Churchmen have no authority to change Sacred Tradition

From the Writings of Roman Catholic Popes, Councils, Saints, and Theologians

Part One

“Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.”

(Ecclesia Dei, 1988) Pope John Paul II

Modernist John Paul II admitted there were new doctrines
yet what does the Catholic Church say concerning the ability
of any church member to change what has been already infallibly taught? Let us examine:

ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430)
GREAT WESTERN DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH


"By teaching that superiors should not refuse to be reprehended by 
inferiors, St. Peter gave posterity an example more rare and holier than 
that of St. Paul as he taught that in the defense of truth and with charity, 
inferiors may have the audacity to resist superiors without fear."  
(Epistula 19 ad Hieronymum)


ST. VINCENT OF LERINS (CA. 400-CA. 450)
CONFESSOR OF THE CHURCH


"What then should a Catholic do if some part of the Church were to 
separate itself from communion with the universal Faith?  What other 
choice can he make but to prefer to the gangrenous and corrupted 
member the whole of the body that is sound.  And if some new contagion 
were to try to poison no longer a small part of the Church, but all of 
the Church at the same time, then he will take the greatest care to 
attach himself to antiquity which, obviously, can no longer be seduced 
by any lying novelty."  (Commonitorium)


POPE ST. GREGORY I, "THE GREAT" (590-604)
       

The Canon remained unchanged from Apostolic times to the present 
day, with the exception of one short clause inserted by St. Gregory the 
Great.
        The phrase Pope Gregory added was "diesque nostros in tua pace 
disponas" [may you order our days in Thy peace] to the Hanc Igitur of 
the Canon.  The Romans were outraged at this act and threatened to kill 
the pope because he had dared to touch the Sacred Liturgy.  The Mass was 
affirmed to be complete and unchangeable.  Since that time no pope has 
dared to change the Ordo of the Traditional Latin Mass, until in 1962 
Pope John XXIII added "beati Ioseph, eiusdem Virginis Sponsi" [of 
blessed Joseph, Spouse of the same Virgin] to the Communicantes of the 
Canon.


POPE ST. AGATHO (678-681)


Papal Coronation Oath, to be taken by all Roman pontiffs, showing that no 
Roman pontiff has the authority to contradict the Deposit of Faith, or to 
change or innovate upon what has been handed by to him by Sacred Tradition 
and his predecessors:

        "I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing 
thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, 
to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein;

        "To the contrary:  with glowing affection as her truly faithful 
student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my 
whole strength and utmost effort;

        "To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, 
should such appear;

        "To guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were 
the Divine ordinances of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place 
I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support, 
being subject to the severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all 
that I shall confess;

        "I swear to God Almighty and the Savior Jesus Christ that I will 
keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors and 
whatever the first councils and my predecessors have defined and 
declared.

        "I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline 
and the rite of the Church.  I will put outside the Church whoever 
dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I.

        "If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or 
should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on 
the dreadful Day of Divine Justice.

        "Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest 
excommunication anyone -- be it ourselves or be it another -- who would dare 
to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic 
Tradition and the purity of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian Religion, 
or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with 
those who undertake such a blasphemous venture."  (Liber Diurnus Romanorum 
Pontificum, Patrologia Latina 1005, S. 54)

        The Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, one of the oldest 
collections of papal texts, privileges, and decrees, written down by 
Pope St. Agatho with texts that contain centuries of tradition, includes 
this Papal Coronation Oath, probably already a couple of centuries old, 
by which every pope since then has sworn as a requirement of acceding to 
the papal office until John Paul II failed to do so.

        The oath makes it clear that a magisterium that contradicts former 
magisterium is not magisterium, for the pope is sworn to put himself 
outside the Church if even he contradicts what he has received from his 
predecessors.  The ancient papal oath, therefore, foresees the 
possibility that even a pope may become a heretic or schismatic by 
violating either dogma or the rites of the Church handed down by 
Tradition.


SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA (787)


"Those therefore who after the manner of wicked heretics dare to 
set aside ecclesiastical traditions, and to invent any kind of novelty, 
or to reject any of those things entrusted to the Church, or who 
wrongfully and outrageously devise the destruction of any of those 
traditions enshrined in the Catholic Church, are to be punished thus:  
if they are bishops, we order them to be deposed...."


POPE INNOCENT III (CA. 1160-1216)


"The pope should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he 
rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by 
man, the more he is judged by God.  Still the less can the Roman Pontiff 
glory, because he can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be 
already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy, because he who 
does not believe is already judged.  In such a case it should be said of him:  
'If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and 
trampled under foot by men.'"  (Sermo 4)


HUGGUCIO OF PISA (OB. 1210)

Huggucio of Pisa He wrote a Summa Decretorum on the Decretum of Gratian, the 
most extensive and perhaps the most authoritative commentary of that time.

 "A pope who indeed a fornicator in public and has a concubine in 
public [ecce publico fornicator publico habet concubinem] can indeed be deposed 
because to scandalize the Church is in itself heresy."

Huggucio brings to light one of many problems in the history of the papacy:  
a conflict between two ancient ecclesiastical principles:  "Prima sedes a 
nemine iudicatur" [the First See is judged by no one] and "Papa hereticus 
ipso facto depositus est [an heretical pope is by that very fact deposed].

Example:  It was common knowledge that Alexander VI's election in 1492 was 
the result of the grave sin of simony.  To put it simply, Alexander bought the 
papacy with pieces of silver.  Therefore, there was a move afoot, led by 
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, to summon a Council and have the simonical 
pope deposed, an action supported by the Catholic King of France, Charles 
VIII.