It's sometimes said that if all cardinals died, defected or disappeared during a vacancy of the Holy See, there would be no way to elect a new pope. Louis Cardinal Billot give this idea the lie.
Now we have an impressive list of authorities who have expressly taught the Church can lose the College of Cardinals:
1. Thomas Cajetan
2. Louis Cardinal Billot
3. Caspar Hurtado
4. Francis Victoria
5. St Robert Bellarmine
6. And counting ...
This is so easy to prove: What was absent from the Church as at 100AD after the death of the last Apostle most certainly does not belong to her essence, and as such can be lost at anytime.
Put in other words, what was not ALWAYS present in the Church since her institution does not belong to her essence.
1. College of Cardinals
2 Actual occupation of ecclesiastical sees, including the Apostolic See
3. Actual presence of the Church in all countries
4. Etc
Let's now escape the tunnel vision we've been under for decades with fallacious arguments!!!
It'll be good to see if there's ANY author who considered the question and did not provide the same solution (what is now essentially unanimous), differing only in details irrelevant to our day.
Now we have an impressive list of authorities who have expressly taught the Church can lose the College of Cardinals:
1. Thomas Cajetan
2. Louis Cardinal Billot
3. Caspar Hurtado
4. Francis Victoria
5. St Robert Bellarmine
6. And counting ...
This is so easy to prove: What was absent from the Church as at 100AD after the death of the last Apostle most certainly does not belong to her essence, and as such can be lost at anytime.
Put in other words, what was not ALWAYS present in the Church since her institution does not belong to her essence.
1. College of Cardinals
2 Actual occupation of ecclesiastical sees, including the Apostolic See
3. Actual presence of the Church in all countries
4. Etc
Let's now escape the tunnel vision we've been under for decades with fallacious arguments!!!
Do you have the Victoria text to hand?
https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_oemMjyLXYxUC/bub_gb_oemMjyLXYxUC.pdf
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oemMjyLXYxUC/page/75/mode/1up
Francisco Victoria: Question 2 No 19 ~ 21!
Nice. We may add to the series.
It'll be good to see if there's ANY author who considered the question and did not provide the same solution (what is now essentially unanimous), differing only in details irrelevant to our day.