The Bellarmine “Resistance” Quote: Another Traditionalist Myth (2004) by Rev. Anthony Cekada
The Bellarmine “Resistance” Quote:
Another Traditionalist Myth
(2004)
by Rev. Anthony Cekada
SINCE the 1970s, countless traditionalist writers who have rejected the Vatican II teachings and the New Mass but who oppose sedevacantism have justified their own position by mindlessly recycling the following quote from St. Robert Bellarmine:
"Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will. It is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior." (De Romano Pontifice, II.29.)