The Papal Oath is an oath by which, according to some Traditionalist Catholics, the popes of the Catholic Church swore, during their Papal Coronation, never to innovate or change anything that has been handed down to them. The tradition of taking the oath began, they say, with Pope Saint Agatho on June 27, 678 (the date of his election as Pope). They often confuse the alleged oath with the oath against modernism that Pope Pius X mandated for those taking up certain offices in the Church.

They claim that over 180 popes, down to Pope Paul VI, swore the oath. Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, who had no coronation ceremonies, did not take the oath, and Traditionalists interpret this fact negatively, some to the point of sedevacantism.

The text of the alleged oath

The text that Traditionalist websites present is the following:

I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein;

To the contrary: with glowing affection as her truly faithful student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort;

To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, should such appear;

To guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the Divine ordinances of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess



with Thy support, being subject to the severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all that I shall confess;

I swear to God Almighty and the Savior Jesus Christ that I will keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors and whatever the first councils and my predecessors have defined and declared.

I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline and the rite of the Church. I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I.

If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on the dreadful Day of Divine Justice.

Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest excommunication anyone – be it ourselves or be it another – who would dare to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic Tradition and the purity of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian Religion, or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with those who undertake such a blasphemous venture.

Source quoted

For source, the Traditionalist websites give volume 1005 of Migne's Patrologia Latina, which was published in 217 volumes between 1844 and 1855, and contains Latin ecclesiastical writings, including pseudepigraphal ones, up to the time of Pope Innocent III. The Latin document on which the above text claims to be based is found in columns 40-44 of volume 105 of that publication. As the websites' "1005" is clearly a mistake for "105", so too their "S. 54" is perhaps a mistake for "40-44".

Patrologia Latina, 105, columns 9-188 reproduces, with notes and commentary, the full text of Garnier's 1680 edition of the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum. The article in The Catholic Encyclopedia on states that Garnier's edition "is very inaccurate, and contains arbitrary alterations of the text"; it describes as the first good edition the one published by Eugène de Rozière in 1869.

Authenticity of the text published on Traditionalist websites

A comparison with the quoted Latin source shows that these sites give a seriously mistranslated text. Much of the text is an invention, with no basis in the Latin document, including the paragraphs "I swear .. defined and declared" and "Accordingly, without exclusion .. blasphemous venture" and the phrase "I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I".

There is another way to see that the published text is inauthentic: no Pope would ever use it since its content is heretical.The text on the traditionalist Catholic websites is presented as addressed to Jesus Christ: "Thou", "Thee" and "Thy" are given upper-case initials, and there is reference to "Thy Divine Tribunal", while the person addressed is distinguished from God: "through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support".

According to Catholic Faith, Saint Peter and the College of the Apostles have successors, but no one, not even among the Apostles, is a successor of Jesus Christ, who continues for ever. He is still the Head of the Church, while the Pope is only the "visible" head, and does not take the place of Christ. Yet the alleged oath speaks of "Christ and His Successors", and it presents the Pope as claiming to replace Christ: "I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take".

Though the Catholic Church teaches that Christ is the fullness of God's revelation, and no more public revelation is to be expected since the death of the Apostles, the text attributes to the supposed successors of Christ a power of revelation apparently on a par (or almost) with Christ's: "I will keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors."

To a Pope of the seventh century, a time when "Vicar of Peter" was the usual description of the Pope, rather even than "Vicar of Christ", the alleged oath attributes a then quite unheard-of title of "Vicar of God" ("through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess").

The text even makes the Pope a successor of Tradition: "as her (i.e. of "the received Tradition") truly faithful student and successor".

Alleged use in coronation ceremonies

None of the Traditionalist websites that give this text quote any source for their claim that – in spite of the fact that the book that contains the text was forgotten for centuries – all Popes from the time of Pope Saint Agatho to that of Pope Paul VI pronounced this so-called oath in the course of their coronation ceremonies.

The detailed account of the coronation of Pope Leo XIII that can be consulted at makes no mention of the taking of this particular oath, or of any oath, by the Pope.

Sources

• Traditionalist Catholic websites that give the above text, calling it "the papal oath":