Let’s cut to
the chase:
Either you
believe that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the pope, or you do not.
Regardless
of your answer, there are only two possibilities:
Either he is, in fact, the Roman Pontiff, or he is not.
Thus, we
have four possible scenarios:
First
scenario: You believe he is the pope, and you are correct.
In this case, if you obey him, you should be safe.
Second
scenario: You believe he is not the pope, but he is.
If you think he is an antipope due to all his heresies, and it turns out he is, in fact, the successor of Saint Peter, two further possibilities arise:
a) You are in material schism
You have erred in good faith. After all, you have not rejected Bergoglio because you thought he was the pope. Your intention was not to reject submission to the Supreme Pontiff or the members of the Church subject to him.
'Schismatics in good faith (material schismatics), like heretics in good faith, can, by a desire to belong to the Church (votum Ecclesiae), belong spiritually to the Church, and through this achieve justification and salvation' (Ott, 1954, p. 311).
b) You are not in schism.
'If someone, for a reasonable motive, holds the person of the pope in suspicion and refuses his presence and even his jurisdiction, he does not commit the delict of schism, nor any other whatsoever, provided that he is ready to accept the pope were he not held in suspicion' (Cajetan, Commentarium, 1540, II-II, 39, 1).
In itself,
being mistakenly under the jurisdiction of an antipope would not jeopardise
your eternal salvation.
However, we are dealing with Bergoglio here, who happens to be a public apostate and teaches heresies in his magisterium. In this scenario, you would risk losing your soul if you obey him.
Fourth
scenario: You believe he is an imposter, and you are correct.
In this case, you should be safe.
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Could care less if he is Pope. I am a Traditional Catholic. I am not going to say he is or IS NOT.
ReplyDeleteI will say he is a BAD POPE! I can reasonably say this with our retribution or worry. Our Formerly Holy Father can be a BAD POPE and or a good Pope. It does not make the Catholic Church end. It just makes it harder to be Catholic and to Love the Church.
I pray for him.
I ignore him.
I pray he will find his peaceful end sooner rather than later.
I can do nothing else. Besides the next guy will likely be a child molester as well since the current guy picked him.
It is Christs Church... The Catholic Church. What else matters. Jim
Would not the third scenario also be a case of material schism?
ReplyDelete