I won't say that Archbishop Lefebvre hated Ratzinger but let's just say that Ratzinger was his nemesis.  It's ironic that anyone who loves the archbishop would look to Ratzinger for comfort.

Charles Coulombe told me 25 years ago this was so, and that it was French German thing.  Charlamagne's sons quarreling

2Vermont, there's a vast difference between being championed as a "defender of the Faith" and being a great scholar...and theological speculation.  Even when a great Saint like +Bellarmine deals in speculation, which means an educated guess, he is not dealing with absolute truths, or with attributes of holiness.  Speculation is inherently an argument.  It involves the APPLICATION of truths to areas that are yet unknown.  At the end of the day, it's still an opinion, even if an educated one.  The Church has many well-respected theologians who were not saints and also not Doctors.  Being a Doctor or a saint does not give one's SPECULATIONS more weight; it would in the areas of explaining doctrine, or of virtue or other truths.  But not necessarily in speculation, which is where the question of a heretic pope lies.

I see you haven't read the link.  

I see you haven't read the link.  

+Bellarmine is a Doctor of the Church for his vast learning, his teaching of doctrine and his defense of the Faith from heretics.  Theological speculation is none of these things.  

But it *is* a question of judging or deposing an actual pope. Fr. Kramer: "It is divine providence, as Ballerini explains, which prevents the Church from ruling against a valid pope".

Certainly if "The Church" (whoever/whatever that means) is going to judge the man they believe to only be a papal claimant, then this ambiguous entity called "The Church" must be infallibly safeguarded in this effort from even the remotest possibility of error, lest it wrongfully judge the actual pope, and while judging the actual pope, they misjudge the him to not be pope.  Fr. Kramer claims this guarantee of infallibility in judging the papal claimant is the result of Divine Providence.

You say above that you cannot find any fault in his post, do you actually buy off on this preposterous idea that Divine Providence is guaranteed to infallibly prevent "The Church" from judging a valid pope?

The very idea can only be an exercise in desperation to maintain a position because it is beyond absurd.  
 

I was speaking specifically about Father Kramer's interpretation of Bellarmine.

Well, there is something called the infallibility of the Ecclesia Credens.  If the entire Church universally judged deposed a legitimate Supreme Pontiff, then the Church would have defected for all intents and purposes.  So I cannot disagree with that.  Regardless of which side one takes on the issue, whether the S&S position or the ipso facto position, you'd have to say that God would prevent the entire Church from separating itself from a Supreme Pontiff who was actually the Pope.

Stubborn speaks quite ignorantly when he says, "But it *is* a question of judging or deposing an actual pope." When it is certain who the pope is, then it would be a case of judging an actual pope; but when positive doubt makes it impossible to judge that there is a certain pope, or that the putative pope is a certain pope, then the claimant or claimants become dubious popes. In such a case Bellarmine, cites the ruling of the Council of Constance which defined that in times when it is not known who is the true pope, the council has authority over the pontiffs, because a doubtful pope is considered no pope, and to have power over him is not to have power over the pope. (Nam dubius papa habetur pro non papa, et proinde habere super illum potestatem non est habere potestatem in papam.) The see is presumed vacant. St. Alphonsus, Ballerini, Bordoni, and Gregory XVI, concur with Bellarmine in this opinion. In such a case, they all agree that the "pope" or "popes" must defer to the judgment of the Church; and in the case of a doubtful pope, the "Church" means a general council. 
     What is meant by "The Church" is not an ambiguous entity, but the term has a precise comprehension in ecclesiastical usage, and is explained by Bellarmine in De. Conciliorum Auctoritate, cap. xix: "Respondeo: Nomine Ecclesiae, vel intelligi episcopum, ul exponit hoc loco Chrysostomus, el Innoccntius III. cap. Novit, extra, de judiciis et praxis Ecclesiae demonstrat; quotidie enim episcopo denunciantur ii, de quibus Dominus ait Dic Ecclesiae; vel certe fidelium coetum cuм suo capite. Nam ut Cyprianus ait in epístola ad Florentium, quae est nona lib. 4. Ecclesia est plebs sacerdoti adunata, el pastori suo grex adhaerens. Quare in quocuмque episcopatu deferendi sunt peccatores ad Ecclesiam, et episcopum ejus loci, sed si is episcopus peccet, non potest deferri ad eam Ecclesiam, nisi debeat referri ad seipsum, cuм ipse sit caput ejusdem Ecclesiae, sed deferendus est ad Ecclesiam aliquam altiorem, cui praeest archiepiscopus vel patriarcha: Si vero peccet patriarcha, deferri non potest ad Ecclesiam suam, sed ad majorem, idest, ad romanam Ecclesiam, vel generale concilium, cui summus pontifex praesidet: Quod si ipse summus pontifex peccet, judicio Dei reservandus est, non enim est ulla Ecclesia, ad quam deferri possit, eum sine ipso non inveniatur Ecclesia cuм capite." When the whole Church (i.e. the faithful and their pastors) universally and peacefully accords unanimous acceptance to the one judged to be the valid pope by the council, the validity of that one's pontificate becomes a dogmatic fact. The reason why a council would have authority in such a case when there is only a doubtful pope, or it is not certain who is the pope, is explained by Gregory XVI: «In the times of the antipopes, as well as of the dead Pope, the form of the government ordained by Christ does not remain obscure, even in a case where there is founded doubt, so that it is not clear who should be venerated for Pope, yes in the case of sede vacante it happens in the Church what happens in different monarchies, in which in time of interregnum the government resides in some senate; as practiced also in the ancient Roman empire, in which the Roman senate commanded in time of interregnum; so in the mean while in those cases the government of the Church is aristocratic. But who does not know that this cannot be its natural state? Who can recognize him from the same dilligence that the Church gave to elect her head, suffering ill from remaining headless for a long time?»  [Il trionfo della santa sede e della chiesa contro gli assatti dei novatori, p. 29] All of these authors agree that a certain pope can never be judged, and that if it were permitted by God that the pope become a public heretic, he would become an incapable subject of the papacy.

I’m not disagreeing with you but we should be careful about placing limits on what God can do in order to chastise His wayward flock.  During the episode at St Bernard’s time and again during the GWS, the true pope was much less followed than the antipopes.

Sorry but you are mistaken. NONE of the GWS Popes( Fr OR It) were ever proclaimed as anti-popes... Catholics are allowed to recognise either as a true Pope. This was the compromise that allowed the schism to be settled. :cheers: