For all those calling for the resignation of Pope Francis, the valid and licit Vicar of Christ on earth, only the following suffices:
You are the Judases of the Catholic Church and of God Himself, despite all your claims to the contrary.
Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Deus.
Just as when the fullness of time had arrived, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, heard the people screaming without abatement toward Him, “Crucify Him, crucify Him! He is a blasphemer, crucify Him!” so that the pathway to the Kingdom could be reopened for all humankind, so now does the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, the Head of the visible Church on earth, hear the rabid Judases within the Catholic Church similarly scream, “Crucify him, crucify him! He is a heretic, crucify Him!” Only in this way, through his Passion in the fullness of our time, shall the coming of the Kingdom on earth arrive.
Like the Master, the servant. Pray for Pope Francis that he remains strong in the face of his adversaries who are many, filled with hatred, and ruthless in their raging pride.
How to determine the true path
The question has been asked, “How can we know which one is the true Church and which one is the false church in the confusion that is arising?” The short answer is simple.
As evidenced in Sacred Scripture, Jesus Christ said, “I say to you, ‘You are Peter and on this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. Whatsoever you shall bind upon the earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon the earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven'” (Mt 16:18-19). Thus, Saint Ambrose said, “Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Deus [Where there is Peter, there is the Church and there is God],” because Peter – the Pope – is the Rock, the guarantor of the Faith, and this by divine appointment. Christ Himself prays to the Almighty Father for the Pope.
Several, ‘cognoscenti’ and otherwise, with an attempt at strength in numbers, have claimed (and continue to claim) that the current Peter – that is, Pope Francis – is propagating heresies. But the very premise upon which their claims stand is false because Christ Himself, Who is God, has declared the true Church to be indefectible. The Pope is, thus, himself indefectible in terms of the Faith and what is needed to be saved precisely because the Church is indefectible. This is true not just when the Pope teaches ex cathedra under the charism of infallibility, but also when he teaches non-infallibly, albeit not at the personal level.
The guarantor of the Faith, the Rock, can never fall into the grave sins of apostasy, heresy or schism, because he is safeguarded from doing so by the prevenient grace of God – operating grace. Throughout the entire history of the Catholic Church, in which resides the fullness of the Church established by Jesus Christ, no canonically-elected Pope has ever fallen into any one of these three sins or combination thereof while reigning as Pope, despite repeated claims to the contrary, precisely because of this ongoing gift of prevenient grace. Those who claim otherwise are either inadequately schooled in the actual particulars of history or wilfully misunderstanding history.
The above-referenced gift of grace, granted to Peter and each one of his successors, will keep on being granted to their successors until the end of all time. It is not provided by God for the personal benefit of the Pope. It is provided for the benefit of humanity, so that the ark of salvation, which is the Church, never fails and the gates of Hell do not prevail against it.
The true Church, therefore, can easily be discerned to be where the Pope is, not where some might claim or desire it to be, because it is the Pope and no one else who has been granted the divine gifts of the charism of truth and the charism of a faith that never fails.
A small group of professional Catholics has issued a formal ‘filial correction’ of Pope Francis, namely Correctio Filialis De Haeresibus Propagatis, in relation to seven purported heresies in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia [The Joy of Love]. A parallel group of laity is trying to do the same under the spearheading of a Bachelor’s-level American Catholic.
It should be noted that the above-referenced correction usurps, in both essence and fact, the role of the official Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Catholic Church. The signatories are lower-level theologians and clerics, together with a bishop who is actually in schism (SSPX, the Lefebvrites) from the Church. Most of them are well-known, staunch supporters of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (pre-Vatican II), rather than the Ordinary Form. The correction has been organized by the Chair of the UK’s Latin Mass (Tridentine) Society.
Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Deus [Where there is Peter, there is the Church, there is God] – Saint Ambrose.
The following should be thus taken into consideration:
In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking (Lumen Gentium #25, 1964, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church).
Magisterial decisions in matters of discipline, even if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful (Donum Veritatis #17, 1990, On the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian).
Even if the doctrine of the faith is not in question, the theologian will not present his own opinions or divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions. Respect for the truth as well as for the People of God requires this discretion (cf. Rom 14:1-15; 1 Cor 8; 10: 23-33 ) . For the same reasons, the theologian will refrain from giving untimely public expression to them. The preceding considerations have a particular application to the case of the theologian who might have serious difficulties, for reasons which appear to him wellfounded, in accepting a non-irreformable magisterial teaching (Donum Veritatis #27-28).
If, despite a loyal effort on the theologian’s part, the difficulties persist, the theologian has the duty to make known to the Magisterial authorities the problems raised by the teaching in itself, in the arguments proposed to justify it, or even in the manner in which it is presented. He should do this in an evangelical spirit and with a profound desire to resolve the difficulties. His objections could then contribute to real progress and provide a stimulus to the Magisterium to propose the teaching of the Church in greater depth and with a clearer presentation of the arguments. In cases like these, the theologian should avoid turning to the “mass media”, but have recourse to the responsible authority, for it is not by seeking to exert the pressure of public opinion that one contributes to the clarification of doctrinal issues and renders service to the truth.
It can also happen that at the conclusion of a serious study, undertaken with the desire to heed the Magisterium’s teaching without hesitation, the theologian’s difficulty remains because the arguments to the contrary seem more persuasive to him. Faced with a proposition to which he feels he cannot give his intellectual assent, the theologian nevertheless has the duty to remain open to a deeper examination of the question (Donum Veritatis #30-31).
The Divine Heart of God the Father Encompassing All Hearts 