. This power was soon displayed by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, wherein an ecumenical council (consisting of the Apostles) infallibly resolved a serious doctrinal dispute. This infallibility ensures that the Church Christ founded hands down the true Faith, which Christ taught to his Apostles, from generation to generation, without addition, subtraction, or corruption. (At least, not indelible corruption.)

Maybe Catholics are right about this, maybe not, but they are Catholics, so they’ve developed rules about it.³ I have no formal training in this area, and I have struggled to get a handle on all this, but, as best I can work out, these are the rules:

1. A council can teach infallibly only on matters of universal faith and morals.⁴ It can issue disciplinary decrees, it can meditate on Scripture, it can condemn specific gangs of pirates or even anathematize named individual heretics, but all these judgments are merely human. Although they are usually correct, they are inherently fallible and subject to future revision. The Holy Spirit’s absolute protection against error applies only to judgments on universal faith and morals.

2. A council teaches infallibly only if it is “manifestly evident” that it is doing so.⁵ Random utterances deep in the compiled acta of a council are not infallible. The council must be clearly exercising its Apostolic authority to collectively address the Christian world with a formal conclusion. There are no “magic words” for this,⁶ although there are certain words (like “declare,” “define,” and “anathema”) which the Church has frequently used in the infallible-teaching context.

3. Only the infallible definition itself is infallible. Prefatory, explanatory, hortatory, and apologetic matter before, after, or even within the definition is fallible.⁷ For instance, a council could decree: “If X is true, then Y is true. According to the Scriptures (Acts 9:20), X is certainly true. Therefore, we declare, decree, and define that Y is true.” This guarantees that Y is true. However, this definition does not include X, and the council could be misinterpreting Acts 9:20, so X might still be false!

4. Finally, the body must be an ecumenical council, not a mere advisory synod, national council, or similar meeting. Those lesser bodies can (and do) teach errors, sometimes serious ones, sometimes emphatically. A council is ecumenical if:

   1. all Catholic bishops of the world are both welcome to attend and have a duty to attend (unless legitimately impeded, for example by ill health) and

   2. its decisions, once published, receive the consent of the Pope. The proper convoking and presiding officer at an ecumenical council is also the Pope.⁸ Once clearly given, papal consent is irrevocable, for the council’s definitions are, at that point, irreformable. However, papal approbation cannot turn a non-ecumenical council into an ecumenical council.⁹

This is still an oversimplification of a complicated set of rules of construction, but I think it’s enough to be getting on with, and we have a long way to go.

Unsettled Question #1: Papal Convocation and Presidency

While all agree that the pope is the proper convoker of ecumenical councils, is it necessary, or does papal ratification after the council cure any defects in its convocation?

If papal convocation is necessary, this commits Catholics to some hotly contested historical claims about the Council of Nicaea. The emperor, not the pope, convoked that council. Catholics (including St. Robert Bellarmine, patron saint of figuring out which councils are ecumenical) often contend that the emperor convoked Nicaea only at the pope’s request, so it still counts. However, there is no documentary evidence that this request actually happened, and considerable dispute over it. Does this count? Evidence on the ground is even thinner at Constantinople I, which was largely an Eastern council with no papal participation. Does this count?¹⁰ At Constantinople II, the pope issued a formal decree convoking the council with the emperor, but later (unsuccessfully) tried to have the decree withdrawn, so that the council was opened and held without his consent. Does this count?

Likewise, while all agree that the pope should be offered the presidency of any ecumenical council, is this strictly necessary for a council to be ecumenical?

The pope has often sent legates to preside on his behalf, and everyone agrees this counts. It is historically contested, though, whether papal representatives held the presidency at Nicaea, or were even offered it. If they weren’t, does it count? (If not, then are Catholics committed, as a matter of faith, to the historically questionable claim that the president, Ossius, was a papal representative?)

The pope certainly did not send legates to Constantinople I, but he probably could have if he’d tried. Does this count? At Constantinople II, the pope refused to send legates because he opposed the council, but the council repeatedly offered him the presidency anyway. Does this count?

The mainstream Catholic opinion is, “Yeah, probably.”

Another reasonable Catholic opinion is, “Don’t worry about it! Papal convocation and presidency are proper to an ecumenical council, but only papal ratification is necessary.” This avoids many headaches. However, it is only an opinion. The question remains open.

This will be on the exam.

Unsettled Question #2: Papal Ratification

Everyone (in Catholicism) agrees that the pope must ratify a council for it to be valid.

Sometimes, this is clear as a bell. As its very last act before dissolving, the Council of Trent issued a decree on December 4, 1563, asking for papal confirmation of its acts. The papal legates, Cardinals Morone and Simonetta (who had properly presided over the council), traveled back to Rome and shared the deets with the papal court. Then, on January 26, 1564, they formally approached Pope Pius IV in official audience to petition him to ratify the council, and he did, verbally:

Acceding to the petition made to us, by the Legates aforesaid, in the name of the oecumenical Council of Trent, touching the confirmation thereof, We, with apostolic authority, and with the advice and assent of our venerable brethren the cardinals, having previously had a mature deliberation with them, do confirm all and singular the things which have been decreed and defined in the said Council, as well under Paul III., and Julius III., of happy memory, as during the time of our pontificate; and we command that the same be received and inviolably observed by all the faithful of Christ; In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The same day, he issued a written papal bull confirming the acts of the council. God smile on Pope Pius IV, of blessed memory, for performing the ideal ratification, to which all papal ratifications should aspire.

This is not, however, the common reality.

After some councils, we simply have no documentation of an immediate papal reaction at all. Did Pope Sylvester ratify the acts of Nicaea? Obviously. Whether they presided or not, Sylvester did have papal representatives at Nicaea, they signed the acts, and we know that Rome immediately embraced and implemented all that Nicaea had taught and decreed. But, if there was a papal decree confirming Nicaea, it does not survive.

Then there was the Second Council of Constantinople. We have a lengthy ratifying document from that one, Pro Damnatione trium capitulorum,¹¹ but it was obtained under duress. Does this count? (Yes, say Catholics.)

After the Council of Chalcedon, Pope Leo confirmed its doctrinal decrees, but famously rejected Canon 28 (a disciplinary decree regarding the preeminence of different patriarchs). Does that count? Certainly Catholics affirm that Chalcedon is an ecumenical council, but does the pope have the power to single out specific decrees in a council he recognizes as ecumenical and veto them? Can he do so on decrees touching faith and morals, or only disciplinary decrees?¹² Can he veto parts of a council by mere implication? (That last question will very much be on the exam.)

Is there any kind of time limit on all this? The First Council of the Vatican was on summer break in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out and Rome was conquered by the King of Italy. The pope prorogued the council until conditions improved, but they never did. The First Vatican Council remained in suspended animation for 90 years, until Pope John XXIII finally closed the council in order to clear the decks for his forthcoming Second Council of the Vatican. Did he ratify Vatican I in the process? I honestly don’t know. I can’t find any specific document where he formally closes and ratifies it.¹³ Does that count?

Of course, each and every individual act of the First Vatican Council was ratified by the pope at the time, since he was directly presiding over the council. Does that count? The whole Catholic world sure acted like it did, so I’m going to presume “yes,” but this plainly widens our definition of “papal ratification”. Until now, we have only considered popes ratifying entire councils after the council is finished. This opens the possibility of popes ratifying parts of councils during the council. This could get messy. Pope Eugene IV first recognized the Council of Basel as ecumenical, then repudiated it when it taught the conciliarist heresy. Does that count?

Lumen Gentium, the currently-supreme text on this matter, says, simply:

A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them.

This vague text leaves these questions open—apparently deliberately.¹⁴

Unsettled Question #3: Textual Meaning

How should we understand the text of an infallible definition, especially when we have already said that any surrounding explanatory text is fallible? Language always requires some interpretation, and legal instruments are so notoriously open to interpretation that most countries have an entire third branch of government (the judiciary) dedicated to interpreting them.

The Church itself provides some infallible guidance here, in 1870’s Dei Filius (section 4, item 3):

If anyone says that, as science progresses, at times a sense is to be given to dogmas proposed by the Church different from the one that the Church has understood and understands, let him be anathema.

Anathemas tell us what Catholics can’t believe, so I always have to invert them to tell me what Catholics must believe. This one inverts nicely:

Even as science progresses, dogmas proposed by the Church are always to be given the same sense that the Church has understood and understands.

This is one of many reasons I always look slightly askance at people who say that originalism was invented ex nihilo in 1971, or that it “only exists” in America. The Catholic Church made originalism dogma a century before Bork penned “Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems”! Catholics are to interpret infallible definitions according to their original meaning!

However, this still leaves open all the usual questions that face originalists, starting with the most basic question: which original meaning?

1. The meaning intended by the original writers?

2. The meaning understood by the original ratifiers? or,

3. The meaning the words objectively held, according to the language of the day, as understood by contemporary experts in relevant fields (a.k.a. the original public meaning)?¹⁵

Cards on the table: I’m an original-public-meaning originalist in American law, not just because I think the Constitution compels this reading, but because I think it’s the only sane way to read laws in a republic.¹⁶ Non-originalism is an implicit abandonment of the principle that laws have a fixed meaning determined by legislators. Original-intent originalism runs into all sorts of difficulties that I don’t think are resolvable, at least not easily. This leaves original-public-meaning originalism.

I find some support for this in Dei Filius, which demands that we understand dogmas according to “the same sense that the Church has understood.“ Not the council’s sense, not the Pope’s, but the Church’s sense—the original public.

On the other hand, Catholic tradition has held for centuries that, at least in some cases,¹⁷ “the law must be expounded not according to its wording but according to the intent of the lawgiver and the general principles of natural justice,” which goes back to at least Aquinas: “We should take account of the motive of the lawgiver, rather than of his very words.”¹⁸ This at least suggests that we should look to original intention.¹⁹

However, when we are dealing specifically with infallible definitions proclaimed as dogma by the Roman Catholic Church, we have to ask a further question: who is the original writer, whose intentions we might examine? The intentions of the bishop or clerk or subcommittee that drafted it? The council’s overall?

But isn’t it the case that infallible definitions are guaranteed free of falsehood, not by their authors, but by the Holy Spirit? Should we then interpret these dogmas according to the intention of the Holy Spirit? How could we discern this intention, other than from the original public meaning of the text He gave us?²⁰ So perhaps, in the special case of infallible definitions, there really is no difference between original intentions and original public meaning.

I have my leanings, I’m not shy about that, but you already know there aren’t official answers to these questions.

Those are the rules. Here are the facts.

The Council of Constance

The Council of Constance convened to resolve the apex crisis of the medieval Church: the Great Western Schism. It started when a group of French cardinals contended that the election of the pope, Urban VI, had been invalid, so they elected (anti?)pope Clement VII. Rome and France maintained then separate papacies for decades, until the West got fed up and many bishops convened a council. The Council of Pisa deposed both the French and Roman popes and elected a new (anti?)pope. However, Rome and France consistently rejected Pisa’s authority, so this actually made things worse. Now there were three papacies running in parallel, all claiming to be the true bishop of Rome!

The Catholic Church has pretty much always rejected the French line as a bunch of antipopes. However, both the Roman and Pisan lines have had their defenders over the centuries. The Church’s current position is that the Roman popes were the single true lineage and the Pisans were all antipopes, and I personally think this is correct, but there’s been no official, final pronouncement on this. (This will be on the exam.)

The Pisan Pope, John XXIII, with the support of Emperor Sigismund, summoned a general council of bishops to Constance. Many bishops throughout Catholic Christendom attended, and the council began 5 November 1414.²¹ This council, a general council convoked by a pope, believed itself to be an ecumenical council.

In Session Two, John XXIII publicly promised to abdicate if the council asked him to do so. A couple weeks later, John fled Constance and refused the Council’s commands to return, because he realized they might.

In Session Five, the council issued perhaps the most controversial single conciliar document in the history of Christendom, Haec sancta synodus. In relevant part, Haec sancta reads:

In the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity; of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. This Holy Synod of Constance, forming a general council for the extirpation of the present schism and the union and reformation, in head and members, of the Church of God, legitimately assembled in the Holy Ghost, to the praise of Omnipotent God, in order that it may the more easily, safely, effectively and freely bring about the union and reformation of the church of God, hereby determines, decrees, ordains and declares what follows:

It first declares that this same council, legitimately assembled in the Holy Ghost, forming a general council and representing the Catholic Church militant, has its power immediately from Christ, and every one, whatever his state or position, even if it be the Papal dignity itself, is bound to obey it in all those things which pertain to the faith and the healing of the said schism, and to the general reformation of the Church of God, in head and members.

Next, it declares that any one, whatever his condition, station or rank, even if it be the Papal, who shall contumaciously refuse to obey the mandates, decrees, ordinances or instructions which have been, or shall be issued by this holy council, or by any other general council, legitimately summoned, which concern, or in any way relate to the above mentioned objects, shall, unless he repudiate his conduct, be subject to an appropriate penance and be suitably punished, having recourse, if necessary, to the other resources of the law.²²

In other words, the Council of Constance declared that even the Pope was subject to the authority of an ecumenical council.

This claim spawned a decades-long debate over a doctrine that came to be known as conciliarism, which (in its full-fledged form) asserted that councils, separately from the pope, were the supreme authority in the Catholic Church, even if expressly rejected by the pope. This doctrine was eventually condemned as a heresy.²³ It is certain that some of the bishops who composed Haec sancta intended to assert full-fledged conciliarism; it is possible that a majority did. Catholic historians commonly regard Haec sancta as an “openly heretical” decree endorsing full-fledged conciliarism.

In Session 8, the council condemned 45 errors attributed to John Wyclif.

In Session 12, the council declared (anti?)pope John XXIII deposed from the papacy because of his refusal to return to Constance after fleeing.

In Session 14, the council was re-convoked under the authority of the Roman Pope, Gregory XII, who had sent legates to the council. Gregory formally refused to recognize any of the previous sessions, since they had been undertaken under John XXIII’s authority, and Gregory maintained that John was an antipope. Gregory therefore required that the council be freshly convoked. Gregory’s legates were authorized to tender Gregory’s abdication from the papacy. The council promptly accepted his abdication.

In Session 15, the council condemned 58 more errors attributed to John Wycliff, then 30 errors attributed to Jan Hus.

In Sessions 23 through 37, the council repeatedly summoned the French Pope (Benedict XIII), then, when he refused, finally declared him deposed from his questionable papacy.

Some more stuff happened, but it wasn’t very important.²⁴ PapalEncyclicals.net has a useful, albeit opinionated, summary.

In Session 41, the council spun off a papal conclave, which took three days to elect Pope Martin V. Pope Martin hailed from the powerful Colonna family, which had sided with the Pisan Popes. Indeed, Pope Martin had attended the false Council of Pisa, helped elect the first Pisan Pope, and was a loyal supporter of current Pisan Pope John XXIII. He even fled Constance with John after Session Two, before returning later on. The Roman Pope, Gregory XII, had excommunicated Martin for supporting John. (Martin did not recognize the excommunication, because he saw Gregory as an antipope.) At the time of Martin’s election, the excommunication was evidently still in force! Now, though, he became the undisputed pope, and personally presided over the remainder of the council.²⁵

Finally, in Session 45, the council wrapped up. With the council’s consent, Pope Martin dissolved the body and sent everyone home. During the closure, the Duke of Lithuania submitted a petition requesting the pope’s explicit condemnation of a minor character named Johannes Falkenberg, even though the council had declined to issue such a condemnation. Pope Martin replied by affirming:

That all and each of the things determined, concluded, and decreed in the matter of faith by the present holy general Council of Constance, in a conciliar manner, he wished to hold and inviolably to observe, and never in any way to contravene. And these very things, thus done in conciliar manner, he approves and ratifies, and not otherwise, nor in any other way.

I have published a complete, novel Latin transcription and translation of Session 45 (using Mansi’s edition²⁶) in a companion article, since, to the best of my knowledge, the session is not otherwise available in English. (Fun fact: this article was originally just supposed to be a preface to that translation, but it got too long.)

Soon after the Council of Constance dissolved, Pope Martin issued the papal bull Inter cunctas, which reiterated (and condemned) the 45 errors of Wycliff from Session Eight and the 30 errors of Hus from Session Fifteen.²⁷ He specified a creed that repentant Wycliffites and Hussites must agree to in order to be readmitted to communion. That (lengthy) creed included these items:

Likewise, whether he believes, holds, and declares that every general council, including that of Constance, represents the universal Church.

Likewise, whether he believes that what the sacred Council of Constance, which represents the Catholic Church, has approved and does approve in favor of the faith and for the salvation of souls [in favorem fidei et salutem animarum] must be approved and maintained by all the faithful of Christ, and that what [the council] has condemned and does condemn to be contrary to faith and good morals, this must be believed and proclaimed by the same as considered worthy of condemnation.²⁸

More than twenty years later, in 1439, the rump Council of Basel (which considered itself ecumenical, but wasn’t) declared that Haec sancta synodus meant a sitting pope had no power to dissolve or transfer an ongoing ecumenical council without its consent:

1. That the authority of a general council representing the universal Church is superior to the pope and to any other, as declared by the general Council of Constance and by this Basel assembly, is a truth of Catholic faith.

2. That it is a truth of Catholic faith that a pope cannot in any way, by his own authority, dissolve, transfer, or prorogue to another time or place a general council legitimately assembled and representing the universal Church, without its consent, when it has been convoked for matters already declared above or for any of them.

3. That anyone who stubbornly denies these truths is to be judged a heretic.

Then, since Pope Eugene IV had ordered the council moved from Basel to Ferrara, they declared him a heretic deposed from the papacy.

Pope Eugene responded furiously, and excommunicated all concerned:

They also twisted the sense of the Council of Constance into a perverse and impious interpretation, thereby laying the foundation for their schismatic doctrine. …O miserable and degenerate sons! O depraved and adulterous generation (Matt. 12:39)! What could be more cruel, more detestable, more horrible, more insane than this impiety? …Their aforementioned propositions—as perversely understood by them, against the genuine sense of Scripture, the Fathers, and of the Council of Constance itself—together with that pretended sentence of deprivation, we condemn, reprove, and declare to be condemned and reprobated.

I’ve included the full translation of this document (Moyses vir Dei) in the companion article, too.

Seven years after that, Pope Eugene provided the third and final notable attempted ratification of the Council of Constance, when, in 1446, he accepted the whole of the Council, with the following qualification: “…without, however, prejudice to the right, dignity, and preeminence of the Apostolic See.”²⁹

Your Exam Question

The central definition of Haec sancta synodus (already printed above) reads:

[T]his same council, legitimately assembled in the Holy Ghost, forming a general council and representing the Catholic Church militant, has its power immediately from Christ, and every one, whatever his state or position, even if it be the Papal dignity itself, is bound to obey it in all those things which pertain to the faith

Given the rules of conciliar infallibility and the facts of the Council of Constance, ought the central definition of Haec sancta synodus be understood by Catholics as an infallible doctrine to be held with divine and Catholic faith? Why or why not?

The proctor has handed out your blue books.

I include this picture for those of you who went to high school/college after the Internet made these go away, but before AI made them come back.

You have 45 minutes. Your time starts now.

Cheatin’ Time

What kind of freak prof hands out a 3,000-word exam with 20+ footnotes? That’s sick. I can’t be expected to write this all by myself. It’s only the sixth day of class, and he spent the whole third day talking about his fetish or something. I’ll just take a quick glance over my shoulder at what the seminarian behind me is writing…

A: No, for lack of Convocation and/or Presidency

Haec sancta synodus’s definition is not infallible, because it was not the act of a valid ecumenical council.

Haec sancta was passed during the fourth session, but, as of the fourth session, the body had been convoked only under the authority of Antipope John XXIII, who had no authority to convoke an ecumenical council. Only the true Pope, Gregory XII, had the authority to do this, and he did not do so until the fourteenth session. Everything that happened at Constance prior to the fourteenth session (which was really the first true session of Constance) was a mere ultra vires pre-conciliar assembly of bishops.

Moreover, even if we allow that John XXIII might have been a true pope, he fled the council after the second session and did not return after it was reconvened. That meant there was no pope presiding, and no pope was being offered the presidency. (All popes were being asked to resign.)

Haec sancta was therefore issued without authority, notwithstanding Pope Martin V’s later ratification of the council, because—as I will argue in this essay—papal ratification alone is insufficient to validate a council. A valid pope must also convoke the council, directly or (in the case of some of the early councils) indirectly, by making a request of the emperor, or, in the alternative, a pope must at least be offered the presidency.

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Defending that thesis sounds like quite the history project. What about the cute girl on my left? What’s she saying?

B: No, for lack of Ratification

No, Haec sancta synodus contains nothing that is infallible, because this act of the council was excluded from all the council’s ratifications.

In the last session of Constance, Pope Martin, presiding, ingeniously avoided ratifying Haec sancta by rejecting everything “not done in conciliar manner,” a subtle wording that implicitly excluded Haec sancta. Since the Council had not been properly convoked at the time Haec sanctra was passed, it clearly was not passed “in a conciliar manner.” (Nor were the 45 errors of John Wycliff.)

Indeed, Pope Martin’s wording was so brilliantly subtle none of the delegates appear to have noticed that Pope Martin had cleverly excised one of the most prominent documents of the Council from its final product—all the more clever of him, since he was responding off the cuff to the ambassadors of Poland on an unrelated question about John Falkenberg!

Pope Martin sneakily rescued that condemnation of Wycliff later on when he republished them, in his own name, in Inter cunctas. Wycliff was condemned on the pope’s infallible ex cathedra authority, not the council’s.

While it is true that Pope Martin also appeared to ratify Constance in Inter cunctas, the trained eye will notice that he only ratified the portions of Constance which worked “in favor of the faith and for the salvation of souls,” which should not include Haec sancta. Indeed, given the context, this “ratification” should only be understood to include the Council’s condemnations of Wycliffe and Hus.

In the balance of my essay, I will explain why we should set aside the fact that Pope Martin was a loyalist of the Pisan papacy (therefore had no personal doubts about the validity of Antipope John XXIII’s convocation), the fact that he never once raised any recorded complaint against Haec sancta during his life, and the fact that not a single other living soul at the time appears to have understood any of Pope Martin’s acts as repudiating Haec sancta. I will show that either the Holy Spirit gave Martin a sudden, dramatic, and extremely secret conversion to the pro-Roman faction upon his election, leading him to an anachronisitic legal theory about the validity of the early sessions; or that original-public-meaning originalism means it doesn’t matter what Martin intended, as long as the Holy Spirit guided his hand so that the words he actually wrote clearly exclude Haec sancta from ratification. (Which they definitely do.) I will finally explain why I am holding the papal ratification of Constance to such a high standard of textual precision, even though this standard is not normally applied to any other council’s ratification.

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I know that girl is smart as a whip, way smarter than I am, but… I dunno, she sounds more like she’s trying to convince herself than the professor. How about the slick-looking French dude on my left?

C: No, for lack of Spain

Nothing at the Council of Constance was ecumenical until the thirty-fifth session, because all prior sessions were conducted without the adherence of the august Catholic nation known as Spain. (Spain refused to recognize the council for some time, due to largely political reasons.) Maybe Pope Martin later ratified some or all of those sessions, maybe he didn’t, but, without Spain there, does it even matter?

In this essay, I will explain why the participation of Spain was necessary for the validity of the Council of Constance, even though Spanish representation has never been considered necessary for any other ecumenical council, before or since—and, indeed, even though quite a few councils featured no Spaniards!

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Ooooo…kay? (Was I wrong about that guy being French?)

Um, let’s just try someone else. How about that German guy?

D: No, for lack of Pope

The Great Western Schism was such a disaster that there was actually no pope capable of convoking or consenting to an ecumenical council, and so no ecumenical council was possible at the time. Everything the Council of Constance did was wheel-spinning until it entered into conclave and filled the vacancy in the papal office (or, at least, supplied its new holder with enough legible authority to convoke a council). The Council of Constance was therefore only an ecumenical council in its final three sessions. Pope Martin’s ratifications obviously apply only to those final three sessions, since not even a pope can elevate a non-ecumenical council to an ecumenical one if it lacks the basic ingredients.

Anything that “Constance” did that binds Catholics today infallibly, then, was actually done by Pope Martin after the fact, when he re-published many of the decrees of Constance under his own ex cathedra papal authority. Haec sancta synodus was not one of the decrees he republished, therefore it was never properly promulgated by an authority capable of teaching infallibly.

The rest of my essay will explain why neither Pisan Pope John XXIII nor Roman Pope Gregory XII were valid popes capable of convoking or consenting to an ecumenical council, and why post-conciliar ratification does not cure this defect.

Huh. The rest of that is in actual German. I wonder what his full argument is! Maybe it’s good!

Maybe if I just stand up and pretend to stretch for a second, I can see what that smart guy is writing four seats over. What’s his name? Walt? I like his hat.

E: No, Because Disciplinary

It is an ancient principle of state that governments are automatically supplied with whatever power is necessary to ensure their own survival. This is surely no less true in the government of God, the Church, than in any other.

Haec sancta was a response to an extreme emergency, a Western Schism that threatened to rip the Church apart with no visible path to restoration. The council fathers did not intend to decree themselves superior to the pope forever and always, and the language they used did not do that. After all, the council fathers were pro-papal! They were there to restore the papacy! Rather, the council fathers intended to decree themselves superior to dubious claimants to the papacy in the teeth of the greatest legitimacy crisis in history. Rather than formulating revolutionary new dogma, the council fathers were simply establishing their authority to review papal legitimacy, so that they could then establish a process (something a well-regarded Catholic blog, De Civitate, routinely requests even today!).

Haec sancta synodus is merely a disciplinary decree, no different from Frequens or any of the many other disciplinary decrees of ecumenical councils that are passed and later repealed. It is not “manifestly evident” that it exercises an Apostolic or infallible character, it is on a matter of ecclesiastical government unconnected to faith or morals, and, being so narrowly focused on the immediate crisis it was addressing, it is anything but universal. Its strongly-worded opening must be read in light of its (obviously merely disciplinary) second half.³⁰

In my essay today, I will explain how to reconcile the sweeping, formulaic, definitive-sounding language of Haec sancta itself with the more restricted reading I have just suggested. I will further explain why this decree on ecclesiastical governance is not a matter of “faith and morals,” while other decrees on ecclesiastical governance (like Vatican I’s Pastor Aeternus) are a matter of faith and morals (and therefore infallible).

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What about the smug, contrarian kid? He’s always wrong, but gets good grades anyway. We’ll just pass his desk briefly on the way to a “bathroom break” and take a peek…

F: Yes

Haec sancta synodus meets all the criteria for an infallible definition of an ecumenical council. It is a clear, definitive, conclusive exercise of the teaching authority of a council on a matter of faith and morals. To deny the infallible force of Haec sancta based on its language alone would likely require one to deny the infallibility of a great many other accepted definitions, such as the famous Tome of Leo.

The council that passed Haec sancta was one of the largest and most diverse gatherings of Catholic prelates of the period. Flowery but empty qualifications notwithstanding, legitimate popes ratified it not less than three times afterward, curing all possible defects regarding the council’s convocation and presidency. It means what it says: the teachings and decrees of an ecumenical council are binding on everyone, even the pope.

We could stop here, as Hans Küng did, and say that this simply means full-fledged conciliarism is true, that councils can contradict the pope, that all recent attempts to refute it (for example, Vatican I’s teachings on papal co-supremacy) have been heretical, that the Catholic Church is therefore quite possibly a false and contradictory Church, that the pope is a mere inferior officer of the Church, and that the Old Catholics are probably right. (Unsurprisingly, Hans Küng was condemned for heresy.)

However, this assumes much about what the infallible proposition defined by Haec sancta actually entails. After all, an infallible definition contains only what it contains, and nothing else. Although Haec sancta requires a pope to obey an ecumenical council, it does not change the fact that an ecumenical council is elevated to that status only by the consent of the pope, through his ratification of the council’s acts. A fair reading of Haec sancta in this light leads to this uncontroversial conclusion: the pope must obey the teachings and decrees of an ecumenical council which he himself agrees to obey.

The Council of Constance proceeded exactly as though this understanding were correct. The true pope, Gregory XII, voluntarily submitted himself to the council, offered his voluntary abdication, and voluntarily abided by the council’s decision when they took him up on it.³¹ Although Haec sancta was later hijacked by full-fledged conciliarists at Basel, Pope Eugene IV was quite correct in Moyes vir Dei, when he condemned the conciliarists as having “twisted the sense of the Council of Constance” into a “perverse underst[anding], against the genuine sense of… the Council of Constance.” Pope Eugene correctly insisted that Haec sancta did not set councils against popes, but only against (as Haec sancta put it) pretenders to the “papal dignity.”

There is simply nothing in Haec sancta, then, that challenges papal supremacy. Rather, Haec sancta teaches us something important and infallible about the supreme and universal jurisdiction of councils (especially in times of extreme papal crisis). The desperation of Catholic scholars to refute Haec sancta over the centuries was born partly of insecurity, prior to Lumen Gentium, about how popes could share supremacy with ecumenical councils, and partly of an ultra-ultramontanist conception of the Church that has since been deflated (by, among other things, Lumen Gentium).

The rest of my essay will be devoted to showing why the full-fledged conciliarist intentions of some of the council fathers at Constance (perhaps a majority) may be set aside as irrelevant. In the process, I will defend original-public-meaning originalism for interpreting Church definitions, showing why our sole concern with Haec sancta must be the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.

Oh no, I spent so much time cheating I forgot to start writing an answer of my own, and now time’s almost up and—

Pencils Down! Answers, Please!

All of the answers sketched above are reasonably common answers to “Does Haec Sancta Define Infallibly?”

• A: No, for lack of Convocation and/or Presidency: This is a prominent traditionalist view. It is championed by, I am given to understand, Joseph Gill, among others, and it seems to be at least a background assumption of many other answers.

• B: No, for lack of Ratification: The idea that Pope Martin was some kind of superspy diplomat who cleverly avoided ratifying Haec sancta (while using language that sure made it sound like he was ratifying Haec sancta) is, in my view, the least convincing on this list. Imagine my embarrassment upon discovering that it is probably the most mainstream Catholic view, at least in the English-speaking world, defended rather enthusiastically by Warren H. Carroll and, evidently, Fr. Philip Hughes. Perhaps there is more to this view than I give it credit for.

• C: No, for lack of Spain: The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia attributes this view to Fr. Louis Salembier. I am sure that, in reality, his actual argument sounds less stupid than I have made it out to be for laughs. However, if that’s so, I can’t even begin to guess at what his actual argument might be.

• D: No, for lack of Pope: I understand this to be the view of Karl Joseph von Hefele, based again on the Catholic Encyclopedia. However, when I went to read the actual work of this eminent Church historian, I could only find it in the original German (in a very pretty font) and bailed.

• E: No, Because Disciplinary: The view that Haec sancta simply wasn’t even an attempt at an infallible definition has gained enormous strength in the past thirty years, thanks to the work of its champion, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller. You may think of +Brandmüller as a prominent conservative, one of the five “dubia cardinals” and a public critic of Pope Francis. However, the principal concern of his life has been the academic history of ecumenical councils, specifically the Council of Constance. His two-volume history of the council, whose first volume was published in the early 1990s, was considered a major breakthrough, masterfully drawing together numerous new textual sources unearthed in the past century—many of them discovered by +Brandmüller himself. Unfortunately, this work, too, is entirely in German, so I could only paraphrase what I was able to glean from second-hand references and short book reviews. I suspect his full argument has more force than I realize.

• F: Yes, Haec sancta’s Definition is Infallible: There are two flavors of this view (which is why that answer was so long).

  • F1: Yes, and Catholicism is Therefore Built on Lies: The view that Haec sancta is infallible and contradicts other Church teaching is taken by many prominent non-Catholics, for obvious reasons: it would be difficult to remain Catholic while believing in a self-contradictory Church, and it’s a relatively easy argument to make if you’re an apologist for another religion who wants to disprove Catholicism.

  • F2: Yes, but There’s No Conflict There So Please Be Chill: The view that Haec sancta is infallible and does not contradict other Church teaching is known to the world (Fr. Patrick J. Burns, S.J., mentions it approvingly in a 1974 article³²), but I am aware of no especially prominent defenders. However, for what little it is worth against so many eminent scholars, this is also my view of Haec sancta. I think Haec sancta’s definition is infallible, but that, correctly understood, it poses no threat to the rest of the edifice of Catholic teaching.

Some of these positions may strengthen or weaken over time as the ever-receding frontier of scholarship presses forward. We’ve seen that in just the past thirty years, with Cardinal Brandmüller’s revival of Option E! Someday, dogmatic theologians and Church historians may even arrive at a settled consensus. There is certainly nothing resembling a consensus today. The mainstream Catholic view is that Haec sancta’s definition is fallible (indeed, that it is false!), but, as we’ve seen, the reasoning for this view is completely fractured. As far as I can tell, no single explanation of Haec sancta has anything like majority support.

However, it is likely that we will be able to definitively rule out at least some of these answers over the next several centuries. This will be accomplished the way the Catholic Church usually clarifies more of its own unwritten constitution: through constitutional crisis, disaster, and slow recovery.

Nonetheless, I deem it unlikely that we will ever get an absolutely definitive answer from the Church about the specific legal reasons why Haec sancta synodus’s definition is or is not infallible. The Church often reflects upon, and further expounds upon, the contents of her teachings. (She has indeed been magnificently clear since Constance that full-fledged conciliarism is definitely false and, indeed, heretical.) But the Church rarely offers definitive, retrospective judgments of specific documents that happen to contain her teachings.

Which means this exam question is probably going to be a pretty good one until the Second Coming.

Then we can finally ask the proctor.

UPDATE 2 October: Turns out, Hans Küng was not excommunicated, as I originally wrote. He was investigated for heresy and eventually stripped of his license to teach Catholic theology because of it, which led to a widespread belief that he had been excommunicated, but he accepted the process, thereby avoiding the ultimate sanction. My mistake! I have changed “excommunicated” to “condemned for heresy.”

UPDATE 4 October: In the comments,

Gilbert

has very kindly applied his German and translated some key passages of Hefele, as well as providing a summary of some of +Brandmüller’s early work! I strongly recommend his comments for this additional source material: Translations of Hefele, and Summary of +Brandmüller.

1. Popes have a similar infallible teaching authority, known as ex cathedra teaching authority. The “ordinary and universal magisterium,” which is the collective teaching authority of all bishops across the world without meeting in council, also has an infallible teaching authority—although, as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia explains, this authority “is liable to be somewhat indefinite in its pronouncements and, as a consequence, practically ineffective as an organ.”

Today’s article will not treat either of these “modes” of infallibility. It is focused exclusively on the conditions for conciliar infallibility. The Council of Constance is messy and confusing enough without borrowing extra trouble from Vatican I and the magisterium ordinarium.

2. ”Infallible” means that the teaching not only is not false, but that it cannot possibly be false. There can be no reason for further debate of an infallible proposition, once the proposition is properly understood.

The Holy Spirit’s protection from falsehood doesn’t mean a particular definition states the full truth, or even that they state a partial truth clearly or persuasively. It just means the statement, fairly construed, contains no actual falsehood. It may later be complemented by other teachings, but neither contradicted nor revised.

We know the Holy Spirit works like this sometimes, because we see the gradual revelation of God’s plan for human salvation throughout the Old Testament, culminating in the Gospels.

3. The complexity of Catholic law is sometimes taken as evidence that it’s just a big human construct, because, of course, any set of laws God created would mirror His divine simplicity and be extremely simple to understand and apply. People who think this confuse me. Have they seen this universe? Have they ever tried math? Math is nuts. God did that. I therefore tend to see the complexity of Catholic law as evidence of its divine institution, just like the complexity of pre-Christian Jewish law was evidence of its divine institution. Not one jot or tittle!

Now, in an interesting twist, most of the Catholic rules about conciliar infallibility have never themselves received formal, infallible definition. They are the product of a consensus that has developed over centuries and, perhaps, of the ordinary and universal magisterium. There is therefore still wiggle room in many of the rules I am about to enumerate.

…although not as much wiggle room as you might think. Even without a formal definition, the rules of conciliar infallibility are so inextricably tied into the actual history of the Church that you can’t really deny most of them without ultimately denying Catholicism.

4. Yes, of course Catholics have further rules about what constitutes “faith” and/or “morals.” Dr. Christian Washburn neatly summarizes St. Robert Bellarmine’s watershed work on this topic in his paper, “St. Robert Bellarmine on the Infallibility of General Councils of the Church,” page 185:

The phrase ‘faith and morals’ [fides and mores] was customary by the sixteenth century and admitted a wide range of meanings; however, Bellarmine’s usage of the phrase in De Conciliis seems to be relatively clear and straightforward. By the term ‘faith’ he includes a number of related but discrete matters, and throughout the fourth controversy, Bellarmine gives examples that explain to some extent what he has in mind. First, a council can teach infallibly on revealed truths, as Trent did by issuing a decree on the proper interpretation of the words of institution, This is my body. Second, a council can teach infallibly when it determines the extent of revelation by designating the canon of sacred scripture. Lastly, a council can teach infallibly on faith when it chooses a term that is necessary to preserve the meaning of revelation, such as homoousios. A council can also teach infallibly on things necessary for explaining the faith (in fide explicanda) of the Church by choosing the words in which revealed truths can be expressed. The Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus, he argues, demanded the acceptance of the words homoousion and Theotokos precisely to explain the correct meaning of revelation. Finally, Bellarmine also seems to have in mind what in later theology came to be called theological conclusions. Bellarmine notes that the Council of Nicaea defined Christ to be homoousion Patri, which it deduced as a conclusion from the scriptures (deduxit conclusionem ex Scripturis). The scriptures affirm clearly (diserte) that there is one God, and that the Father is God, and that the Son is God, from which it follows necessarily that the Father and Son are of the same substance and Godhead. Bellarmine’s second example is found in the Third Council of Constantinople, which defined that in Christ there are two wills, divine and human. Scripture does not explicitly reveal that Christ had both a divine and a human will. Nevertheless, from the clear teaching of scripture that Christ is perfect God and perfect man, the council deduced that Christ must have both a human and a divine will.

The term mores was often used by theologians and the Church in very different ways, covering a range of issues from moral principles to ecclesiastical discipline. Fortunately, in the third controversy, Bellarmine had devoted an entire chapter, entitled De decretis morum, to the topic, clarifying to a large extent the meaning of the term which he now applies to conciliar decrees. For a council to teach infallibly on mores, three conditions must be met: the moral precepts must be prescribed for the whole Church, these moral precepts must be necessary for salvation, and they are either per se good or per se evil. Bellarmine provides a number of examples of what he has in mind. The pope or council cannot err by prescribing some vice, such as usury, which is per se evil and must be avoided by the Christian as a violation of the seventh commandment. Nor can the Church err by proscribing some virtue, such as making restitution, which is per se good. Nor is it possible for the pope to err by prescribing something contrary to salvation, such as circumcision or the Sabbath, since both of these have been superseded by baptism and the Sunday obligation.

Suffice to say that Bellarmine’s elucidation of the direct and secondary objects of infallibility, particularly with regard to fides, are more or less universally accepted today, as shown by (for example) the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on infallibility (especially the section on scope).

5. This principle is succinctly stated today in the Code of Canon Law, Canon 749, Section 3. This specific canon dates to 1982, but the principle is ancient and certain.

6. Some people say that it isn’t infallible unless concluded by the words “…anathema sit,” but the Church rejects this “magic words” approach. After all, one of the most famously uncontroversial infallible decrees of all time, Benedictus Deus, does not include any anathema. The question is whether the Church is attempting to teach definitively, not whether it uttered a particular formula.

7. St. Robert Bellarmine writes, in De Controversiis 4.2.12 (quoted in Washburn):

The greater part of the acta of councils does not belong to the faith. For the discussions which precede a decree are not of the faith, nor are the reasons adduced for them, nor are those things brought forward to illustrate or explain them, but only those actual decrees, which are proposed as de fide.

8. This comes almost directly from St. Bellarmine, who defined an ecumenical council as one “in which the bishops of the world can and ought to be present, unless legitimately impeded, and over which no one may rightly preside, except the supreme pontiff or one designated by him” (De Controversiis: De Conciliae, 4.1.4).

I got this passage originally from Washburn, but I read De Conciliae last year and confirmed that, yes, Bellarmine really did say this. I have updated Bellarmine’s definition slightly to reflect developments at Vatican II, which we’ll discuss soon.

9. Otherwise, every minor regional Italian synod that happened to have the Pope presiding would be an organ of supreme teaching authority. The Catholic Church loves its pope, but not so much that it puts the Synod of Piacenza at the same rank as Nicaea.

The Catholic Church recognizes 22 ecumenical councils (so far), including the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem.

10. One possible theory of Constantinople I is that it was not a true ecumenical council, but that, because its creed and doctrinal decrees were all re-promulgated by the definitely ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, and held infallible by Chalcedon, we may as well treat it like one for most purposes (even though it is, on this theory, really Chalcedon that taught it infallibly, not Constantinople I). Hence you sometimes see historians writing about the “special status” of Constantinople I.

11. Sometimes known as Dominus noster ac salvator, dated 23 February 554.

12. I think virtually all Catholics agree that the answer is “yes,” but I also don't think it's ever been tested.

13. I only spent 30 minutes looking. It’s probably out there.

Probably.

You might think that Pope Pius IX’s bull suspending the council in 1870 also confirmed its acts, but it did not. See Postquam dei munere, translated alongside the original Latin in Appendix IV (p203) of The Vatican Council, from its Opening to its Prorogation, Volume II. This little book was evidently compiled by The Tablet newspaper and published by Burns, Oates, and Co, probably around 1871.

14. In other words, what Lumen Gentium says is free of falsehood, but incomplete. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether Catholics ought to view this passage of Lumen Gentium as infallible or merely correct.

15. The gap between #2 and #3 is not large, but can matter in some contexts.

16. Non-originalism could possibly work in a monarchy, where there actually is a single lawgiver who could possibly be presumed to have a single, clear, comprehensive will and intention.

Non-originalism can also work, of course, when the law itself prescribes it, as it occasionally does. However, the clause that prescribes non-originalism is always itself construed according to its original public meaning.

17. The paradigm case is a sign in a park that says, “Don’t walk on the grass,” backed by a city ordinance. You are on the sidewalk when you see someone suffer a heart attack on the other side of the grass. There is no “Good Samaritan” ordinance suspending the “Don’t walk on the grass” law. (The city council didn’t think to include one.)

If you run across the grass to swiftly render aid, instead of going all the way around on the sidewalk, have you broken the law? Aquinas says “no,” because the law in this case violates both natural justice and the obvious intent of the lawgiver. (Another cute legal fiction in Catholic legal thought is that lawgivers are always presumed to have good intentions, and so any outcomes that violate natural justice are presumably against their intention.)

I say “yes,” you did break the law, but that you should receive an immediate pardon (then a reward), because the law was badly written and you broke it heroically.

If you want to go further down this rabbit hole, I discussed this hypothetical, and Aquinas’s and Scalia’s differing accounts of it, at greater length in “If They’d Made Me Pope: Restoring the Rule of Law,” at footnote 5 (and accompanying text).

For a critical view, I had a nice chat with De Civ regular Sathya Rađa in the comments, wherein he challenged much of what I said there (and which I have largely repeated here).

18. Summa Theologiae, Prima Secunda Pars, Question 96, Article 6, Respondeo.

19. But see also James R. Rogers’s article, “Aquinas’s Defense of Textualism,” at Law & Liberty last month. He argues that too much can be made of this distinction, and that, in any event, Aquinas certainly doesn’t embrace Breyer-style judicial pragmatism.

I think it would be a fun project to fully reconcile the work of Scalia and his disciples with the work of Aquinas and his.

20. Adopting this view avoids certain serious difficulties that arise if you look to the original intent of the human writer. For example, in Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII infallibly declared, “Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

A typical and time-honored method of reconciling this definition with Church teaching about the Church’s limited temporal power (and, indeed, the possibility of salvation outside the Church) is to say that the definition does not specify precisely in what way a person is to be subject to the Pontiff, then to show that someone can be spiritually subject to the pope without being subject to his civil authority (then to show that someone—say, a devout Protestant, or a pagan in an uncontacted tribe, or an Orthodox martyr—can be spiritually subject to the pope without recognizing it).

But this approach to Unam Sanctam runs into problems with original-intent originalism, because it’s quite clear from the rest of the (otherwise fallible) bull that, no, actually, Pope Boniface VIII is clearly saying that everyone on Earth is subject to the pope’s temporal power and will go to Hell for resisting it! That’s why Unam Sanctam made everyone so mad! Boniface’s intention was bad! The next pope repealed practically all of it just four years later!

There are ways of defusing this available even to original-intent originalists. (Boniface himself had offered important qualifications to his theory mere weeks before, then, for some insane reason, decided not to include them in the most important bull of his papacy, possibly thinking no one would interpret him as meaning to say the insane thing he did, in fact, say. Possibly.) However, it’s a lot simpler to just say, “I don’t care what Boniface intended in the last sentence of Unam Sanctam, because it’s the objective meaning of his words that counts, not his personal intention.”

21. Unusually (to say the least), this council did not allow bishops to vote individually, but rather by nation, under a unit rule.

22. It goes on from there:

Next, the said holy synod defines and ordains that the lord pope John XXIII may not move or transfer the Roman curia and its public offices, or its or their officials, from the city of Constance to another place, nor directly or indirectly compel the said officials to follow him, without the deliberation and consent of the same holy synod. If he has acted to the contrary in the past, or shall in the future, or if he has in the past, is now or shall in the future fulminate any processes or mandates or ecclesiastical censures or any other penalties, against the said officials or any other adherents of this sacred council, to the effect that they should follow him, then all is null and void and in no way are the said processes, censures and penalties to be obeyed, inasmuch as they are null and void. The said officials are rather to exercise their offices in the said city of Constance, and to carry them out freely as before, as long as this holy synod h being held in the said City.

Next, that all translations of prelates, or depositions of the same, or of any other beneficed persons, officials and administrators, revocations of commendams and gifts, admonitions, ecclesiastical censures, processes, sentences and whatever has been or will be done or accomplished by the aforesaid lord pope John or his officials or commissaries, since the beginning of this council, to the injury of the said council or its adherents, against the supporters or participants of this sacred council, or to the prejudice of them or of any one of them, in whatever way they may have been or shall be made or done, against the will of the persons concerned, are by this very fact, on the authority of this sacred council, null, quashed, invalid and void, and of no effect or moment, and the council by its authority quashes, invalidates and annuls them.

Next, it declares that the lord pope John XXIII and all the prelates and other persons summoned to this sacred council, and other participants in the same synod, have enjoyed and do now enjoy full freedom, as has been apparent in the said sacred council, and the opposite has not been brought to the notice of the said summoned persons or of the said council. The said sacred council testifies to this before God and people.

23. This was sort of obvious from the get-go. The Catholic Church’s claim that the very heretical “robber council” of Ephesus in 448 was invalid is based on the fact that, even though it otherwise met the requirements for ecumenicity, the pope immediately and forcefully rejected its result. If the full-fledged conciliarists were right, then the “robber council” was actually a true ecumenical council, and Pope Leo the Great was a heretic for rejecting it! Therefore, they are wrong.

The Church’s current view, articulated in Lumen Gentium 22 and enshrined in canon law, is that the pope and the college of bishops are both the supreme authorities of the Church, co-equally, with the proviso that the pope himself is the head of the college of bishops.

24. Notably, the council passed Frequens, a decree demanding that an ecumenical council be celebrated in five years, then seven years later, than every ten years in perpetuity. This decree is way less interesting than Haec sancta, because it is obviously a disciplinary decree, not a definition of a matter of faith and morals. It was therefore fallible and reformable. Therefore the pope, as supreme legislator of the Church, obviously had the power to repeal it.

The popes immediately after the Council of Constance tried to follow it, and Pope Martin opened a council at Pavia five years after Constance, as instructed. This council was poorly attended and contentious, so Martin closed it and scheduled a new council, at Basel, seven years hence. However, that council immediately tried to go for Full-Fledged Conciliarism, so the popes repudiated Basel and repealed Frequens.

25. Well, the French disputed it, but no one cared, and eventually they gave up.

26. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, by Mansi, pages 1195-1205.

27. Oddly, the 58 errors of Wycliff condemned in Session Fifteen alongside Hus do not appear in Inter cunctas.

At this point, your brain might be frazzled enough that you are tempted to ask whether Inter cunctas, especially its attached creed, is itself infallible? Feel free to ask, but that is not part of the exam. The relevant question for the exam is whether and to what extent Inter cunctas indicates papal ratification of the Council of Constance and its acts. Ratification does not require an infallible definition.

28. Translation from Denzinger (43rd edition, 1137-38).

29. “absque tamen præjudicio juris, dignitatis, et præeminentiæ sedis apostolicæ,” according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which further states that this occurred in a statement of Pope Eugene on 22 July 1446.

30. See footnote 22.

31. Even Antipope John XXIII voluntarily submitted to the council’s review and, by solemn promises, offered his own abdication. Of course, he tried to renege on that, and then he physically arrested, jailed, and tried by the council, but even he eventually accepted Pope Martin V, was reconciled, and died in the bosom of the Church.

32. Patrick J. Burns, “Communion, Councils, and Collegiality: Some Catholic Reflections,” in Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, ed. Paul C. Empie and T. Austin Murphy [Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue V; Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1974], 163-66