Summa de Ecclesia

After we showed to what matters the universal council can or may by power extend itself when there stands in the apostolic see some undoubted prelate, it now comes to be discussed to what matters it ought or can extend itself if it should happen to be assembled with the apostolic see vacant. In which disputation we must say, with always better judgment reserved, that the universal council assembled with the apostolic see vacant, before the creation of the Roman pontiff, can and may execute those things which would necessarily arise for the government and protection of the Church where provision could not be made through the disposition of law, and which could not without great loss be deferred until the creation of the Roman pontiff. Which conclusion is easily shown, since unless it be granted that, with the apostolic see vacant in which the Lord placed the principate of the Church and the government of the Christian people, there is with the prelates of the Church a power of providing in the aforesaid case for the pressing necessities of the Church, the Church would not seem sufficiently provided for in those things which are necessary to the Christian people, which must in no way be said of Christ, the founder and head of the Church herself, whose wisdom reaches from end to end, sweetly disposing all things, Wisdom 8, and whose providence does not fail in its disposition. But if it be asked how this can be, or by what authority, especially since it does not seem to be granted that any congregation of prelates inferior to the Roman prince, without relation to the apostolic see, has the power of ordaining anything universally in the universal Church, it seems to us that we must answer, with always better judgment reserved, that the greater prelates assembled can do this by that very authority which they previously had from the apostolic see, which in that article of necessity seems enlarged. For the understanding of this, and the solution of many difficulties in this matter, it seems to us that we must note that, just as a simple priest, notwithstanding that he has a limited power of jurisdiction, both with respect to persons, so that by law he is forbidden to absolve anyone except his own parishioner, as in ch. Ecce 16. question 1 and in ch. Placuit de paenit. dist. 6, and with respect to causes, since there are many reserved cases from which he regularly cannot absolve, yet in the article of necessity can absolve all men, and from all sins and from all sentences, both because necessity has no law, 1. question 1. remissiones, and secondly because, as Bernard says, what has been constituted for charity ought not to militate against charity, so it seems that we must say in the proposition that the greater prelates of the Church herself, who succeed the apostles in the Church, although they regularly have a limited power, both with respect to territories, since they have distinct dioceses and fixed boundaries beyond which they ought not to extend themselves, and also with respect to many cases, inasmuch as they are not called into the fullness of power but into a share of solicitude, as Grego. says in ch. Decreto 2. question 7 and Pope Julius in the following ch., yet in the article of necessity of the Church, with the supreme pontiff, to whom the care and government of the whole Church has been universally committed, failing by natural death or in any other way wholly impeded, would seem to have apostolic authority to provide, yet only in necessary matters which demand immediate dispatch, if provision could not be made by the ancient disposition of law nor could they be deferred until the creation of the Roman pontiff, as we said above concerning the lord cardinals. But as to providing only in necessary matters, we said this since, with the apostolic see vacant, neither the fathers assembled nor the lord cardinals ought to involve themselves outside the case of great necessity in other particular causes or in matters reserved to the apostolic see, since, just as with the see vacant no one is said to succeed the Roman pontiff in the fullness of power, so neither consequently in the full exercise or administration of it, just as neither does a chapter succeed, with the see vacant, a bishop in those things which pertain to the bishop alone, as for instance in the power of conferring benefices belonging to the collation of the bishop alone, as is had in ch. 1, Ne sede vacante, book 6. Many other things could be adduced to this point, but these seem to us to suffice. From which the opinion of those who say that, with the apostolic see vacant, the assembled universal council could have the exercise of apostolic power and its administration universally or plenarily, just as the Pope, seems sufficiently confuted. Whose error, in our judgment, arises from this, that they do not understand how the keys were given to the universal Church, for they judge of the universal Church after the manner of the chapter of one collegiate church, or after the manner of a provincial council, or after the manner of one popular university of laymen, and they do not judge rightly, since there is no likeness in this point on either side, as we showed copiously in book 2, especially around ch. 72. The council assembled with the apostolic see vacant therefore has an enlarged power to provide for the Church in necessary matters which, as we said, demand immediate dispatch and cannot be deferred until the creation of the Roman pontiff, to which creation we must hasten with all zeal. And so the council of prelates in such a case is a necessary administrator and executor, and not a voluntary one, and hence it is that in non-necessary matters the aforesaid prelates have no extension of power, since what is granted by necessity ought, with necessity ceasing, to be dissolved, as in ch. Quicquid de conse. dist. 5, and this seems to have been observed elsewhere, whence, when it was heard that Pope Marcellinus, through fear of death, with Diocletian compelling, had burned incense to idols, straightway bishops from diverse provinces in great number, with no one summoning them, came together at Rome to provide for the Church in the aforesaid necessity, knowing that their power in so great an article of necessity extended to this.

Nor ought it seem strange to anyone, this which we have said concerning the enlargement of power in cases of necessity, since, as is said in the book on the government of princes attributed to Saint Thomas, book 2, ch. 19: In two cases the power of the Roman pontiff is enlarged, either by reason of delict or for the good of the universal Church, which the prophet Jeremias elegantly shows us, ¹ to whom in the person of the vicar of Jesus Christ it is said: Behold I have set thee over nations and kingdoms, to root up and destroy, and scatter and disperse, and build and plant, etc., which we refer to the reason of delict, since in those four words we understand diverse kinds of sins which can be inflicted on any faithful man or subject when he says over nations, or on a lord when he says and over kingdoms. The second is that whence we derive the enlarged power, when afterwards it is said that thou mayest build, etc., which belong to the providence of the vicar of Christ for the good of the universal Church; thus far there. But it must not be passed over that it seems wholesomely counselled, to remove every scruple of doubt, that all the things done and constituted through the universal council with the see vacant be confirmed by the future Roman pontiff, as was practised in the Council of Constance, in which, with lord Martin created, the fathers of the council besought his holiness that he would deign to confirm those things which before his creation had been constituted by all the obediences laid together, which he also did concerning those things which pertained to the faith.