Can a Good Pope Overstep His Authority?

Obviously, there are some things which no pope can change.

If a pope tried to change them, he would overstep his authority.

Can a good pope do so?

Some people who think "Benedict XVI" was a real pope and a good pope think he still is pope, since the abdication was, on their view, formulated in such a way as not to actually effect an abdication of his papal charge, function, dignity and authority. In other words "Benedict XVI" would have been unaware of the exact limits of a pope's power. Now, these people think he was a good pope and that it is a good thing he still is pope.

I disagree. But the fact remains, they have posited as a principle that a real pope and a good pope can on occasion be a lousy canonist.

Now, I am reading Praestantia Scripturae by Pope St. Pius X.

In it he poses:

Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe, and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission relating to doctrine, which have been given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the scandal they give and the other reasons for which they may be responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally go with such contradictions.

Praestantia Scripturae
On the Bible Against the Modernists | Pope Pius X - 1907
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10prasc.htm

Let's note the date. So far there had been nothing even slightly modernistic in the PBC's decision, at least as relates to my favourite subject of Genesis.

1905, Fr. Fleming gave a very good decision, as I noted here:

Creation vs. Evolution : When Are Implicit Citations Licit?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/07/when-are-implicit-citations-licit.html

We had not yet seen the 1909 decision favourable to Day Age theory. St. Pius X was to see it, but not to correct it. However, when the day age theory was formulated by Fulcran Vigoroux, he was dealing with geological ages before man. Not with carbon ages involving man. So, there was no very overhanging and grave reason to immediately correct it. It still left (and Fr. Fulcran Vigoroux specifically said so in his Manuel biblique, ou Cours d'Écriture sainte à l'usage des séminaires. Ancien Testament, Paris : A. Roger et F. Chernoviz, 1878, the temporal and generational distance between Adam's fall in Genesis 3 and Abraham's birth intact, at least with a LXX chronology.

By the fact that Pius X did not correct it, one can consider that the position of Fulcran Vigoroux (who was himself helping to authorise day age in 1909) is by the mind of Pius X still licit. However, it must in the context be noted it does not cover carbon ages of men anatomically modern or otherwise clearly human. In other words, while the position is still licit, it would be scientifically inadequate. On the other hand, Fulcran's own reasons for both Day Age and limited Flood have been since then answered scientifically - and the older positions of literal 24 hour days and totally universal flood were definitely not declared illicit in 1909.

The authorising of the 1909 PBC decision would still be within Pope St. Pius X's limits of authority. Note, it is just a tacit one and perhaps implied by the quoted sentence in Praestantia.

However what I consider above his authority is making the decisions PBC was going to make after his own time as Pope - "and which shall be given in the future" - binding independently of any Pope explicitly making them so. Because, the PBC is not part of the divine constitution of the Church. However, the episcopacy and the constancy of ordinary magisterium over time, very much are so. In other words, and this goes well beyond the scope of Young Earth Creationism, the criterium defined by Trent cannot be replaced by a criterium as defined here.

The "sensus quem tenuit atque tenet Ecclesia per patres" cannot be replaced by any "sensus quem ante non tenuit, sed nunc tenet Ecclesia per Pontificiam Biblicam Commissionem". If Pope St. Pius X did not see the risk of such a usurpation happening, he was not a realist. And if he thought he was making the Trentine criterium more easily accessible, he was overstepping his authority. Notwithstanding he was Pope and notwithstanding he was a holy and good Pope.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Lancry
St. John of the Cross
14.XII.2019