Do Excommunicated Prelates Have the Power to Excommunicate Others?

David Martin | The Daily Knight

According to the saints and doctors of the Church, a prelate who falls to heresy excommunicates himself and loses all jurisdiction over the Church. St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, teaches:

“A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically ceases to be a pope, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.”

To say that a prelate loses all jurisdiction is to say that he loses all power to excommunicate other Catholics. A key way that he loses his jurisdiction is by publicly endorsing homosexuality since this makes him a heretic of the worst kind. Not only does he pollute the souls of men with his shameful ideas and aspirations, but he defies the Church’s age-old teaching on homosexuality.

Endorsing LGBTQ is an Act of Heresy

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is one of the “four sins crying to Heaven for vengeance.” The Church places LGBTQ on par with murder and holds that this truth constitutes part of the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium 1. This means that a cardinal who endorses LGBTQ has descended to heresy whereby he has incurred for himself automatic excommunication.

If such a cardinal or pope attempts to excommunicate Catholics his action is automatically nullified because he no longer possesses the keys of the Kingdom wherewith to bind and loose. Though he still possesses the power to offer valid sacraments he can no longer excommunicate anyone because he himself is excommunicated.  

In a recent video by LifeSiteNews CEO John Henry Westen, he says that official Church teaching tells us that a heretic cannot excommunicate a Catholic.  

“St. Robert Bellarmine cites Pope St. Celestine’s text in support of this thesis. He says and I quote: ‘The holy fathers teach unanimously that not only are heretics outside the Church but also that they are ipso facto deprived of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction and dignity.’

“It gets better. Pope Alexander II writing to a bishop enshrined in Canon Auduvimius in Gratian – that’s the document – He says this, ‘An excommunicated person cannot excommunicate another.’ He goes on to explain, ‘We have heard that Henry, called the Archbishop of Ravenna has attempted to excommunicate you but since being excommunicated, he could not excommunicate you. By apostolic authority, we command you, absolving you and your people never to trouble yourselves about it.’ End quote.”

Catholics indeed should not take seriously fake excommunications that are rooted in heresy and fanatical ambitions to change the Catholic Church. DDF prefect Cardinal Victor Fernandez declared the “excommunication” of the SSPX on July 2, but he was using excommunication as a handgun to shoot down Catholic tradition. According to the saints the excommunication was invalid not only because of his malice intentions but because his heretical writings and dirty books had already excommunicated him.

The same applies to a pope who uses his position to promote heresy. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia makes it clear:

“The pope himself, if notoriously guilty of heresy, would cease to be pope because he would cease to be a member of the Church.”

St. Francis de Sales says:

“Now when the pope is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church.”

Consider the words of St, Alphonsus Ligouri, doctor of the Church:

“If ever a pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he should at once fall from the pontificate. If, however, God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the apostolic chair would be vacant.”

The lus Canonicum on the 1917 Code of Canon Law by Wernz-Vidal makes this same point:

“A pope who falls into public heresy would cease ipso facto to be a member of the Church; therefore, he would also cease to be head of the Church.” It adds, “A doubtful pope is not pope.”

Pope Leo and Cardinal Fernandez

What shall we make then of Cardinal Fernandez who is known the world over for his sexually explicit writings? Fernandez penned that infamous 2023 Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans that authorizes and even commands priests to bless LGBTQ couples should they request this.

And what shall we say of Pope Leo who stands behind Fernandez in everything he does? Let us not forget how in September 2025 Leo invited 1200 LGBTQ activists to overrun the Vatican for the purpose of advancing their cause of sodomy. 

More recently on July 7, Leo appointed auxiliary Bishop Christian Würtz as the new bishop of Eichstätt, Germany. Würtz fanatically pushes the priestly blessing of same-sex couples and has said that “homosexual orientation is part of the human person as created by God” which is “to be judged ethically no differently than heterosexual orientation.”

In other words, judging in favor of God is no better than judging in favor of satan. Würtz has also said,

“Same-sex sexuality—even when expressed through sexual acts—is therefore not a sin that separates one from God, nor is it to be judged as intrinsically evil.”

Leo not only endorses Würtz but has gone out of his way to promote him. By appointing him Leo is essentially saying, “I endorse his promotion of homosexuality and am well aware that he will spread sodomy throughout the German church and beyond.”

Such a viewpoint demonstrates a fall to heresy. Some will argue that a pope cannot profess heresy because God does not allow a pope to do this. This is true. When it is said that a pope cannot profess heresy it simply means that this profession cannot be made while he is pope, for upon attempting to profess heresy he loses his papacy and is reduced to a heretic, whereby the profession is made as a heretic and not as a pope. A heretic indeed can profess heresy while occupying the Chair of Peter, but he cannot occupy the Papal Office.

Has anyone occupied the Papal Office since March 2013?

1. Some believe falsely that we are only bound to obey dogma when in fact we are also bound to obey the Church’s ordinary teachings since these teachings are no less true than the dogmatic teachings.