Is Francis merely a material heretic?

How so?

Don't want to expand on your "at least" huh?

Material heretics (caveat: 'material heretic' is understood in different ways) may have the Catholic Faith, and it is not up to me to judge!


Also, you left off the punch line from Ladislaus's quote, "...and therefore they do not legitimately hold authority in the Church". I hope you can see from my response that he is at variance in this with some of the greatest minds of the Church.  So the statement is clearly not a Catholic one.


There are many distinctions in Catholic theology. An answer in a catechism is only the briefest of summaries of sometimes complex subjects that fill whole libraries in theological works, and these catechism answers are subject to many clarifications and distinctions.


Let me give just one example that relates to your assertion "if you don't have the Catholic Faith, you're outside the Church": St Robert Bellarmine, discussing the second of his famed 'five opinions', "that the Pope, in the very instant in which he falls into heresy, even if it is only interior, is outside the Church and deposed by God", replies "that the foundation of this opinion is that secret heretics are outside the Church, which is false". So immediately you can see that your assertion is not unconditionally true.

It is interesting that Plenus Venter cites St Bellarmine with respect to secret heretics, but fails to include his reference to secret heretics in his fifth and true opinion when speaking of manifest heretic popes:

Now the fifth true opinion, is that a Pope who is a manifest heretic, ceases in himself to be Pope and head, just as he ceases in himself to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church: whereby, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics soon [mox — better translation: immediately] lose all jurisdiction, and namely St. Cyprian who speaks on Novation, who was a Pope in schism with Cornelius: “He cannot hold the Episcopacy, although he was a bishop first, he fell from the body of his fellow bishops and from the unity of the Church” [332]. There he means that Novation, even if he was a true and legitimate Pope; still would have fallen from the pontificate by himself, if he separated himself from the Church. The same is the opinion of the learned men of our age, as John Driedo teaches [333], those who are cast out as excommunicates, or leave on their own and oppose the Church are separated from it, namely heretics and schismatics. He adds in the same work [334], that no spiritual power remains in them, who have departed from the Church, over those who are in the Church. Melchior Cano teaches the same thing, when he says that heretics are not part of the Church, nor members [335], and he adds in the last Chapter, 12th argument, that someone cannot even be informed in thought, that he should be head and Pope, who is not a member nor a part, and he teaches the same thing in eloquent words, that secret heretics are still in the Church and are parts and members, and that a secretly heretical Pope is still Pope. Others teach the same, whom we cite in Book 1 of de Ecclesia. The foundation of this opinion is that a manifest heretic, is in no way a member of the Church; that is, neither in spirit nor in body, or by internal union nor external. For even wicked Catholics are united and are members, in spirit through faith and in body through the confession of faith, and the participation of the visible Sacraments. Secret heretics are united and are members, but only by an external union: just as on the other hand, good Catechumens are in the Church only by an internal union but not an external one. Manifest heretics by no union, as has been proved.

Here is summed up by Ladislaus the essential problem of sedevacantism, a problem that Archbishop Lefebvre understood, but Ladislaus, sadly, does not.

The sedevacantist effectively sets himself up as pope. He takes this opinion, expressed by Ladislaus, and promulgates it as absolute, definitive, dogmatic, binding on the Catholic conscience.

Fr. Chazal without hesitation rejects SP and SV in his book.
I also agree that Bergoglio is a heretic.
The difference is that Chazal and I (along with JST, Cajetan, Billiart, Suarez, etc) believe the Church can have an heretical pope until his deposition is declared, and you do not.

If Sanborn isn’t a good representative of SP, who is?( you’ve made comments to that effect several times but haven’t pointed to who this  authentic SP alternative to Sanborn is)