Wow, I am utterly astounded at your attempt to skirt around the issue here. The problem is not that heretics cannot repent and go to confession, but pertinacious heretics (those without any repentance whatsoever, such as your "Popes") because they believe they are right (like yourself) remain firmly outside of the Church and lose all office and authority as has been shown thousands of times.
Your "Popes" remain pertinacious and therefore outside of the sheepfold, therefore, again, cannot command or possess any Catholic office.
By your explanation Lutherans, Calivinists, Methodists, Eastern "Orthodox" et all are Catholics because they can renounce their heresy and return to the Church. Which is literally what the Modernist heretics teach.
No, I am not skirting around the issue, I am merely pointing out your errors, errors which you rely on to support your narrative.
First y
ou said "heretics are outside of the Church. They are not Catholics." This is false as I just showed you - and apparently you now agree? - because now you just said above:
"The problem is not that heretics cannot repent and go to confession..."
If they've never had the faith, then Lutherans, Calivinists, Methodists, Eastern "Orthodox" et all are *not* Catholics, so no, they are not permitted to go to confession because those heretics are outside of the Church.
So knowing that only Catholics can use the sacrament of confession, can Catholics guilty of the mortal sin of heresy and want to repent go to confession or not?
Your anti-logic also implies that schismatics and apostates, who have been baptized (as only the baptized can be heretics, apostates and schismatics), cannot repent and enter the Church as well. Your point doesn't make sense because you're being entirely dishonest and don't have the truth.
Again, you are off the mark. It is the Church's logic that says one who is Catholic - which of course means one who is baptized and believes all the Church teaches and believes in the Church - and who commits the mortal sins of heresy will be forgiven of those sins in the Sacrament of Penance if he wants to repent of those sins. Indeed, the Church urges all Catholics who fall into whatever mortal sin, including the sin of heresy, to get to confession because they must go to confession if they want to repent and be forgiven.
The problem is, as PPXII said, the nature of the sins of heresy. Due to the nature of this sin it will be very unlikely for the heretic to even think about seeking forgiveness.
This is just basic Catholic truth, if it does not make sense to you then the truth does not make sense to you.