13.  Next Fr. Boulet sums up the many reasons why, in his opinion, John Paul II’s heresies were not sufficiently public to disqualify him as a true Pope.

3.6. Can John-Paul II be declared notorious and Pertinacious heretic?
As much as the concepts of Notorious and Pertinacious are clear in theory, nevertheless, their concrete application is extremely difficult, especially in the case of the Pope.  The main reason is that such pertinacity is finally determined by the public acknowledgement of the heresy coming from the legitimate authority.  It would have to be necessary not only that a knowledge that john Paul II had committed heresy had spread through the universal Church - which obviously is not so, as only a tiny, tiny minority, far less than 0.1% of the Church, even claim that he has - but it would also be necessary that a knowledge of a guilt on his part of formal, pertinacious heresy, had likewise spread through the Church.  It would be necessary that no resort could conceal the act or the guilt: no appeal to dodgy translations of the original text or to camera tricks; no appeal to faulty speech writers; no appeal to old age; no appeal to ignorance of, or confusion as to, the doctrine in question; no appeal to an accident of writing or speech; no appeal that his saying was "in some way compatible with the doctrine of the Faith if we understood his modern 'philosophical' speech"; no appeal to some kind of ecclesial self-defence in the present hostile liberal social or ecclesial climate.  Even if the crime could not be covered up and there were no legally admissible defence or excuse for the act, nevertheless the greater part of the Church would still have to know of his moral guilt and that the act was legally inexcusable.  It would be necessary that the priests and the Catholic press could not cover up the crime to the people in any way, by any device.  The fact is that the Church is most resourceful and the Faithful are most docile and deferential and next to no one has recognised the heresy of the Pope, let alone any moral culpability and legal inexcusability.  And anyway, the priests and the people themselves have embraced the very same heresies as John Paul II and think that he is just fine, ore even "the greatest Pope ever", as many have been heard to say.  Even the vast majority of the comparatively very few who have not embraced all the same heresies as he do not see or accept that the Pope is in heresy - and the tiny, tiny number who can see it tend to excuse it as not pertinacious but rather due to the overall situation in the Church, especially since "Vatican II", which has blinded almost everyone to many of the true doctrines of the Faith.  The heresy of John Paul II obviously is formally secret in canonical terms, regardless of how clear it might seem to the occasional "traditionalist": his acts have been recognised neither as heretical nor as morally imputable and legally inexcusable.  Hence, his heresy is not legally recognised as notorious in fact; accordingly it is not notorious; and the legal conditions have not been fulfilled which canonists have specified for a Pope to lose his office by heresy.

A preliminary comment before wading into this may be useful.  Fr. Boulet, in agreement with Archbishop Lefebvre, thinks that John Paul II was a heretic.  Indeed, a multiple heretic - a heretic on at least several grounds.  There can be no mistaking this.  He writes that, "the priests and the people themselves have embraced the very same heresies as John Paul II," and a number of similar expressions, couched not in hypothetical terms but as direct assertions.  In this he is merely being candid, because most traditional priests in my experience think that John Paul II was actually a heretic - but like Fr. Boulet, they think that there are some complex legal difficulties which prevented this fact from being sufficiently "public" or "legally established" so as to be openly acknowledged by all and to effect his removal from the papal office the imagined that he held.  

Against Fr. Boulet's assertions in the above paragraph we may consider the following.

a) This assertion appears to be a mere ipse dixit: "pertinacity is finally determined by the public acknowledgement of the heresy coming from the legitimate authority."  If Fr. Boulet means that once pertinacity has been determined by a legitimate authority then the crime is notorious with a notoriety of law, I concede.  If he means by this to deny the existence of the category of publicity, notoriety of fact then I deny.  And this latter alternative seems to be the intended meaning of his statement.

b) It has already been shown that a crime is already public - even notorious - before there is widespread knowledge of it, if the men who know about it are likely to publish it.  In this case it has actually been published.

c) Fr. boulet really has some sport coming up with potential defence strategies for john Paul II, but the most pungent fact remains unable to be washed away: John Paul II employed none of those strategies.  Indeed, he never answered his critics or sought to defend himself in any way.  He kissed the Koran and remained silent afterwards.  He offered a mixture of flour and water in an ancestor worshipping ceremony at Lake Togo in Africa, and made no excuses.  He praised Martin Luther, prayed with the Jєωs, made a pact with the Oriental Schismatics to prevent conversions, and declared Archbishop Lefebvre excommunicate - but he never defended himself.  Nor could he have done so successfully, in any case, because Fr. Boulet's strategies are not capable of concealing the acts, which were witnessed by the entire world and photographed, nor of disguising the pertinacious mind that conceived and accomplished them.  Pertinacity is evident when the culprit clearly knows better.  In this case is it conceivable that Fr. Boulet or anybody else really can believe that John Paul II did not know that kissing the Koran was contrary to divine law, or that universal salvation is a heresy?