[Question:]{.underline} Is it possible to state that the Pope has failed to completely transmit the deposit of the Faith without being a schismatic?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that the principal duty of the Roman Pontiff is to transmit the deposit of the Faith completely, as is taught by Vatican I: “For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth” (Pastor Aeternus, Db 1836). However, if the Holy Ghost is invoked in this manner, and if this divine function of transmitting the deposit of Faith can only be done through the help of the Holy Ghost, this leaves it to be understood that there can be many human weaknesses in the exercise of the Papacy. This is manifest in the case of Popes who have not been as courageous as they should have been in the defense of the true Faith, such as Pope Liberius.
However, the holy council also teaches “that the See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord the Savior made to the chief of His disciples: ‘I have prayed for thee, that they faith fail not; (Lk 22:32)”. (Ibid.) Note that it is not any one individual that is protected from error or heresy, but the See of St. Peter. This is why the theologians, such as St. Robert Bellarmine, argue about what would happen if the Pope would lose the Faith and become a heretic. This would of course be a terrible tragedy, but it is not impossible, since it is the See of St. Peter, and the infallible teachings of its Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium, which are protected from all error, and not any individual, nor even the Pope when he does not use the fullness of his teaching authority, that is, in his Authentic Magisterium.
Consequently, it is perfectly licit for us to acknowledge the obvious, namely that through the practice of ecumenism, and through the failure to clearly state such dogmas as the Social Kingship of Christ or that outside the Church there is no salvation, and to condemn the infiltration of modernism in every domain of the Church’s life, there have been severe defects in his personal responsibility for the transmission of the Faith. This does not, however, mean that the See of Peter has failed, for it cannot. A schismatic would be one who would maintain that the See of Peter has failed, and that it is no longer the center of visible unity in the Church, and not one who acknowledges the reality of the weaknesses and failures of the last four liberal Popes.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.