PROPOSAL FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE CODE OF CANON LAW
A well known English theologian has proposed amending the Code of Canon Law to include “a procedure for calling to order a Pope who teaches error.”
Father Aidan Nichols—a Dominican who has taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome—made the suggestion in light of the “extremely grave” confusion caused by Pope Francis with his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
Father Nichols said that the papal document seemed to indicate that “actions condemned by the law of Christ can sometimes be morally right or even, indeed, requested by God.” He said that the document would allow for an unprecedented situation in which the Church “tolerated concubinage.”
The current Code of Canon Law does not provide for any situation in which the Roman Pontiff can be judged by anyone else. However, Father Nichols recalled, the First Vatican Council, in defining papal infallibility, did not take the position “that a Pope is incapable of leading people astray.”
The Dominican theologian reasoned that if a canonical procedure existed that would allow for the correction of a Pope, that might provide a deterrent against novelties in papal teaching. Moreover, he said, the procedure would offer some assurance to other Christians who have concerns about the sweeping nature of papal authority. He said: “Indeed, it may be that the present crisis of the Roman magisterium is providentially intended to call attention to the limits of primacy in this regard.”
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