Eclectic Anecdotes

Cardinal John Henry Newman articulated his understanding of the case of Pope Honorius in his typically erudite manner. He wrote:

I will not pass from this question of History without a word about Pope Honorius, whose condemnation by anathema in the Sixth Ecumenical Council, is certainly a strong primâ facie argument against the Pope’s doctrinal infallibility. His case is this: — Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, favoured, or rather did not condemn, a doctrine concerning our Lord’s Person which afterwards the Sixth Council pronounced to be heresy. He consulted Pope Honorius upon the subject, who in two formal letters declared his entire concurrence with Sergius’s opinion. Honorius died in peace, but, more than forty years after him, the Sixth Ecumenical Council was held, which condemned him as a heretic on the score of those two letters. The simple question is, whether the heretical documents proceeded from him as an infallible authority or as a private Bishop. Now I observe that, whereas the Vatican Council has determined that the Pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedrâ, and that, in order to speak ex cathedrâ, he must at least speak ‘as exercising the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, defining, by virtue of his Apostolical authority, a doctrine whether of faith or of morals for the acceptance of the universal Church’ . . . from this Pontifical and dogmatic explanation of the phrase it follows, that, whatever Honorius said in answer to Sergius, and whatever he held, his words were not ex cathedrâ, and therefore did not proceed from his infallibility. I say so first, because he could not fulfil the above conditions of an ex cathedrâ utterance, if he did not actually mean to fulfil them . . . The Pope cannot address his people East and West, North and South, without meaning it, as if his very voice, the sounds from his lips, could literally be heard from pole to pole; nor can he exert his ‘Apostolical authority’ without knowing he is doing so; nor can he draw up a form of words and use care and make an effort in doing so accurately, without intention to do so; and, therefore, no words of Honorius proceeded from his prerogative of infallible teaching, which were not accompanied with the intention of exercising that prerogative; and who will dream of saying, be he Anglican, Protestant, unbeliever, or on the other hand Catholic, that Honorius on the occasion in question did actually intend to exert that infallible teaching voice which is heard so distinctly in the Quantâ curâ and the Pastor Æternus? . . . Secondly, it is no part of our doctrine, as I shall say in my next section, that the discussions previous to a Council’s definition, or to an ex cathedrâ utterance of a Pope, are infallible, and these letters of Honorius on their very face are nothing more than portions of a discussion with a view to some final decision. For these two reasons the condemnation of Honorius by the Council in no sense compromises the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. At the utmost it only decides that Honorius in his own person was a heretic, which is inconsistent with no Catholic doctrine; but we may rather hope and believe that the anathema fell, not upon him, but upon his letters in their objective sense, he not intending personally what his letters legitimately expressed.[1]

[1] Newman, John Henry. The Quotable Newman: A Definitive Guide to John Henry Newman’s Central Thoughts and Ideas (pp. 187-188). Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition.