Over the years on this blog I have offered some commentary on Pope Francis and his bizarre, scandalous and increasingly diabolical pontificate. Of late, I have tried to keep it light, trying to offer some comic relief on the papacy arranged meticulously in a conference room in Hell. Later still, I stopped blogging, mostly due to time constraints, domestic and work commitments. Before I stopped blogging, I was confident enough in my own limited knowledge of the Church to offer some insights into what I thought had gone wrong in the time since 13 March 2013.
Reasons for the catastrophe I offered over the time were varied, from the election of a 'mad Pope' to the election of an apostate Bishop to the Papacy, to someone who was elected Pope but who resisted the Truth and simply taught his own beliefs instead. Who hasn't thought, 'Oh, he's a Jesuit, what could anyone expect?' Did I say these things explicitly? Some yes, others I expect not, because with this situation I, like many others, have always felt like I was treading on eggshells. Oh, and I still am, I assure you, and I'm just a layman with little to fear, unlike the suffering clergy.
I could always hint, too, that Francis is owned by players far more powerful than he, that he was a placeman for the Soros New World Order empire. I would give a nudge and a wink about the glaring possibility that Francis was a validly-elected high-ranking Freemason, who by his membership of the infernal Lodge employed his own unique method of madness to subvert and destroy as much of the Church as possible in the limited time he has and that his possible membership might have a detrimental impact on his ability to be a true Pope.
'Nearly all my friends enjoy sodomy as well. I always tell them, 'It doesn't matter how you live your life.'
Oh, and who didn't note Francis's obviously close association to the St Gallen Mafia of Cardinals who orchestrated the voting blocs for him to emerge on the loggia? Among a throng of others, I probably hinted that it is most plausible that these orchestral manouvres in the dark were in complete defiance of the now, thanks to Pope Francis, Saint Pope John Paul II's decrees on the legal election of a Supreme Pontiff. I certainly indicated I thought Francis was a heretic, probably opined that he might be perfectly possessed. I don't think I ever went so far as to say he wasn't, or could perhaps not be, the Pope, though I may have expressed some modicum of doubt for any or all of the reasons listed above.
However, one of the reasons I lost a lot of confidence in my own ability to say much about the subject of Pope Francis is that I watched Ann Barnhardt's epic YouTube video, outlining the reasons why she considers Francis to be not the Pope and Benedict XVI to be the one and only true Pope. It really floored me. Yes, it did. For me, Ann, with breathtaking confidence, threw a real spanner in the works, not an unhelpful spanner necessarily, but one that jammed the whole system of thought-cogs that would wind around my head when thinking about Francis and the Papacy and the madness of it all.
The Barnhardt Intervention
Until Ann's presentation, I was content with my own view (since everyone has an opinion) that Francis was a valid Pope who was and is daily nullifying his own papal authority and credibility by wilfully refusing to fulfil the mandate Christ gave to St Peter and his Successors.
This habit, a habit he has demonstrated since day one, was, I held, a matter of his own free will which God gives to each and every human being and to each and every Pope. I held (and still hold) that God forces no Pope into complete obedience to Him, therefore the Pope who fulfils his mandate freely consents and cooperates with the grace of Office to pass on that which he has received, some better than others, but all to the degree which is the bare minimum. That is, in reality, his main role. If all his other duties were removed from him, but he passed on the Faith of Jesus Christ and confirmed the brethren in it, refusing to be a vehicle for heresy, he could say he had successfully 'Poped', whatever personal defects he may have had.
Evidence for Francis's complete andutter dereliction of teaching duty was in this regard supplied by his obstinate, inexplicable, absolutely determined refusal to answer the Dubia of the once four, but now two Cardinals. These were questions which were of no threat to any reigning Pope with half an ounce of Catholic belief. Certainly, one could imagine Benedict XVI answering them with ease. These questions, of course, arose from one of Francis's own documents, Amoris Laetitia, but encapsulated a great deal of the banquet of ambiguity and confusion that Francis has lavished on the Church.
I was confident that Francis simply refused to teach, that is, to teach Catholic faith and morals (since a Pope can teach nothing else of value to the Church or souls), that he was Pope in a titular manner, must be respected as such, prayed for as such, but that because he willingly refused the divine mandate - considering the Office of the Papacy to be a purely political, rather than a spiritual Office with some political responsibilities, he was making himself and continues to make himself a kind of quasi-Antipope. Insodoing, Francis was and is cutting from beneath himself the very branch of authority given to him by Christ. To this end, Francis was and remains his own worst enemy and yours. The unfaithful wouldn't be able to detect this, I thought, but the Faithful would. I gleaned this from observation of his ways which seem to be ways of pure and unadulterated mischief. Most bishops and cardinals, obviously, wouldn't care either way, because so many are as seemingly faithless as Francis. This, a theory, remains, in my opinon, a possibility. I can't say that I relinquish it entirely. Like I say, however, Ann's video opened up a new dimension in the Francis Papacy. Is it possible that this man is simply not, as Ann maintains, the reigining Pope?
Division sets in among the ranks
While Catholic bloggers cheerfully chewed each other's heads off after Ann Barnhardt's presentation, I was happy to 'sit this one out' and not get involved terribly in the dispute on Twitter or here. Of course, this is primarily because I am a coward, but also I could observe the fractious fighting, name-calling and often complete breakdown of fraternal charity that ensued. Friendships literally seemed to dissolve into rancourous and bitter emnities over this.
After this blogpost, I personally expect some blowback. I've never enjoyed such fights and I don't want to fight with Catholics I admire and respect online or elsewhere about the true identity of the Pope or the reason why the Francis nightmare continues. Why should we let the Devil, through Pope Francis, his indomitable vicar, this anti-Pastor, this destroyer, destroy the bonds of charity between us? And who, absolutely, knows the absolute truth of all of this when Benedict XVI himself maintains that he has relinquished the Crown, or at least the Chair, of Blessed Peter, and in his resignation told us that the Seat would become vacant?
The truth is that most, if not all of us, have and continue to have a vested and common interest in assuming that the Church is correct to tell us that Pope Francis is a validly elected Supreme Pastor, Successor of St Peter and Vicar of Christ, and treating him as such, even when more or less each and every single thing he says and does contradicts this role, this sublime calling, this most revered, holy, august and vital Office. Well, as the picture below indicates, our image of that Office has been, er, somewhat dimmed...
"I thought Francis was the Pope until he showed me and everyone else his behind..."
And the dimming of that Office, the diminution of the Papacy, or the destruction of the Petrine Office is a huge problem. However, whether you are a priest or a bishop who has to name his name in the Canon of the Mass, who simply has to put up with Francis and his knuckle-bitingly awful ways, or whether you're just a Catholic who goes online and maybe someone says, 'Did you see what Pope Francis said about X, Y, or Z? Isn't it crazy?' you want to be able to be confident, 100% confident, that when you say 'Yes, what a terrible Pope!' that you absolutely know you are talking about the Pope, rather than someone who dresses as the Pope but who is not the Pope, because if we're going to constantly run down the Pope as a heretic or worse it would be shameful for us to realise that every time we castigated 'the Pope' we were helping an evil Antipope to heap yet more derision on the Papacy that he despises and seeks to destroy. Well, wouldn't it?
What if Francis isn't the Pope?
A loss of confidence that Francis is the Pope or an interior acknowledgement that Francis is not the Pope has real psychological and spiritual effects. Yes, that would be 'annulment time'. 'This papacy is null and void' are the words so many of us would like to hear, but it would be quite a shock, equally, to know that the last six years had been from beginning to end a masterfully-orchestrated Satanic deceit that had convinced large swathes of the Church that Almighty God, knowing all things before Time ever existed, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, would ever, for a single moment outside of Time (if that makes sense), no matter how angry He may be with His People, permit that the hallowed Chair of the Blessed Peter could be legitimately, lawfully, validly occupied by someone as pertinaciously heretical and implacably opposed to the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ - and proclaim such derision for God and His Law publicly - as Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
At the announcement of this shock news, real and palpable grief would be manifested in the tweets of Massimo Faggioli and Austen Ivereigh decrying the injustice done to their beloved champion of all things antithetical to True Religion, but grief might also be manifested by those who had fought Francis solely on the basis that he was the true reigning Pope and there was no other and that they had not been fighting an enemy on the Chair of Peter, but a foe of Christ installed during an invalid conclave. In an invalid conclave, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity could not possibly have assisted the Cardinals, since the Holy Ghost would not assist in an illicit and invalid conclave that could only produce an antipope, no matter who was elected, be he good or evil. May we assume that if a conclave is invalid, then the Holy Ghost may very well not bring it divine protection?
From a spiritual point of view, the interior acceptance that Francis is not the Pope also brings changes, the first of which is the reconsolidation of the theological virtues of Faith and Hope which, as we can all agree, the Devil is gleefully destroying. The one thing that Pope Francis has brought upon the Church and especially clergy is the destruction of the theological virtue of Faith, not necessarily Faith in the One who made the promises to Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, but faith and unyielding belief in the promise itself. Many of us have had to adjust our interpretation of that promise just for Pope Francis. Yes, what an accolade for Francis! Job well done, Jorge!
But are we denying our Faith?
For example, observe with what great Faith and love for God those who have signed the letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy possess by God's grace, because they believe in what has been divinely revealed to the Church in Her faith and morals, things taught and held by the Church as being from Her Lord. Because they believe this with all their heart, they recognise the wolf who is devouring the sheep and the wolf is called "Pope Francis". Bravo to each and every one of them for doing so.
When it comes, however, to the actual promise of Christ that the gates of Hell cannot prevail against His Church and the belief from what I assume was the beginning that the Church is indefectible, there exists within that heresy charge an implicit rejection of a many centuries-held belief that many can lead the Faithful to perdition by their errors, but that the Pope cannot or by God's Providence would not defect, run headlong into heresy and lead the vast majority of the Church into error upon error and thereby tempt the Church to Her own destruction.
Yet, in Pope Francis, this is precisely what we observe increasingly and many Bishops will follow him into the bottomless pit he is digging for himself and for them and all those who will not abide in the Truth of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Pope, we are led to believe, is leading the battle cry of all of Hell. What is this battle cry? 'Non serviam!' 'I will not serve!' Can you believe that? The Pope acting as a leading agent for the entire confraternity of demons?
But ah, it is worse even than this, since the supreme authority of the one who implicitly cries it each and every day also shouts aloud, 'You will not serve either!' and this he cries to all those placed under him. This is why the good are removed quickly and the bad are promoted even more quickly. This is why the illicit Chinese Patriotic Bishops are enlisted among the ranks of those in Communion with the Holy See. The just are punished, the wicked are set free to work their work of deceit and malice, not just in episcopal Sees but in whatever areas of the Church heretics can be emboldened. That is to say, everywhere.
This entire situation is contrary to our Faith
Thou art Peter and I haven't foreseen Jorge Bergoglio, honest...
How can such a thing as this happen in a Church divinely protected? How can this happen from the very Office instituted as the divinely-appointed Protector and Defender of the entire Church, most especially in Her Infallible Teachings? How? Only six years ago, we did not think this time of doctrinal chaos from the centre could happen, even though faithful Catholics know that the Pope who Francis canonised, Paul VI, oversaw a time of liturgical chaos. We thought that doctrine was safe. What changed?
Previous generations have thought such a thing impossible and in our times, instead of ramming their heads against the Rock of the Papacy while their belief in Christ's actual promise to Blessed Peter ebbs away into the tributary of a river called "Eastern Orthodoxy", whether right or wrong, a good number have done themselves and their immutable Catholic Faith a favour and said, 'This man cannot be / is not the Pope.' Can they be blamed? Would it be too controversial to suggest that they cannot be blamed?
For how long can we avoid the confrontation with this controversy?
The reality is that among Catholics there really is disagreement and confusion over the identity of the true Pope. This is observable on various online forums. I must concede that once you remove the possibility that Francis is, was or ever will be the Successor of St Peter and the Vicar of Christ, the problems and scandals that he promotes remain and continue to jeopardise the sublime Mission of the Church for the Salvation of Souls. Because of Francis, Pope Francis, the Church and even the World are scandalised, heretics believe the eternal Truth can be changed because 'our man' is 'at the top', the wicked are confirmed in their wickedness, the errors of Russia spread throughout the Hierarchy like flames engulfing Cathedral rafters, but, if he isn't the Pope, the actual promise of Christ to Peter - the Church's actual belief in the indefectibility of the Church - remains wholly intact.
Why? Because, in this outcome, were it to be true, despite the chaos we observe, in reality nothing would have changed since 13 March 2013. In this scenario, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not Peter, he is an antipope, and not just any old antipope but the Antipope of History himself. If he is, then nothing he does or says is binding, everything he has done, encyclicals, exhortations, Synods and appointments, including the cardinalatial appointments he has made are invalid, null and utterly void. If he is just an apostate Bishop and Antipope he can be the most evil man on the planet, rivalled in his emnity towards God only by the Antichrist himself, a valid Bishop, yes, an apostate and a heretic, yes, but never, ever, not for a single moment, the Holy Roman Pontiff, the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of St Peter, the Prince of Princes, the Servant of the Servants of the Church.
In this scenario, the Faithful who have accepted interiorly or interiorly considered the possibility that Francis is not the Pope, look on as the Faithful looked upon Notre Dame de Paris blazing in the night, praying fervently, offering up entreaty to the ever-Virgin Mother of God, praying for relief and deliverance from the inferno raging through the building, that this imposter may be once and for all exposed for who he really is.
Who is he, in this scenario? He can most likely be nothing other than the False Prophet of the Apocalypse and I have on various sites and on social media seen him described as just this apocalyptic figure because he fits the bill perfectly, not simply because of his sinister methods of ruling the Church, but his central role in the apostasy we are daily witnessing. He is, in his unique role, promoting and facilitating the apostasy his vocation would be to do valiant battle against as Pope. For this explicit reason and for no other, some Catholics have quite naturally reasoned that he cannot, therefore, be the true Pope. This may be the faith of the simpleton, but if the Catholic Faith isn't for simpletons, who is it for? Experts? Let's be honest, people are sick to death of experts. People have eyes and ears. They know the voice of the Good Shepherd. They know that Voice is not heard from the mouth of Francis.
The Catholic Church is on fire
As Bishop Schneider surmised on the destruction of Notre Dame, in the Cathedral, the upper regions, that is to say, the Hierachy, are engulfed in the infernal flames, they are destroyed by their own folly and lack of Faith in the Risen One, by their lukewarmness and their pursuit of status, by their naked, faithless, godless ambition.
We see this in Bishops everywhere. They accept each and every new innovation and mockery of God and His Bride, doctrinal questions are 'above my paygrade' but they do not perceive the signs of the times, they follow every wind of new doctrine and implicitly reject Sacred Tradition and Scripture. They will happily reject as heretics and schismatics those who hold firm to the Truth of Jesus Christ, but the truly Faithful remain standing like a High Altar or a Rose Window, intact, their faith in Christ and the indefectibility of the Church untouched by the raging destruction surrounding them.
I may sympathise with those who believe Francis is truly the Pope, since I have long believed it myself. I may symapthise with those who believe Francis cannot be the Pope since his actions, omissions and words do not recommend themselves to this Office at all. Yet it is, no matter what I believe concerning the matter, a testable fact that those who hold that Benedict XVI did not validlyabdicate or adequately vacate the Throne of glorious St Peter and who therefore hold that Jorge Bergoglio does not validly enjoy the authority of the Vicar of Christ, have preserved, in contrast to many, many others, their impenetrable belief thatthe Pope himself cannot lead the Faithful into error or be a pertinacious, material or formal heretic, that this possibility is as impossible today as it has hitherto, I think, always been held to be.
This is believed by many because they believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ protects with His Mighty Hand the Office of Peter and preserves the Officeholder, in myriad ways, from His Throne in Heaven, from leading the Church astray, or, at the very least, so profoundly awry that She threatens to divorce Herself from Him with the sanction and blessing of the Supreme Authority of Christ Himself in His Vicar. You may say that Pope Francis hasn't yet done that. You might think he's gone close. Perhaps he has not, but he is trying very hard to do just that and that's where the Church is headed under his stewardship, if, indeed, one may call his behaviour 'stewardship'.
I would have as much authority as the remarkable Ann Barnhardt to declare that Pope Francis is a counterfeit, imposter Pope and that Benedict XVI remains the one and only true Pope on Earth, the Vicar of Christ. How much authority is this? None. Not a bit. Equally, however, it can be conceded to those who say it, like the theologiacal giant and pianist Stephen Walford and Fr Thomas Petri OP (two names which I never suspected would be lumped together in a blog post) that no authority may pass judgement on a sitting Pope.
A problem: No authority may pass judgement on a sitting Pope
If we accept that no authority may sit in judgement on a sitting Pope (and I do) andwe accept that Pope Francis is a heretic (and I certainly do, because he patently is) then Pope Francis cannot reasonably be accepted to be the Pope, even if the whole Church proclaims him to be the Pope and accepts his election universally. If the Pope is a heretic and you cannot place the Pope on trial, because nobody can judge him, then God has placed no safeguards, divine or even natural, around the Papacy at all and our Catholic Faith is discovered to be deficient, the entire Church entirely defenceless against an evil Pope with the Church at his mercy, the faithful among Her to be shown none. The Church, in this scenario, is so far from indefectible as to warrant the contempt and derision of the entire World. Sorry, but that's how it must seem to so many people.
Is the Pope Catholic? Answer: Yes, but only if the Pope is Benedict XVI
If we accept that it is now possible for Catholics to call Pope Francis out on his heresies to the extent that we call him, even in an unofficial but decisive manner, a heretic, thereby worthy of losing or having plausibly lost the Office he was once in possession of, it is no worse or better for us to say that Pope Francis is not the Pope because the conclave that elected him was an invalid conclave.
Furthermore, it is no worse to suggest that for this reason and this reason alone was he, an apostate Bishop of evil intent, permitted by Almighty God to take over the organs of power and authority in the Church for the destruction of those who would willingly join him in his unholy endeavour in his bizarre and adulterous embrace of a syncretistic secular religion of man to be erected in place of the Catholic Church, yes on the very foundation Christ founded for the World's Salvation. I guess that Church, that monstrosity, that Temple of Man will look something like the designs you will see from modern architects for the new Notre Dame but probably much worse.
Let us not mince our words. God's ways are indeed inscrutable, but, (forgive me, Lord, if I speak in presumption) He seems, from what I can see, to be using the evil man we know as Pope Francis to gather all those who will be condemned, together, along with him, into one Hellish tent.
We must ask: Would Almighty God use a genuine Successor of Saint Peter to do that, when He has promised the precise opposite, or would that not indeed renege entirely our faithful Lord Jesus Christ's own promises to Peter, to his Successors and to His Holy Catholic Church? Would that not make Almighty God a liar?
You see, that doesn't really sound like God. May I suggest it is more likely that were the Lord to permit His Church to appear to men to be a total and utter laughing stock of insane heresies and diabolical confusion, He would permit Satan to use an apostate Bishop who had convinced himself and the world he was the Pope to do that, when, all along, he was not. Then, in the ultimate test of Faith, the Lord would observe who was taken in by Satan's deceit and who was not, noting down the names of those who were not taken in for survival, that is to say, for eternal life, in the Book of Life.
If Pope Francis is a validly elected Pope, truly a Successor of St Peter and yet works every day, like no other man in the history of Christianity, save for the most notorious heretics of old, to destroy the Church in order to erect the Anti-Church, emptied of the Teachings of Our Lord, it is, since the Salvation of souls is the highest law of the Church, absolutely right that he be confronted for his heresies and the errors he is promoting. I thoroughly applaud and admire all who have signed the letter which I recommend you sign in form of a petition of support. Likewise, now that we are saying that Pope Francis is a heretic, it is worthwhile revisting at the very least the possibility that:
a) God cannot, since He has sworn by His very self to protect His Bride and the Teaching Office of the Papacy, permit a man such as Francis to be a validly elected Pope whom all must obey and that therefore...
b) Francis is not the Pope and that therefore...
c) Pope Benedict XVI did not abdicate the Throne of the glorious Peter in a satisfactory manner, nor was his resignation accepted in Heaven and that therefore...
d) Jorge Bergoglio is a heretic but...
e) the Pope is not because...
f) he isn't the Pope because...
g) Pope Benedict XVI is the true and only Pope.
And if we think about it, nuts as that sounds and much as we may resist the idea, let us be honest to ourselves and each other and confess that for the integrity of our Faith to remain intact, the only possible way a 'Pope' could do what Pope Francis has done, is doing, and will without a shred of remorse do, because conscience he has none, is if God would permit the Church to be tempted not only to follow his errant teachings but to believe that a sitting Pope could do these things, without His Intervention, such as sudden death or sudden repentance, and be a valid, lawfully elected Successor of St Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Chief Shepherd of all the Faithful.
"In conclusion, just do whatever George Soros tells you. "
For my part, I do not say these things to be divisive, just as Catholic heroes of faith Nick Donnelly, Fr Aidan Nichols OP and all those brave men and women, with much to lose, aim to be divisive. I have studied and observed this nightmare for six years. Nothing about Pope Francis seems real. It all seems so fabricated. Nothing about it is authentic. It operates on a scale of public deceit and double-dealing nobody has seen in the history of the Papacy. Like those who have accused the Pope of heresy, I am interested in the the proclamation of the Truth and in encouraging our Shepherds to work tirelessly for the resolution of this great, lamentable and unprecedented crisis in the Church, exploring all possible avenues of enquiry over precisely what has taken place in these our times.
'They are your words.'
The concerns the letter writers express about Pope Francis build a compelling case that Pope Francis is a heretic and wilfully so. I would add nothing nor take away from anything they have said about the man who daily, with more and more urgency, makes a mockery of all that Holy Mother Church holds as sacred, venerable and holy.
What I would say is that if it is the case that Pope Francis is a heretic, or can be spoken of as such, Holy Church somehow, sooner rather than later, needs to revisit the subject of why generations upon generations upon generations of Catholics have held this supreme moment of crisis to be an impossibility, because the Office is preserved by Christ Himself for the Salvation of souls and the preservation of the Most Holy Faith in the Church which He loves and for Whom He Himself gave Himself up to Death. This Church, the Catholic Church, the One True Church, His Bride it is which is imperilled by the man the Church and the World knows as Pope Francis. We must however know for certain whether 'Pope Francis' exists or whether we are confronting with his heresies 'Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio'. Yes, that is important.
God can allow a great delusion to be sent among the people of God from within the bosom of the Church. God permitted Martin Luther to do precisely this. Yes, in His "permissive will", God can allow a great delusion which will lead souls to believe their own grievous errors. Catholics have not previously accepted that God would permit that this scandal would originate from His own Vicar. Saints and scholars have raised the possibility as one to be studied, but the belief that it could happen has never been either partially or universally accepted. Yes, there is your paradigm shift. That is the real reason you and I suffer so much. Every aspect of our Faith is under attack, including our belief that the Pope will not, by God's Providence, lead the People of God along the broad road to perdition.
Therefore, if we are going to accuse the man who leads, not merely promotes, the destruction of Christian faith and morals, by subterfuge mainly, but sometimes in a brazen and naked manner, a man who does this in any possible way he can without giving away his evil plan entirely or unmasking himself completely, a man who instills within the Church, at all levels, unprecedented fear and who micromanages a tyranny of relativism from what we are led to believe is the very summit of the Church, if we are going to accuse that man of heresy, that man divinely appointed with supreme authority in the Holy Church of God, whom no man, no authority on Earth can judge, well, we had better be 100% certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that that man is the Pope.
Why? Because if he is the Pope, we all have to, at the very best, adjust what has hitherto been our firm belief in Christ's promise to Peter and at the very worst, abandon that belief almost entirely and say,
'Christ meant some of the People of God and some Cardinals, some Bishops and some Priests wouldn't be overcome, but that the Pope would possibly, maybe...probably...well, that's how it seems.'
The problem is that Catholics have never believed that. And yet we are supposedly 'traditionalists'. We also have to adapt our interpretation of Canon Law which says nobody may sit in judgement of him, yes, even when 'the Salvation of souls is the highest law', because nobody trumps the Pope. Would God allow that situation to arise? Is God not God anymore? Is God not faithful to His Bride anymore?
If he is not the Pope, we don't have to do either. We do not have to modify our view of Christ's promise. Nor do we have to reinterpret Canon Law. In that scenario, we cannot rest on our laurels, but we may ascertain that the man we accuse as a heretic is an imposter and a usurper of the papacy, but not the Chief Shepherd of all Christians and should be treated, charged and condemned not as a heretic Pope but as an Antipope.
It is completely understandable that few, if any, in authority want to go there. Would even Benedict XVI admit if there was something deficient in his resignation that short-circuited the Petrine Office and the next conclave? Who can blame them? What a can of worms that would be and what would the results of that investigation be? Nobody enters into marriage looking for an annulment. Nobody accepts a Pope looking for an Antipope, but now that we are asking whether the Pope is a heretic, we may just as well ask whether the heretic in question is the Pope. If faithful Catholics maintain that he is the Pope, all his supporters, with all of Canon Law to back them up may respond:
'No authority may sit in judgement upon a sitting Pope'.
And you know what? They're right! A lawful authority may, however, sit in judgement upon an Antipope. Who decides whether he is an Antipope? Some Cardinals? The true Pope? Whoever it is, it isn't the Antipope himself, who is deposed, not merely for heresy, but for usurping an Office which was never his, while never attaining the Office he sought, because Christ defends it from those who would imperil His Infallible Teachings which are the Church's own because He loves us!
We are truly in unchartered territory and the hour is getting late.
Does anyone know why the Supreme Teacher of all the Faithful will not answer our questions on Faith and Morals?
You know why?
Perhaps you do know why.
Where is the red line to be drawn at which it may be ascertained by the Faithful that a man presented to the World as a true and valid Pope is not a true Pope but an illegitimate and fraudulent Antipope?
And is the Church really powerless against such a man as that? May Our Lady of Fatima, in this hour of the Church's greatest trial, come to the aid of the Pope and the Cardinals and Bishops of the Holy Catholic Church and lead the Church on Earth, by her powerful prayers to her Son, to safe harbour. Now, for something light...