Response to questions from an FSSPX member on the invalid Pope Francis

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Question: You – the Byzantine Patriarchate – claim that a Catholic must recognize that Franciscus is not the Pope. How does an ordinary Catholic know that Franciscus is not the Pope? If the Lord wants us to renounce Jorge Bergoglio, has He given us an objective criterion for this?
Answer: Yes, the Lord has given us an objective criterion. That objective criterion for convicting a public apostate is the fact that he preaches a different gospel. Jorge Bergoglio is an apostate who publicly preaches a sodomite, climate and covid anti-gospel. The punishment for such a gospel is God’s anathema: “Even if … an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed!” (Gal 1:8-9) The entire Church Tradition is based on this position of the Scriptures:
Pope Paul IV (1559) in his bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, Pope Innocent III and Doctors of the Church teach that a heretical pope is deposed by God.
St Anthony, the bishop (1459), wrote: “In the case in which the Pope would become a heretic, he would find himself, by that very fact alone and without any other sentence, separated from the Church. A head separated from a body cannot be head of the same body from which it was cut off.”
St Francis de Sales (1622) states: “When the Pope is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church…”
Canonists Wernz and Vidal, in their 1943 interpretation of Canon Law, make it clear: “Through notorious and openly divulged heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into heresy, by that very fact [ipso facto] is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction even before any declaratory judgement by the Church…”
St Alphonsus of Liguori confirms this fact by saying: “If God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the apostolic chair would be vacant (sede vacante).”
St Robert Bellarmine (1610) made a well-known statement: “The Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church.”
St Bellarmine also states: “And this is what St Jerome writes, adding that the other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ… The non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope … cannot be head of what he is not a member. He who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian, as is clearly taught by St Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2), St Athanasius (Ser. 2 cont. Arian.), St Augustine (lib. De grat. Christ. cap. 20), St Jerome (Dial. contra Luc.) and others; therefore the manifest heretic cannot be Pope.”
St Bellarmine went on to say that nothing could be worse for the Church and that “it would be the most miserable condition of the Church, if she would be compelled to acknowledge a manifestly tearing wolf for a shepherd.”
And further, this holy cardinal emphasized: “Therefore, the true opinion is the one according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.”
Faith in particular, and to some extent also theology, is not a kind of mathematics that depends on intellectual speculation. Faith, and with it salvation, lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Intellectual knowledge is not faith and does not ensure salvation. At the time of Christ, there were Sadducees in Israel who were liberals and did not believe in the resurrection, for example. There were also the Pharisees who claimed to be orthodox, but both of these religious sects crucified Christ. Why? Because they had no personal relationship with God, did not know Him, and did not love Him.
The objective criterion for recognizing that someone is an apostate is his public heresy or public apostasy. This is clearly stated in canon law, but above all in Holy Scripture, as we have already said. The denial of the fundamental truths of Scripture and Tradition is sufficient proof in this case. Bergoglio has definitely committed this. A Catholic should separate himself from the one who does such things, whether he is a layman, a priest, a bishop, or even holds the office of pope.
The member of the Fraternity of St Pius X in question poses as a defender of the Church, but in reality he is defending apostasy and thus today Bergoglio’s rebellion against God and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. St Basil says that the defender of sins is more guilty than the perpetrator of sin because he confuses many people.
The FSSPX member added, and we quote:
“Franciscus had an idol worshipped in the Vatican gardens and brought into St Peter’s, participated in a shamanic ceremony, etc. Benedict convened ‘a second Assisi meeting’. John Paul II kissed the Koran, convened ‘the Assisi meeting’, had a statue of Buddha placed on the altar, …”
Answer: The person concerned is actually saying: you cannot radically speak out against Bergoglio’s public apostasy, because here you have examples of apostate gestures of John Paul II and Benedict XVI…
Surely, these gestures by both popes can hardly be excused. To some extent, they set the stage for Bergoglio’s apostasy and his transformation of the Church into a New Age anti-church. But neither of them, nor any of the previous Popes named below, had so deliberately and systematically undermined the foundations of the Catholic faith or abused papal authority against its very essence with such effect as Bergoglio has done.
The FSSPX member continues:
“John XXII denied the beatific vision and the possibility of intercession before the Last Judgment, and taught, in what seems to be a binding way, that a pope can change the teachings of previous popes. Liberius inclined to Arianism, Honorius I to Monotheletism, etc. From whom, then, should a Catholic dissociate himself? By what criterion do you know what is ‘too much’?”
Answer: As for John XXII (1316-1334), he was a skilled jurist, but he had an erroneous view of the appearance of God. When he was criticized for this, he eventually recanted this mistaken opinion. Pope Honorius was posthumously excommunicated as a heretic for the heresy of Monotheletism. The heresy of Monotheletism was very hidden. It was exposed by St Maximus, who alerted Pope Martin. Pope Martin then opposed the heresy, for which he was sentenced to death by the emperor.
The General Council of Constantinople (680-681) declared Honorius a heretic and excommunicated him from the Church. Bergoglio’s heresy is manifest and ipso facto carries the penalty of excommunication from the Church.
In 2018, the former US nuncio, Archbishop Viganò, publicly called on Bergoglio to resign along with the entire gay network that had occupied the highest offices of the Church.
The objective criterion for when it is “too much”, i.e. when the person in question excludes himself from the Church, is the preaching of another gospel, in Bergoglio’s case the preaching of the sodomite anti-gospel.
Question: “Was it not Dr Martin Luther’s position that the conscience of the individual judges the Church?”
Answer: This is not just about the conscience of the individual judging the Church, but there is, as we have already said, an objective criterion, namely whether one preaches the Gospel of Christ or another gospel. This is an immutable objective criterion.
The FSSPX member quotes from the bull of Boniface VIII: “We declare, say, and affirm that submission on the part of every man to the bishop of Rome is altogether necessary for his salvation.”
Answer: This statement, however, applies to a true pope who defends the faith necessary for salvation and morals. Francis Bergoglio is not a pope; he has excommunicated himself by opposing the very essence of faith and morals. He has dedicated himself to Satan in Canada and legalizes and blesses the sin of sodomy with his doctrinal declaration Fiducia supplicans.
As for Boniface VIII, we add that this statement, which is at the end of his bull Unam sanctam, was confirmed by the Fifth Lateran Council.
The statement of Boniface and the Fifth Lateran Council is true in its essence, because a true pope is bound to defend the faith necessary for salvation and morals. Bergoglio denies the nature of faith and morals and is not a valid pope. To claim that he is pope and to submit to him is to accept another faith that does not lead to salvation and another morality that is against Scripture and Tradition.
As far as Christians outside the Catholic Church are concerned, a Christian may be in innocent ignorance, and then he is justified by God. However, he will not be justified by God who does not have faith in Jesus Christ, or is consciously in grave sin or apostasy. Many Orthodox and other Christians have saving faith, but live only in innocent ignorance concerning the office of the Apostle Peter, primarily due to the abuse of that office.
The member of the Fraternity of St Pius X tries to manipulatively prove that, despite all the heresies, Bergoglio is a proper pope and no one has the right to separate from him, neither internally nor externally, otherwise they will not be saved. This is the heresy of papolatry, which at the present time is completely destroying the saving faith and is the grist for the mill to root the Church’s transformation into a New Age sodomite anti-church. Bergoglio made this transformation with his Fiducia supplicans on 18 December 2023. One must be clear on a fundamental point: Bergoglio is an invalid Pope, has excommunicated himself from the Church and therefore cannot be its head.
Further, the FSSPX member uses similar questions to give the impression that a priest can be in inner union with Bergoglio’s heresies, mention him in the liturgy, and still celebrate the liturgy validly.
We answer: Form, matter, intention and also the theological rule “ex opere operato” apply only when the priest or bishop in question is a member of the Church, living or dead (i.e., when he is currently in grave sin). However, if he is not a member of the Church, then none of this applies. His so-called sacraments are invalid. The Holy Spirit is not at work here. Anyone who commits apostasy is automatically excluded from the body of Christ – the Church – on the basis of God’s word (Gal 1:8-9) and canon law. To recognize Bergoglio as the rightful Pope and to advocate an apostate in the highest office is proof that such an advocate does not know Scripture and Tradition and does not have the Catholic faith.
Question from FSSPX member: “Does the Vicar, the Bishop of Rome, have the power by his actions, for example, his participation in a satanic ceremony, to expel the Almighty from the Church, to completely subjugate it and hand it over to someone else? Has the Shepherd abandoned His sheep because of one man’s betrayal? Has the Church become the ‘mystical body’ of someone else?”
Answer: The FSSPX member keeps asserting a false axiom. He absolutely identifies the external structure of the Catholic Church, headed by the apostate Bergoglio, with the Mystical Body of Christ, to which Bergoglio does not belong. With this apologia for apostasy, the FSSPX member covers up the current most serious crime that Bergoglio has committed against the Church. As we have already stated, on 18 December 2023, by issuing the doctrinal declaration Fiducia supplicans, he legalized the sin of sodomy, and in addition introduced its ecclesiastical blessing. With this step of public apostasy, he de facto denied the Creed and the Decalogue and transformed the Catholic Church into a New Age anti-church with a sodomite anti-gospel. In doing so, he completely separated the outward structure of the Catholic Church from the Mystical Body of Christ. It should be known that those who do not belong to the Church of Christ cannot validly administer the sacraments.
What is the purpose of an apologia in the style of the FSSPX member in question? Not to make Catholics separate from Bergoglio’s anti-church, but on the contrary, to make them gradually accept diametrically opposed doctrines and morals, and continue on the road to destruction.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

+ Methodius OSBMr + Timothy OSBMr
Secretary Bishops

4 July 2024