The Catholic Church is a Perfect Society
Pope Pius IX condemned the proposition: The Church is not a true and perfect society absolutely free, nor does it operate byits own fixed and proper rights conferred on it by its divinne founder; but it belongs to the civilpower to define whih are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which it may exercise these rights. (DZ 1719)
Cardinal Billot summarizes their position: For the natural law itself prescribes that in such cases the attribute of a superior power descends, by way of devolution, to the power immediately below insofar as it is indispensably necessary for the survival of the society and for the avoidance of the tribulations of extreme lack. 'In case of doubt, however (e.g. when it is unknown if someone be a true cardinal or when the pope is dead or uncertain, as seems to have happened at the time of the Great Schism which began under Urban VI), it is to be affirmed that the power to apply the papacy to a person (the due requirements having been complied with) resides in the Church of God. And then by way of devolution it is seen that this power descends to the universal Church, since the electors determined by the pope do not exist' (Cajetan, ibidem).
