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Now THAT was an interesting insight!

Ultimately, you are raising the question:

“What about a claimant who’s papacy should be a dogmatic fact, but isn’t?”

That scenario never occurred to me before.

And I completely agree with your suggestion that a truly orthodox pope would never has his pontificate ratified by the universal moral unanimity of the bishops.

But does that necessarily mean that the unanimous opinion of theologians are wrong that said universal acceptance makes such a papacy a dogmatic fact (and therefore as binding as it is certain)?

Still thinking it through, but I don’t think so:

It seems to indispensable to the hierarchical constitution of the Church that there could be a true pope rejected by a sizable number of bishops (for any reason), or conversely, that all the bishops could be deceived into recognizing a false pope.

But the example of a good pope-elect who refuses to gain universal consent has already happened in history (e.g., during the GWS, when saints backed competing claimants, and consequently none of them were popes, precisely because of the lack of universal consent.).

Moreover, theologians of the stature of a Billot or Alphonsus would have had these historical example in mind when writing about dogmatic facts and universal consent of the bishops.

For that reason, I don’t think the unfortunate reality you describe discredits the criteria of universal consent as the measuring stick of the legitimacy of any papacy (modernist or orthodox).

I think it does show tgat the Church has been led into an inextricable predicament which only our Lord’s intervention will solve.

Personally, I've already been through all of what you've numerated above, and more. I think it's likely you will need to sort it out for yourself as my conclusions are constantly discounted as wrong or otherwise unbelievable. Yet for the ones who discount them, their problem remains.

Suffice to say that the pope is the pope, but because we owe obedience to God first, all we can do is remain the pope's good subjects, but God's first. Always God's first. That we must remain the pope's good subjects, is dogma. Try starting there.

It is because, contrary to the most fundamental of Catholic principles, most Catholic people had (and many still have) such blind trust in their bishops and their priests and in the pope, that they were totally defenseless against the conciliar revolution. When they see popes publicly sinning, this is when they see him preaching heresy, or kissing the koran and etc. ad nausem, they can't believe their eyes. Because they don't believe a pope can do what the conciliar popes have done and remain popes, we have people here claiming unless we profess the pope is not the pope, we're in schism.

The people learned to have such blind trust from somewhere - I believe this thinking emanates from some theologians, only  within the last 150 years or so.

It seems my position is a hybrid between yours and Lad’s:

1) like you, I believe the pope is the pope

2) like Lad, I believe dogmatic facts are binding (and for my part, I would add the conciliar popes are dogmatic facts in light of the universal consent of bishops).

3) #1 comes from #2

4) the possibility of a good pope not receiving universal consent (eg., Siri) does not weaken #2 (although it does leave the Church in a difficult situation).

Would you agree that the bishops at v2 defected from the faith and were thus outside of the church?