This page in English (and soon in French) responds to the most important questions regarding why Leo XIV is an antipope and why Hildebrand is the rightfully elected Roman Pontiff. — Since nearly no Catholic Clergy, Religious or Laity have studied such questions at seminary or in college, few are able to understand the issues without such an introduction as is presented in this FAQ page.
Please read this page carefully and entirely before attempting to begin such a discussion with clergy and friends. Then share it with them as an aid to remember what you tried to explain. It is written in a style suitable for clergy and college educated laity to understand.
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The Book on the Trinity, every faithful Catholic priest would love as his next present
This is Br. Bugnolo's English Translation, of Saint Bonaventure's encylopedic book of theology on the Trinity: With this book, your priest will always have something intelligent and awesomely inspiring to preach to you about
God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit!
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Why the crucial question is not addressed anywhere ?: who were the electors and by what authority ?
The FAQ fully answers those questions. Your other comment full of contumely and irrational praeter rem arguments shows that your interest is not in the truth, but in having some news to chew about at the next cocktail party you attend. This might be a disappointment, because you might not have yet reflected on the reality of the world you are in, but some of the most important things we know through the testimony only of participants. Just as you know you are a legitimate son of your mother only from your mother and no one else in the world can testify to that. The same goes for the Christian religion, in its claim that Christ is the Son of God, a truth which is founded upon the testimony of the Blessed Virgin alone. Likewise, we know who are the true Popes of the Catholic Church only from the testimony of the Catholics at Rome. You may not want to believe us, but that does not change the fact that our testimony has more authority than anything you will ever do or think of. That is ego crushing, but that is part of the humility required to be saved. For there is no salvation apart from the Roman Church. So you can doubt what the Catholics of Rome say. You certainly have that freedom. But the consequences will be eternal. And I do not say this because I think I am superior to you. I say this simply because this is a truth of the faith. Now, while it is true that in nearly everything the testimony of Catholics at Rome is not of much importance, when that testimony is from the Catholics who validly elected a pope, then that testimony becomes part of the dogmatic facts surrounding the election and the Apostolic Succession, and all Catholics who wish to be saved must accept it. — So I advise you to slap some sense back into your ego and realize how you are losing your soul and your mind by founding your objections on your claim to doubt or dismiss the testimony and persons who participated, simply because your private judgement refuses to recognize the truth of what they did or despises them for it.
To use a Biblical parallel, your objections and questions are exactly the same as those Pharisees who demanded to know by what authority Christ taught and who was He, as the pre-requisite proof before believing anything He taught or accepted any miracles he work. If you want to entertain or defend your disbelief by the same route of doubt, you already know where that leads, and that testimony of Scripture and history should give you some cause for caution and self reflection, where you begin to find fault with yourself before raising your own criteria for evidence and proof and demand that the Catholics of Rome submit to you in them. There are objective rules for these things, and you neither make the rules nor will you ever have the right to know it all as much as you may want to. At some point you simply have to ask who God is and whether He would give His children a snake when they asked for bread.
For what you are doing really is saying that the most faithful Catholics in the whole Church at Rome are not worthy of trust in their simple testimony that they are who they are and that they voted.
And any objective disinterested observer would consider such an objection to be insane if not absurd, especially from someone who swallows Leo XIV’s claim to be the pope wholecloth.
This is why, what you are really involved in is not seeking the truth, but gaslighting the world, because you want microscopic precision in information regarding the election of the true pope, but ignore macroscopic detail in the election of the antipope.
Thank you for taking the trouble to make this excellent FAQ page. It’s what many of us have been hoping for. Succinct, crystal clear, and brief, in a familiar form, so more easily intelligible for our poor abused minds!
You’re welcome. Actually, it was when a long time reader showed me the outrageous lies which are being spread by those opposed to the truth, that I took to writing this FAQ. The worst kind of gaslighting and rehashing of all the errors since 2013 is in play and is being perpetrated by priests, religious and laymen, who hate that there is now a Catholic pope elect.
corrections ….
Dear N. F.,
Thank you so much for your corrections. Please in the future write the Secretary of State since it i obvious to me you could be of great use to our staff in proof reading texts.