The Liber Diurnus

The Roman Catholic Church says that its Pope has always been the infallible head over all of Christendom. One of the problems with this claim is the 6th Ecumenical Council (680), which anathematized (accursed and cut off from the church) Pope Honorius of Rome for the Monothelite heresy. (Jesus only having one will) The ecumenical councils are authoritative in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and this particular council took place while the two churches were still in communion.

The anathema of Honorius would seem to invalidate the Catholic claim of headship and infallibility of its popes. Rome counters this by saying that this was not an official pronouncement by the Pope, and that Rome never went along with the anathema.

The first problem with this claim is that the ecumenical councils did not anathematize bishops for opinions. They were only anathematized for taking official stands for heresy. So at least those at the council believed that Pope Honorius had officially come out in support of Monothelitism. Secondly, the Liber Diurnus shows that the Catholic Church did accept the pronouncement of the 6th Council and did see Honorius as a heretic.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia the Liber Diurnus is:

"A miscellaneous collection of ecclesiastical formularies used in the papal chancery until the eleventh century. It contains models of the important official documents usually prepared by the chancery; particularly of letters and official documents in connexion with the death, the election, and the consecration of the pope; the installation of newly elected bishops, especially of the suburbicarian bishops; also models for the professions of faith, the conferring of the pallium on the archbishops, for the granting of privileges and dispensations, the founding of monasteries, the confirmation of acts by which the Church acquired property, the establishment of private chapels, and in general for all the many decrees called for by the extensive papal administration."

Formula 84 af the Liber Diurnus deals with the oath that popes, from about the late 7th to the 11th centuries, took upon being elevated to the papacy. The Catholic Encyclopedia says this about Formula 84:

"Lucas Holstenius was the first who undertook to edit the Liber Diurnus. He had found one manuscript of it in the monastery of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome, and obtained another from the Jesuit College de Clermont at Paris; but as Holstenius died in the meantime and his notes could not be found, this edition printed at Rome in 1650 was withheld from publication, by advice of the ecclesiastical censors, and the copies put away in a room at the vatican. The reason for so doing was apparently formula 84, which contained the profession of faith of the newly elected pope, in which the latter recognized the Sixth General Council and its anathemas against Pope Honorius for his (alleged) Monothelism."

The relevant paragraph of formula 84 says:

"The authors were in actuality defending the new heretical doctrines of Sergius, Phyrrhus, Paulus, and Petrus of Constantinople, and were in agreement with Honorius, who expanded his perverse fix for the problem."

As one can see Pope Honorius is listed with the other heretics that new popes were to renounce upon taking the throne. This is very strong evidence that the Roman Catholic Church did accept the anathema of Pope Honorius for Monothelitism, and therefore did believe that he had made an official pronouncement of heresy.

This is also evidence that Rome has not always believed that its popes were infallible. And since infallibility and absolute headship over the Church are tied together (one can not have absolute authority over matters of doctrine and be fallible, since one mistake would lead the entire Church into heresy), then this is also evidence that the Catholic Church did not always see its bishop as the head over the entire Church.