A Catholic Case for Honesty — and for Infallibility
Introduction: The Objection That Refuses to Die
Among the favorite arguments leveled against the Catholic Church by Protestant apologists is the case of Pope Honorius I. The claim, put simply, runs like this: “If popes are infallible, how do you explain that one was condemned as a heretic by the very council his successors endorsed?”
It is a fair question. And unlike some historical objections, this one cannot be waved away. The facts are real, the condemnation was formal, and Catholics who refuse to engage it honestly do the faith no favors. But here is the truth: when the full picture is examined, the case of Honorius does not destroy the doctrine of papal infallibility — it actually illuminates exactly what that doctrine is and what it is not.
Who Was Pope Honorius I?
Honorius I was a pope from 625 to 638 whose posthumous condemnation as a heretic subsequently caused extensive controversy on the question of papal infallibility.
He was, by most accounts, an energetic and capable pope. Modeling his pontificate after Pope St. Gregory I the Great, he worked for the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons, bestowing the pallium on Archbishop St. Honorius of Canterbury and Bishop St. Paulinus of York, and inducing the Christian Celts to accept the Roman liturgy and date of Easter. Were it not for his theological controversy, he would be remembered for his successes in evangelizing Britain, bringing schismatics back into the fold, restoring and beautifying Roman churches, and unifying the Catholic liturgical tradition.
So what went wrong?
The Heresy: What Is Monothelitism?
To understand the error of Honorius, one must first understand what he was entangled in.
Monothelitism became influential in the seventh century, teaching that while Christ had two natures (both human and divine), his will is not distinguishable from the will of God. This doctrine was supported or perhaps suggested by Emperor Heraclius (610–641) and promulgated by Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople.
At its heart, Monothelitism denied that Christ possessed a fully human will — meaning it undermined the fullness of the Incarnation itself. If Christ has no human will, then He did not fully become man. And if He did not fully become man, the redemption is compromised. The theological stakes could not have been higher.
Sergius, the first Monothelite, tried to effect a compromise by teaching that our Lord had only one will, a divine will. Like many compromises, this one ultimately pleased no one. To the orthodox, it was anathema, for it denied the fullness of Christ’s human nature.
The Letter That Started It All
The crux of Honorius’s pontificate was his role in the Byzantine church’s controversy concerning monothelitism. When in 634 Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople called for an end to the controversy and proposed that both East and West support the doctrine of “one will” in Christ, Honorius replied by referring to the Council of Chalcedon’s confession of faith (451).
The tragedy here is both theological and contextual. Honorius was not a man out to spread heresy. He appears to have genuinely misread what Sergius was proposing. The Pope, with no idea of Sergius’s between-the-lines message, answered the Patriarch on the subject of Christ’s will by writing: “We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, since our (human) nature was plainly assumed by the Godhead, and this being faultless, as it was before the Fall.”
Honorius understood “one will” in an orthodox sense — that Christ’s human will, being sinless and perfectly united to the divine, would never act contrary to the Father. But the Monothelites seized on his language. Monothelites, as they grew in numbers and influence over the ensuing years, seized upon Honorius’s confession of “one will of our Lord Jesus Christ” as confirmation that the Pope believed with them that Christ had no human will.
The Condemnation
The Third Council of Constantinople, also known as the Sixth Ecumenical Council, was a meeting of mostly eastern bishops in the capital of the Byzantine Empire from 680–681, dealing with the Monothelitism controversy. It condemned Monothelitism and concluded that Jesus had both a divine and a human will, corresponding to his two natures.
The council is also notable in that it condemned a pope, Honorius I, for heresy. The council’s formal sentence declared that Honorius be cast out of the holy Church of God and anathematized, because he had followed the Monothelites “in all things.”
The council condemned and anathematized all the leaders of the Monothelite heresy — including Honorius I, who was mentioned by name. The papal legates who were present joined in the condemnation.
Honorius’s name was struck from the diptychs — a list of names of living and dead Christians for whom special prayers are made during the liturgy in many eastern and western churches.
The Critical Distinction: What Did His Successor Actually Say?
This is where the Protestant objection begins to unravel.
The council sent its acts to Pope Leo II, asking for his confirmation. The letter mentioned the name of Honorius among the Monothelite heretics, but flattered the new pope by stressing the orthodoxy of the teaching of the Roman church. Leo II confirmed the decrees against Monothelitism in 683, and expressed himself even more harshly than the council did concerning the error of Honorius — stressing the failure of that pope to set forth the orthodox teaching of the Apostolic See.
This is decisive. The reigning Pontiff, Leo II, did not agree to the condemnation of his predecessor for heresy; he said Honorius should be condemned because “he permitted the immaculate faith to be subverted.” Pope St. Leo II confirmed the condemnation in 682, saying that Honorius “allowed the immaculate faith to be stained” by teaching not “in accord with apostolic tradition.”
The difference is enormous. A man who teaches heresy positively and a man who negligently fails to crush heresy when it is his duty to do so are two very different cases. Leo II condemned Honorius for the latter — moral and pastoral failure — not for issuing a dogmatic definition of false doctrine.
What This Means for Papal Infallibility
The doctrine of papal infallibility, formally defined at Vatican I in 1870, is precise and narrow. It does not claim that every letter, every opinion, every administrative decision of a pope is protected from error. It never has.
When the doctrine of papal infallibility was discussed at the First Vatican Council (1869–1870), Honorius became a prime example cited by the doctrine’s opponents. Defenders of the doctrine, however, argued that Honorius should not be considered as speaking ex cathedra, and rather than being condemned for teaching heresy, he was anathematized for gross negligence and lax leadership.
Most Roman controversialists of recent years have admitted both the fact of Pope Honorius’s condemnation and the Monothelite character of his epistles, but they are of the opinion that these letters were not his ex cathedra utterances as universal teacher, but mere expressions of the private opinion of the Pontiff as a theologian.
Just as today the letters of Pope Honorius are judged by the Vatican definition and denied to be ex cathedra because they do not define any doctrine and impose it upon the whole Church, so the Christians of the seventh century judged the same letters by the custom of their day, and saw that they did not claim what papal letters were wont to claim — to speak with the mouth of Peter in the name of Roman tradition.
His questionable orthodoxy was revived and used by opponents of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council (1869–70). Honorius’s defenders denied that his statements were official, maintaining that his teaching was imprudent rather than heretical — and many scholars believe it is debatable whether he was a heretic at all.
The Irony the Council Itself Reveals
Here is the detail that is almost never acknowledged in Protestant polemics: even as the Third Council of Constantinople condemned Honorius by name, the very same council went out of its way to affirm the authority and doctrinal reliability of the Roman See.
The letter of the council to Pope Leo, asking for confirmation of its acts, while including the name of Honorius among the condemned Monothelites, laid a remarkable stress on the magisterial office of the Roman Church — and in general, the documents of the Sixth General Council favor strongly the inerrancy of the See of Peter.
The council that condemned Honorius simultaneously reaffirmed that Peter’s Chair is trustworthy. That is not a contradiction — it is the Church operating with precision. A sinful or negligent occupant of Peter’s Chair does not contaminate the Chair itself, any more than a corrupt judge invalidates the office of the judiciary.
Conclusion: The Truth Holds
The case of Honorius is not an embarrassment to be hidden. It is a test case that the Church passes when understood correctly. The honest Catholic answer is not to deny, minimize, or frantically re-narrate the facts — but to trust that the truth, examined in full, defends itself.
What the case of Honorius actually proves:
- Popes are fallible human beings who can be negligent, imprudent, and even dangerously wrong in private correspondence and pastoral judgment.
- Papal infallibility is not a blanket immunity — it is a specific, narrow, divinely-granted protection for formal, solemn definitions of faith and morals binding on the whole Church.
- No ex cathedra definition has ever been reversed — not once in 2,000 years of history.
- The Church herself condemned the error — which is exactly what a living, truth-preserving Magisterium is supposed to do.
Honorius failed in his duty. The Church did not.
A question worth sitting with: If the existence of a fallible pope disproves an infallible Church, does the existence of a fallible Apostle — a Peter who denied Christ, a Judas who betrayed Him — disprove the divine foundation of the Church Christ Himself built?
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