This article follows up the series about the Knights Templar, which I have previously published here. I bring up the question whether or not a pope can legally revive the order, should he so wish.
I wrote before that the Order of the Knights Templar cannot be legally revived because the pope has legitimately dissolved it. But how about a revival decided by the present or a future pope? Could that not be possible, and legal?
Because of a special peculiarity with the papal office, infallibility, this question is much more complicated than one might think. Before elaborating on that, let me define the concept of "corporation sole".
Most people think of a corporation as a commercial company, but more generally it is a group of people acting "in corpus", or "as one body"; a society, an association, a club, anything consisting of more than one person acting commonly, generally or for a single purpose.
A corporation sole is a very special "corpus", because it has only one member at any given time. This person forms a "corpus" together with all his predecessors and all his successors. This is most easily exemplified with the kings of a monarchy. There is always one, only one, and he forms a "corpus" together with all the kings who preceded him and all those who will follow after him. The kingly office lasts all the time, but the individual representative changes.
It is as with a diocese - or more generally with any position held by only one person at a time and with some form of ordered succession. (Local law can limit this definition further and require certain forms of recognition, but that is of no importance for the general principle.)
In this sense, the papal office is a corporation sole. The individual popes change, but the papal office lasts and remains unchanged in essentials.
In 1870, the Vatican Council proclaimed papal infallibility in matters of faith and custom, and where the whole Church is concerned. Although this already had deep roots within the church, it was seen as a papal victory, since it left the pope with absolute power over the Church. Yet one can ask things like: exactly what is a "custom" and what is "the whole Church"? The pope is not infallible in everything he says, but the definition is vague enough to cause problems of interpretation, not at least about the distant past. There is no list containing all infallible pronouncements to compare with.
Another problem with this, one which I have never seen anyone mention, is the logical consequence that no pope can ever change anything infallibly pronounced by a predecessor. An infallible statement cannot be changed, and it cannot be opposed by another infallible statement. There cannot be two opposing infallible points on the same subject. Then they would not both be infallible. It seems to me that papal infallibility, although a victory, can as well be a strait-jacket for the pope.
If the dissolution of the Order of the Knights Templar falls under the definition of papal infallibility (which it formally does not, according to strict interpretation) - it cannot reasonably be revoked by a later pope. That is, not legally. However, popes are not always scrupulous about law.
Even if it does not, I would say that Clement's words rule out a legal revival of the order, which was abolished
"by an irrevocable and perpetually valid decree, and we subject it to perpetual prohibition with the approval of the Holy Council, strictly forbidding anyone to presume to enter the said Order in the future, or to receive or wear the habit, or act as a Templar. Which, if anyone acts against this, he will incur the sentence of excommunication ipso facto."
(Clement V, Vox in excelsio, 1312)
Those words are strong and clear. However, whether legal or not, if a future pope would decide to revive the Knights Templar and arms himself with a convincing motivation, he would probably manage to do so. But I doubt that it will ever happen.
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Read my whole previous series of articles about the Knights Templar. I list the articles here, in the best order for reading; it is not the order in which they were published.
1. The Order of the Temple - The Knights Templar
2. The Mysteries of the Knights Templar
3. Symbols of the Knights Templar & Templars in Fiction: Literature and Film
4. The Knights Templar & The Circular Number Nine
Here you can find my articles about History, and here are my articles about the Knights Templar.
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Perhaps a bit out of scope,
but when you write
This suggests the perspective that
the Catholic church is just a self-incorporation
comprised of those who subscribe to whatever the belief is,
Although it probably has certain historical documents of creation,
overall it is a self-incorporation assembled outside national legal oversight.
...or did I miss something ?