I'm not going to appoint myself a Doctor of the Church by making up an answer why God has decided to legitimize pontiffs through universal acceptance who were not legitimate by the law.  I'm only showing what the actual Doctors have said about this.  John of St. Thomas actually labels this de fide, not just 'a theory'.

Take a minute and read again the distinction made in the previous post.  St. Alphonsus would not necessarily affirm that Francis was pope in the moments immediately after the election.  However, once he was universally accepted, that acceptance made him pope even if he wasn't already.

The Apostolic Constitution of a Pope overrides any opinion of a Doctor of the Church in this matter. Here again is what the Pope said the law is:

76. Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.

Note, the Pope did not say it confers no right on the elected unless he is later universally and peacefully accepted. He could have said that, right? But he did not say that because it is ludicrous and makes the Apostolic Constitution completely meaningless.

5. Should doubts arise concerning the prescriptions contained in this Constitution, or concerning the manner of putting them into effect, I decree that all power of issuing a judgment in this regard belongs to the College of Cardinals, to which I grant the faculty of interpreting doubtful or controverted points. I also establish that should it be necessary to discuss these or other similar questions, except the act of election, it suffices that the majority of the Cardinals present should concur in the same opinion.

6. In the same way, should there be a problem which, in the view of the majority of the assembled Cardinals, cannot be postponed until another time, the College of Cardinals may act according to the majority opinion.

The idea that the Catholic Pope (or any pope) could be the Antichrist, and/or that the Catholic Church could be (or become) the "Great Whore of Babylon" is a 100% Protestant error, a heresy born in the depths of hell.

I've read many books on Catholic prophecies, Tradition, Lives of the Saints, etc. and studied for a few years at a Trad seminary. That's how I became convinced of this particular fact.

WHERE did you get the idea the Antichrist would be a pope, or even a man who claims to be pope?


Now if you're saying he's a TYPE or PREFIGURE of the actual Antichrist to come, we have no argument. History is full of types, allegories, dress-rehearsals, and precursors. God frequently works that way.

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Thank you for posting these quotes, NIFH. As much as this idea is maligned, the logic behind it is very simple, is explained by probably both the eminent authors you quote, and has never been refuted.

The argument is simple: We must accept with certainty any universal papal teaching on faith or morals. But we cannot accept the teaching of any pope with certainty unless we likewise know for certain that such a man is pope. Therefore there must be some observable, certain criterion to know that some particular man is pope. But the only criterion that fits that description is the universal acceptance of the whole Church of a particular man as pope. Why? Because if the whole Church could be wrong about who the pope is, then the whole Church could be led into error, which is contrary to the promises of Christ.


People who reject this teaching are unable to provide any other universally observable, objective criterion by which the faithful could know for certain that some particular man is pope. I know this because I have asked this question before: "If a man can be universally accepted as pope by the whole Church and still not be pope, then what criterion can give infallible certainty to the whole Church that someone is pope?" I have never gotten an answer to this.

If someone asserts that a man can be accepted peacefully by the universal Church as the pope, and somehow not be the pope, then every papacy is called into doubt, and therefore every defined dogma and every canonized saint and every papal teaching is likewise called into doubt. There is no way to know whether someone is pope or not, or to know whether there was some legal problem in the way his election took place, or anything else.

If you deny Universal Peaceful Acceptance, then either there must be some other universally-observable criterion that can give everyone certainty that someone is pope, or no man can be certainly known to be the pope.

If there is a third possibility, I would love to hear what it is. This is why both St. Alphonsus and Cardinal Billot taught this idea, along with many others.

Yeti, why do you ignore St. Alphonsus exact words? Note that he said:

"It is of no importance that in past centuries some Pontiff was illegitimately elected or took possession of the Pontificate by fraud..."

He DID NOT say:

"It is of no importance that at any time some Pontiff might be illegitimately elected or took possession of the Pontificate by fraud..."

Compare those two statements. This entire discussions of Billot and Alphonsus is about papal elections in the distant past. Those Popes were accepted as legitimate by future Popes, even though there might have been questions/rumors surrounding their elections. You and others are trying to improperly apply what they said to future elections that are completely different, because these recent elections are governed by very detailed papal election laws.

If the second statement was true (which it definitely is not), it would completely undermine the fact of the law of papal elections that have been promulgated by recent Popes as Apostolic Constitutions. It is equivalent to saying that you can break the law and become Pope as long as you trick enough people and get away with it. That is perverse and not Catholic.

Unity of Faith