INTRODUCTION

 

This argument presents a juridical analysis of papal elections according to the classical principles of canon law and Thomistic jurisprudence.

 

The misconduct examined in this argument does not consist merely in procedural deviation, but in the refusal to interpret and apply the law according to the juridical meaning it objectively bears. Officials charged with the custody of canon law acted as though authority had been conferred where the law itself withheld it, and thereby exercised public power without legal authority.

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This argument does not contend that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation from the Roman See was invalid. His resignation is accepted as valid and effective. The defect examined here lies elsewhere: in the juridical conditions required for a lawful papal election.

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Under the law governing papal elections, the vacancy of the Roman See by resignation is not, by itself, sufficient to authorize a conclave. The election law presupposes a distinct juridical condition, one that arises only upon the death of the Roman Pontiff.

 

Accordingly, readers are asked to observe the following distinctions throughout:

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1. Competence precedes procedure

An act cannot be validly executed unless the subject has first received the authority to act. Where competence is absent, procedural analysis is secondary and diagnostic, not constitutive.

 

2. Not all illegality implies invalidity

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Canon law distinguishes between illicit acts (performed contrary to law) and invalid acts (which do not exist in law). Conclusions of nullity in this project rest only on constitutive norms that expressly determine juridical being.

 

3. Juridical subjects are not interchangeable

Terms such as Roman See, Apostolic See, office, person, and vacancy are used in their precise canonical senses and must not be conflated.

 

4. Acceptance does not create authority

Doctrines such as “universal peaceful acceptance” presuppose the prior existence of a juridical act. They cannot supply what the law itself has not conferred.

 

Readers who do not accept these premises may reject the conclusions. What this site insists upon is that the conclusions follow rigorously if the law is taken as written and as juridically operative.

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​​THE ARGUMENT​

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Major Premise

A papal election can exist as a juridical act only if the Apostolic See is in the death-conditioned vacancy-state presupposed by the law governing papal elections.

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Minor Premise

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In March 2013, the Apostolic See was not in the death-conditioned vacancy-state presupposed by the law governing papal elections.

 

Conclusion

Therefore, because the death-conditioned vacancy-state of the Apostolic See did not obtain, the conclave convened in March 2013 lacked constitutive competence to exist as an act of papal election, and the person designated did not acquire the Roman Pontificate.​

 

CONSTITUTIVE EXPLANATION OF THE ARGUMENT

 

1. The juridical object of Universi Dominici Gregis

 

The Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis (UDG) does not merely regulate how a conclave is to be conducted. It presupposes a determinate juridical state of affairs in which the conclave regime becomes operative.

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That presupposed state is the death-conditioned juridical vacancy of the Apostolic See, instantiated through the death of the last lawfully-reigning Roman Pontiff.

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This is not inferred from isolated phrases, but from the architecture of the law as a whole:

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​The conclave regime is juridically activated only once the Apostolic See has entered the death-conditioned vacancy state. The juridical markers of this state include the death of the Pope, the celebration of his funeral rites, and his burial.

 

These are not optional preliminaries or ceremonial accessories, but the juridical markers that define the state in which the Cardinals are empowered to act as electors.

 

The law is drafted around a death-generated vacancy of the Apostolic See as the condition that gives juridical being to the conclave itself.

 

2. Resignation does not, by itself, re-constitute the juridical state presupposed by UDG

 

While canon law permits papal resignation as a way by which the Roman Pontificate may be relinquished, Universi Dominici Gregis does not re-constitute a resignation-vacancy of the Roman See as juridically equivalent to the death-conditioned vacancy of the Apostolic See for purposes of activating the conclave regime.

 

UDG 77 requires that the “dispositions concerning everything that precedes the election” be observed even in the case of resignation. This does not transform resignation into death, nor does it supply a new juridical trigger. It simply subjects resignation-vacancy to a regime already structured around death.

 

That is, UDG handles resignation contingently; it does not establish a new juridical ontology of vacancy based on resignation.

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As Benedict XVI himself stated in the act of resignation:

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“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome…in such a way that…a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”  Declaratio, 11 February 2013

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3. In 2013, the constitutive condition never arose

 

In March 2013:

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• Pope Benedict XVI had not died.

• No death-conditioned juridical vacancy of the Apostolic See occurred.

• No funeral rites for a deceased Roman Pontiff were celebrated.

• No burial of a deceased Roman Pontiff took place.

 

Accordingly, the death-conditioned juridical state of the Apostolic See presupposed by Universi Dominici Gregis for the existence of a conclave never came into being.

 

This is not a claim that a rule was skipped. It is the claim that the condition that makes the rules applicable never existed.

 

4. Consequence: lack of constitutive competence

 

Because the death-conditioned vacancy-state of the Apostolic See presupposed by the law did not exist, the Cardinals lacked constitutive competence to act as an electing subject.

 

Where constitutive competence is absent:​

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• no valid juridical act can arise,

• no election can exist as an election,

• and no right can be conferred on the one designated.

 

This is why the nullity is not procedural but ontological.

 

5. Application of UDG 76 (properly understood)

 

UDG 76 declares null any election celebrated otherwise than the Constitution establishes or without the conditions it prescribes.

 

Here, the decisive point is not a failure in the execution of a valid electoral regime, but the absence of the constitutive juridical condition of the Apostolic See that alone gives being to the conclave regime itself.

 

Accordingly, nullity follows ipso iure, not because the law was violated in execution, but because the act lacked juridical existence from the outset.

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6. On UDG 77 (properly understood)

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A common objection holds that UDG 77 extends the entire electoral regime, including competence, to the case of resignation.

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This reads the provision backwards. UDG 77 appears at the end of a document that has already established all constitutive elements, including the death-conditioned trigger. Its operative verb is serventur ("shall be observed"), regulatory language commanding compliance with existing norms, not constitutive language conferring new authority.

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If resignation were intended as a co-equal trigger alongside death, it would appear where the triggering conditions are defined, not in a standalone provision at the end. The placement and language of UDG 77 confirm that it reinforces existing requirements rather than substituting a new activating condition.

 

The full juridical demonstration is set forth in the Indictment.

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SCOPE OF APPLICATION

 

Because the Apostolic See was not in the death-conditioned vacancy-state presupposed by Universi Dominici Gregis, the conclave of March 2013 lacked constitutive competence to exist as an act of papal election. Consequently, the person designated did not acquire the Roman Pontificate. And the analysis presented here applies not only to the conclave convened in 2013, but to any subsequent conclave convened without the constitutive authority required by law, including the conclave held in 2025.

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The juridical consequences of this nullity, including the conditions under which a lawful election may subsequently proceed, are treated separately in the document titled Conclave: The Minimum Lawful Path to Succession.

 

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