Counterfactual

Rorate Caeli:

... Could it really be true that the Pope may embark on a way that upsets what the Church has constantly taught for two thousand years, based on the words of Jesus Himself and the Pauline texts? Is it possible to challenge the commandments, the Gospel and the Sacraments? Some think that the popes can do it and the mass-media feeds this expectation. In reality it is not like this at all since the Church belongs to Christ and not the popes, who are only temporary administrators and not masters – as Benedict XVI used to say repeatedly. They are subject to the law of God and the Word of God and must serve the Lord by protecting the “depositum fidei” entrusted to them. They cannot take possession of it or change it according to their own personal ideas ...

The great Joseph Ratzinger explained this principle, ignored by the majority of believers, like this: “The pope is not the supreme master – since the time of Gregory the Great, he has been known as "Servant of the servants of God" but (as I like saying) he ought to be the guarantor of obedience, of the conformity of the Church to the will of God, excluding any arbitrary act of his own. The pope cannot say: I am the Church, or I am tradition, but on the contrary, he has precise restrictions and incarnates the obligation of the Church to conform to the word of God. If temptations arise in the Church to do things differently, to choose a softer more comfortable way, he has to ask himself if it is licit. The pope is therefore not an authority that can give life to another Church, rather he is a barricade against arbitrary acts.”