The Arian crisis has so many parallels for today's Church crisis. The late Michael Davies did a lot of research into the subject.

I never knew the whole story of Celestine V and Boniface VIII. Sculduggery was of course going on back then too. I too try to not judge the VII popes too harshly, though of course they have all been Modernists, to one degree or another. Bp. Williamson has said that there was something decent about B16, which I agree with.

The former Celestine, now reverted to Pietro Angelerio, was not allowed to become a hermit once again. Various parties had opposed his resignation and the new Pope Boniface VIII had reason to worry that one of them might install him as an antipope. To prevent this, he ordered Pietro to accompany him to Rome. Pietro escaped and hid in the woods before attempting to return to Sulmona to resume monastic life. This proved impossible, and Pietro was captured after an attempt to flee to Dalmatia was thwarted when a tempest forced his ship to return to port. Boniface imprisoned him in the castle of Fumone near Ferentino in Lazio, attended by two monks of his order, where Pietro died after 10 months at about the age of 81. His supporters spread the allegation that Boniface had treated him harshly and ultimately executed Pietro, but there is no clear historical evidence of this.

Whether you deny it or not, the fact remains is that you are making a judgment in contradiction to the judgment of him who you accept as a true pope.  You are basing your judgment on reason enlightened by Faith.  It is the same process used to make the judgment that Jorge Bergoglio is not a true pope.

The correct thinking is in knowing with certainty of faith that the Gates of hell will not prevail no matter what. Because we are absolutely certain of this we must also be certain that even *with* evil, apostate, heretic popes sitting in the Chair till, God forbid, the end of time, the gates of hell will still not prevail.

You're creating a circular argument, one that does not exist. The presumption is validity, not invalidity. All the cardinals who voted in the conclave accepted his election, and we must also. No matter the "proof," it is an exercise in futility to attempt to prove invalidity of any papal election.
 
The thinking in your first sentence above is altogether contrary to the belief that binds us as regards the Church's indefectibility. I mean, Christ's promise is the Divine Revelation that tells us in no uncertain terms that the gates of hell will not prevail. So as far as that goes, the Church's indefectibility, being foundational, is not only not any concern of ours, it is our, well, our foundation that without, everything has already crumbled and hell prevailed.

 The correct thinking is in knowing with certainty of faith that the Gates of hell will not prevail no matter what. Because we are absolutely certain of this we must also be certain that even *with* evil, apostate, heretic popes sitting in the Chair till, God forbid, the end of time, the gates of hell will still not prevail.

I have never accepted Boniface as a Pope for no other reason than his alleged election is simoniocal(sp?)-- mucho more than could ever be alleged against Alexander. Additionally there are those who think he murdered St Celestine. BTW-- it took about 2 weeks after the death of Boniface for the Church to recognse Celestine as a Saint.

As I understand it, this means that no pope will ever OFFICIALLY define a heresy, or officially deny a truth of faith. A pope can say what he likes on an airplane or to a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ, but that is merely a personal sin, not a gate of hell for the Church.

Just because a 'majority' accept something does not make it so, the truth is not subject to majority rules, especially in light of new information.

"...One of the saints, [St. Vincent of Lerins (died 445)] whose name I cannot remember, for which I apologize, made a statement concerning heresy and orthodoxy which I find both wonderfully intriguing as well as important.

He says that the true faith is that which has been held by all people, that is, all the faithful people in the Church, all the time.

 Which is to say that any idea that has not been held as a part of Catholic doctrine through all the generations of the Church by the vast majority of the people, is not Catholic. Which is to say that at any given time an idea can be widely held even by the vast majority of the people, as is liberalism among Catholics today.

Also an heretical idea can be shown to have been held by a small group of people within the Church all through history or during a number of generations of history. But the true doctrine of the Church is that which has been held always by everyone..."

The 1917 code of canon law 188 states a Pope loses his office due to heresy. There's debate on how it irons out but it's not as if sedes pulled the notion out of a hat.