Question: Are Catholics obliged to pray for the repose of Pope Francis’ soul?

Recently in Italy a controversy has broken out between those who say we are obliged to pray for Pope Francis, that his soul find mercy before God, and those who say we are not so obliged. — My benefactors have asked me for a response, and here I will explain why and when someone may be or may not be obliged to pray for another person.

I will take my argument from the Lex orandi of the Church, which for 1930 years prior to Vatican II prayed for the “faithful departed”. If you are as old as myself, you might remember this Catholic truth. Occasionally, you might still hear a priest call for prayers for those who died with the signs of faith.

This being the immemorial law of the Church, let us deduce the answer to the question.

If a person dies with the signs of faith, the Church prays for them and has always exhorted us to pray for them? It appears so because “faithfully departed” is the ancient phrase used in the Liturgy..

But how about those who did not die with the signs of faith? If they lived with the signs of faith, but lost their reason and died without the signs of faith, then we should presume that they were still faithful, because just as one does not presume the cessation of a right, so one does not presume that a person who has always been faithful would have had any intention of giving up the Faith in death.

But how about someone who had not signs of faith, and died without any known special expression of faith?  Obviously we are not obliged to pray for them, at the very least, because just as we do not presume the cessation of right, if a person was a habitual pagan, atheist, schismatic, or heretic, and died without making any sign of repenting of his sins, we must presume he wanted to die as a pagan, atheist, schismatic or heretic, and therefore chose to be damned.

Now, as we can see from the international news coverage, there is NO ONE ON EARTH who claims that Pope Francis had a change of heart for any of his thousands of blasphemies, idolatries, sacrileges, lies, frauds, crimes, coverups, hypocrisies, heresies, betrayal of Catholics in the East, in China, and in the West, who prayed in Latin.

Thus, are we obliged to pray for Pope Francis?

Or are those who would claim this, trying to invent a totally new rule of faith, whereby God is obliged to show mercy to all, even those who curse Him to His Face night and day for 12 years?

So if anyone says you are obliged to pray for Pope Francis, ask them in what book they read that, because it is not found in the Gospel. And if they quote, the saying of Christ, “Pray for your enemies”, simply reply, “Our Lord was referring to my enemies, not His, and my enemies who are still alive and need to repent, not my enemies who died without any sign of repentance. For even the Apostle Saint John says, “About mortal sins, I do not say you should pray”.

Again, if Pope Francis did repent, he had to communicate his renunciation of his errors and denounce his public sins to receive absolution from God. But there is no evidence he did. So how can we be obliged on the condition that a non-existent act of repentance occurred?  because God cannot show mercy, unless someone is penitent, and penitence requires the firm proposal to make amends.

If we are obliged to pray for someone who made no signs of repentance and lived in the worst of public sins of any pope in the entire history of the Church, then I think that those who preach such an obligation, are not only imposing an unreasonable rule contrary to Apostolic Tradition, but are demanding of God that He be merciful when they want Him to be, and not when He has revealed He is.

Finally, I think those who insist that we pray for Pope Francis are most likely persons who insist that Pope Francis was not a public sinner, or are persons who want to ingratiate themselves with the public. That is not the Christian religion.

I am not saying it is a sin to pray for Pope Francis, I am saying, it is not an obligation to pray for him. He is dead, there is no more mercy after death, for those who died God’s enemies. And since there is no possibility an impenitent sinner who committed billions upon billions of sins of objective real scandal, go to Heaven, there is no possibility that his soul can benefit from the prayers of anyone, for he has been judged already, and we cannot change God’s Mind on that.

I won’t say that those praying for the repose of his soul blaspheme, at least not all of them. But those who know he attempted to change the Catholic Faith by heresy and error, and who pray for the repose of his soul, are sharing in his sins and will be punished in this life and the world to come for such blasphemous audacity.

Pope Francis by his many scandals dragged many into mortal sin and eternal perdition. Now that he has been judged by Christ, let us stop trying to use his example to draw more souls to damnation: the Main Stream Media, funded by USAID tried that for 12 years and 1 month: priests of God and Christ’s faithful should not be imitating them.

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