Why wouldn't she answer a question the answer to which has a bearing on the salvation of my soul? Or did she perhaps think the question too stupid and the answer self-evident? I'm not trying to be flip, but just throwing out some thoughts that went through my head.
First, whether Francis is pope or not has no bearing on the salvation of your soul. Your salvation depends upon you persevering in the faith till your last breath so you can die in the state of sanctifying grace.
Second, suppose you received a rose from someone - does that mean you now know Francis is pope? Will you become Novus Ordo and do what NOers do and attend the new "mass", CITH, contracept, divorce/remarry, etc. ad nausem? IOW, do you suppose if you received a rose you could now sin without fear of punishment because Francis is pope? St. Therese is not going to be responsible for that.
Don't be solicitous for something harmful to you and expect heaven to answer.
"Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice: and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."
I beg your pardon, but in order to save our souls we must be subject to the roman pontiff. Is that or is it not an infallible statement by a pope?
Yes, our personal submission to the pope is a necessity for salvation. But we are in a crisis. In this crisis, the Holy See has proven to be habitually scandalous - or at best, unreliable. Whether the Seat is Vacant or not, this much is fact. Perhaps it won't be that way in the next crisis, but that's the way it is in this one.
Should the Pope (or non-pope for that matter) ever decree something necessary that does not offend God, we are bound to submit. As it is, the Conciliar popes preach a different Gospel. This is a fact whether they are popes or not.
St. Paul said:
"I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel."I too often wonder the same thing. He continues:
"Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ."Read the commentary from the
Haydock Bible here.
".....because changed by such teachers with a mixture of errors,....and in this sense, they are said to subvert, or destroy the gospel of Christ: so that the apostle hesitates not to pronounce and repeat an anathema, a curse upon all that preach any thing besides, that is, in point of religion, not agreeing with what he had taught."The final point here, St. Paul sums up:
"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Because there can be zero doubt that this pope preaches a different gospel, St. Paul tells us we are to "let him be anathema" - so, let him be anathema, but you should not be so troubled over whether the pope is the pope or not, your concern is supposed to lie in persevering in "that which you have received" no matter what the other gospel teaches or who teaches it.
So you see, St. Paul warned us first, and many other saints warned us as well - the last being Pope St. Pius X - what we are to do when (not if) we ever encountered such a thing - none of them ever told us we were to concern ourselves with deciding if the pope was the pope or not - or deciding whether the "angel from heaven" was and angel from heaven or not.