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That is for others to decide, and it is a question that laity and lower clergy should not even discuss.

Fascinating. A Catholic Priest feels comfortable proclaiming the sitting Pope to be a heretic on a public forum but feels it improper to discuss the implications. But, he'll be dead soon so Catholics can just ignore him, until a Pope that you approve of is elected. This Protestant thinks the historical argument regarding the Papacy is pretty much irrelevant now. You have in practice adopted our position.

"This Protestant thinks the historical argument regarding the Papacy is pretty much irrelevant now. You have in practice adopted our position." My problem is much deeper. I still agree in principle with the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. But if the Pope and Magisterium can even encourage heresy - albeit for a limited time - then one must call into question the authority of the RCC leadership as stewards and protectors of the Truth. From saying that their is salvation outside of Christianity to the new stance on Divorce/Annulment to abuses of the Novus Ordo to floating trial balloons on the acceptance of homosexuality....things aren't looking good for the RCC right now.

Huh?

Bergoglio is a bad Pope. He seems to hold heretical views, and he has a long history of antinomianism. He can’t even obey his own liturgical law. The latest document is subversive and arguably heretical.

But he has not formally proposed a heresy for belief, with divine Faith, by the entire Church. That is all the Church claims we are protected from. Read Vatican I’s definition of Papal Infallibility.

Any well-informed Catholic has the right, even the duty, to raise the alarm in order to protect fellow Catholics from being deceived. But deposing a Pope for heresy? That, to coin a phrase, is above my pay grade.

To say MY position—being critical of a PARTICULAR Pope—is the “Protestant” position, is preposterous.

Fascinating. A Catholic Priest feels comfortable proclaiming the sitting Pope to be a heretic on a public forum but feels it improper to discuss the implications. But, he'll be dead soon so Catholics can just ignore him, until a Pope that you approve of is elected. This Protestant thinks the historical argument regarding the Papacy is pretty much irrelevant now. You have in practice adopted our position.

One could extend your argument and conclude that the Reformation was simply an earlier form of the same Modernism or Restorationism that keeps surfacing in each subsequent generation, ever changing, stumbling, haply feeling in the dark, searching to create or restore and authentic Christian faith and thereby declare itself a legitimate heir of the Jewish Apostles. Mormons, Pentecostals, Adventists, Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, NeoEvangelicals, PostEvangelicals, etc., etc. ...

Or one could simply believe, as a little child, that the Messiah is precisely who he said he is; that he built his church upon Peter, the other Jewish apostles and prophets, with himself as the chief cornerstone, and that the one holy catholic apostolic church has overcome against the gates of hell since the First Century. To imagine the church failed and was overcome for over a thousand years ... well there have to be some words from certain of your own poets for that position.