How do we explain this quote of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, considering that he went into a material schism?


GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA (1452-1498)
DOMINICAN PREACHER (CAUSE FOR CANONIZATION PENDING)

        The Lord, moved to anger by this intolerable corruption, has, for
some time past, allowed the Church to be without a pastor.  For I bear
witness in the name of God that this Alexander VI is in no way Pope and
cannot be....  This I declare in the first place and affirm it with all
certitude, that the man is not a Christian; he does not even believe
any longer that there is a God; he goes beyond the final limits of
infidelity and impiety."  (Letter to the Emperor)

http://www.traditio.com/tradlib/popelim.txt

EDIT: I cannot say for certain whether Fra Savonarola meant the above quote literally or figuratively. Either way, he still went into material schism.

You cannot expect us to be able to answer all your questions about every miniscule event in the 2000 year history of the Church Kepha, we are just lay people like you.

It sounds like you know more about this topic than you have revealed why don't you share what you have learned that we may comment on it.

Alexander VI was not declared an antipope later. He is listed as a pope, just like St Peter and St Pius X. Why should he not be? What was the irregularity in his election? As for "losing" the papacy, what heresy or error did he hold or teach?

The Dominican firebrand sure sounds llike he was being literal. I think he was. I also think that certain Catholic authors who rightly have defended Savonarola against charges of having laid an egg that Luther hatched were employing some sort of mental reservation when they made him out to be a paragon of Catholic orthodoxy. The truth is more complicated than that. Trickier. More embarrassing. More troubling. Less compromising to the authorities who brought about his death. In a way.

His politics were revolutionary. "The People of Florence under Christ the King!" Where did that leave the de Medici and what ought to have been rendered unto them? And this blast against His Holiness the Lord Pope seems to lack a certain Scholastic rigor, to say the least.

There is a venerable Catholic tradition of angst about Savonarola. St Philip Neri venerated him as a Saint. Our pastor, a learned man, told us that this displeased Cardinal Ghislieri, who later became Pope St Pius V. (I've never found a source for that). But St Pius was not one to tickle the Swiss Guard either. He was not a strong spiritual individualist or an original thinker. Some Saints are. (Francis of Assisi, Therese, Teresa, John Bosco, Augustine, Paul, the Queen of Saints, Philip Neri.) Some Saints are not. (John Eudes, John Francis Regis, Casper Bufalo, Mary Mazzarella, Bernadette, Isaac Jogues, John Berchmans, James the Less, Zachary, Joseph, Pius X.)  

Asked what he would do first thing when he got to heaven, Pope Pius VII answered, "Get to the truth about the Immaculate Conception, and then about Savonarola."

That is an amazing statement, if you think about it.

Catholics have countless Saints to inspire and edify them. But only one ghost to haunt them.

As for His Holiness Pope Alexander, Blessed Osanna of Mantua was praying for him one day. Christ appeared to her. He looked so angry at her for praying for such a man that she stopped.

Yes, I think so, Trinity. His name was Rodrigo Borgia.