Roma Locuta Est

April 27, 2025 (Steven O’Reilly) – [Updated 4/29/2025] In the wake of the death of Pope Francis, there appears to have been increasingly radical calls from Benepapists. There has been a demand to delay or to “deadlock” the upcoming conclave, which I recently responded to HERE. There has been a call from another Benepapist, Fr. Fare, for the cardinals created by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II to convene their own conclave to elect a traditional pope (see HERE). Somewhat related this latter suggestion, Dr. Edmund Mazza just made his own suggestion on a Sunday night episode of Timothy Gordon’s podcast (see THE ANGLE to Elect A Traditional Pope). 

Tonight on Tim Gordon’s show, Dr. Mazza set out a possible plan whereby a handful of conservative cardinals could meet in secret to elect a traditional pope. Dr. Mazza cited the papal election of Pope Innocent II in 1130 as the precedence for this plan.  In 1130, it so happens, a handful of eight cardinals – a minority of the College of Cardinals – met immediately and secretly after the death of Pope Honorius II, and elected a man who took the name Pope Innocent II.  When the other cardinals found out about this, understandably irate, they in turn elected a man who took the name Anacletus.  However, it would be  Anacletus who would go down in Church history as an anti-pope.

There is no doubt the election of Innocent II by the majority of the cardinal-bishops was irregular and noncanonical (see Innocent II).  However, according to a constitution of Pope Nicholas II, per the Catholic Encyclopedia, “…the cardinal bishops are first to meet and discuss the candidates for the papacy, and select the names of the most worthy. They are then to summon the other cardinals and, together with them, proceed to an election. Finally, the assent of the rest of the clergy and the laity to the result of the suffrage is to be sought.”[1] 

Clearly, the cardinal-bishops had a leading role in the selection process of a pope at that time. It is not the purpose of this article to go into a discussion of this particular election of 1130 AD, other than to say, the papal election rule of the time seems a bit ambiguous, e.g., what if the cardinal-bishops selected only one name for the other cardinals to choose from in the conclave?  

One scholar commenting on the election notes an interesting point:

“In the polemics of the ensuing schism each of the elections of 14 February was represented as the sole legal one; but the polemicists were remarkably reticent about defining what they understood as correct electoral procedures. There are only oblique references in the polemics to the Papal Election Decree of 1059.”[2]

Consequently, there does appear to have been some ambiguity for cardinal-bishops to act within to conspire, and hope to actually elect their own candidate, which they did in fact plot to do while Pope Honorius II still lived (see Papal Election of 1130).

St. Bernard of Clairvaux in rendering his influential opinion sided with Innocent II for a number of reason. One of which was that a majority of cardinal bishops [3] who have a leading role in the papal election decree of 1059, voted for Innocent II, and that Innocent was consecrated by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, ‘to whom [papal consecration] especially belongs'[4]. Per the Catholic Encyclopedia (bold added):

The Saint states his reasons for deciding in favour of Innocent in a letter to the Bishops of Aquitaine (Op. cxxvi). They may not be canonically cogent; but they satisfied his contemporaries. “The life and character of our Pope Innocent are above any attack, even of his rival; while the other’s are not safe even from his friends= In the second place, if you compare the elections, that of our candidate at once has the advantage over the other as being purer in motive, more regular in form, and earlier in time. The last point is out of all doubt; the other two are proved by the merit and the dignity of the electors. You will find, if I mistake not, that this election was made by the more discreet part of those to whom the election of the Supreme Pontiff belongs.[5]

So, in a case of a papal election constitution that had some ambiguities, Innocent II’s position as the valid pope won out because it had the benefit, between the two competing sides, of being “more regular in form.” Regardless, the point here is, the papal election rules of 1130 AD, are most certainly not the papal conclave rules of our day — which rule out such a hypothetical scenario in our own day.  The current papal rules are governed by Universi Dominici Gregis (UDG), promulgated by Pope John Paul II, and Normas Nonnullas, by Pope Benedict XVI.  With regard to the “Mazza Maneuver” scenario, it is essentially dealt with rather clearly in UDG 76 (emphasis added):

76. Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.

Now, clearly, Mazza’s suggestion that a small group of cardinals could secretly meet to elect their own pope is addressed by existing papal election law. UDG explicitly states “should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution” — which is assuredly the case for Mazza’s harebrained idea — it is, per UDG, “for this reason null and void.”  In fact, UDG goes on to affirm it it so “without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.”

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  Mazza’s maneuver is nonsense.  In sum, the suggested scenario or “maneuver” is an absurd idea that no one should take seriously. One might have thought that a former professor of Church history, like Dr. Edmund Mazza, should know these things above, and not trouble a podcast host to put him on air to pretend this is a serious recommendation, or even a serious hypothetical in a merely academic discussion sense.  

Unfortunately, the discussion on the show also turned to getting this idea to cardinals like Burke and others, as well as getting the idea to those around President Trump! Now, I am a “Trumper”, but again, this suggestion just compounds the absurdity.  President Trump is not the Holy Roman Emperor who can, by his authority within Catholic Christendom, confer legitimacy upon a illegally elected “pope” or adjudicate his legitimacy by convoking a Church council.

Furthermore, just to play out this scenario to humor the reader, it is quite doubtful President Trump would want to even get involved. Trump himself was the victim of illegal processes and procedures, and abuses of the electoral system in the 2020 presidential election that gave us Biden as an illegitimate president.  There is no way on earth that Trump should be reasonably expected to want to lend legitimacy to an election that would itself be noncanonical, i.e., illegal, by even Mazza’s own admission. 

Trump wouldn’t want to touch this with a ten foot poll; and nor should any faithful Catholic who is concerned about whether outside forces influenced the 2013 conclave.  Just imagine if the likes of a Mike Lewis or Fr. James Martin were to get on Michael Lofton’s podcast before the official start of the next conclave to similarly call for a “maneuver” to elect a liberal pope, a veritable Francis II, so that conservatives could not block his election?  Faithful Catholics would rightly be “up in arms” if such an idea was seriously aired.

In fact, I would think Cardinal Burke would be embarrassed to have had his name associated on this show with this idea — even indirectly, or that someone would forward this idea to him. I am confident he would think it to be the nonsense it is.  If nothing else, this could be used to try to assault Cardinal Burke’s credibility and the conservative cause in a conclave — as liberals and modernists shake their heads at some of the crazy ideas making the rounds in conservative Catholic circles these past few days.

Bottom line, it is clear, Dr. Mazza’s “maneuver” is, in fact, a steaming pile of manure.  The time of the Benepapists has come to end. Time to put away desperate theories, and gimmicks for clicks. 

Steven O’Reilly is a graduate of the University of Dallas and the Georgia Institute of Technology. A former intelligence officer, he and his wife, Margaret, live near Atlanta. He has written apologetic articles, and is author of Book I of the Pia Fidelis trilogy, The Two Kingdoms; and of Valid? The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. He writes for Roma Locuta Est He can be contacted at StevenOReilly@AOL.com. Follow on Twitter: @S_OReilly_USA.

Notes:

[1] Fanning, W. (1911). Papal Elections. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11456a.htm

[2] See The Papacy, 1073-1198 Continuity and Innovation By I. S. Robinson · 1990.   (p, 75)

[3] Ibid, p. 75

[4] Ibid, p. 75

[5] Loughlin, James. “Anacletus II.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01447a.htm&gt;.