Apparently you did not read my response, posted above.
“Again you haven’t answered me your position but rather found fault with mine.”
“Apparently you did not read my response, posted above.”
So then your ability to know who is a true pontiff is found in your post 55?
If so, then let’s suppose that a charlatan appears on the scene and most people honor him as pope, as happened in Saint Bernard’s lifetime for a period of eight years. Let us say that the charlatan makes solemn decrees and canonizations.
How do you know that the charlatan was not a true pope?
Was there a true pope at that time?
Would you have been wrong to reject the wrong pope if you like Saint Bernard began to recognize that the man was not licit? Saint Bernard after the anti-pope’s death led the Church in nullifying all of the anti-pope’s works and he was declared an anti-pope.
Saint Bernard was a sedevacantist! (You better not tell “Francis” or this doctor of the Church might get excommunicated.)
Let’s take, another example, a case where you witness your neighbor break into another neighbor’s house, and kills the victim neighbor.
Would you be right to fear and avoid that neighbor and warn others against him even if the local law officials examined the case, didn’t believe your testimony, and assumed the murderer to be innocent of the heinous crime?
Sadly I’m afraid due to mankind’s lack of interest in God’s way and the devil’s intensifying fury, that this is the type of situation we face in these latter days.