This would be more amusing if Francis was not offending God and leading souls to hell; as it is, though, it seems like the demons of hell find as much mirth in Francis’s heresies as our Protestant friends do. Is there any rational rebuttal to Protestants who argue that Francis’s occupation of the papacy effectively demonstrates the folly of Catholicism’s reliance on the pope?

A destroyer pope can cause a significant amount of damage, and the only promise we have in this regard is that God will intervene before the pope destroys the Church.

As it turns out, St. Robert Bellarmine addressed the question in his De Controversiis:

“But [the Protestants] will say . . . the Church is without remedy if it has a bad Pope, and the Pope can disturb all things unpunished, and destroy and no one will be able to resist.” (De Controversiis, On the Church: On Councils, On the Church Militant, On the Marks of the Church, p. 220)

This is essentially the situation we have today with Francis; and so St. Robert Bellarmine sought to explain why the possibility of such a situation would not undermine the Church’s claims to being the sole Ark of Salvation. Here is St. Robert Bellarmine’s brief response:

“I respond: No wonder, if the Church remains without an efficacious human remedy, seeing that its safety does not rest principally upon human industry, but divine protection, since God is its king. Therefore, even if the Church could not depose a Pope, still, it may and must beg the Lord that He would apply the remedy, and it is certain that God has care for its safety, that He would either convert the Pope or abolish him from their midst before he destroys the Church. Nevertheless, it does not follow from here that it is not lawful to resist a Pope destroying the Church; for it is lawful to admonish him while preserving all reverence, and to modestly correct him, even to oppose him with force and arms if he means to destroy the Church.” (p. 220)

Although St. Robert Bellarmine clearly intended these words to refute Protestant objections to Catholic teaching, this passage is far more valuable today in addressing the seemingly overwhelming concerns faithful Catholics have about Francis. Thus, we can look more closely as four points from the saint’s succinct response to the Protestants:

We Can Have a Destroyer Pope. Some Catholics reject the possibility of a pope who would try to destroy the Church — such a tragic situation, they argue, would conflict with the Church’s teaching on perpetual visibility and indefectibility. However, St. Robert Bellarmine defended the Church’s perpetual visibility and indefectibility elsewhere in this volume of his De Controversiis, so we know that he understood that God could permit a destroyer pope without abandoning His promised protection of the Church.

God Will Protect the Church from Being Destroyed, Not Necessarily Damaged. Related to the question of God’s protection for the Church, many Catholics tend to view Our Lord’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail (Matthew 16:18) as a litmus test by which to identify the “true Church.” If the Church were to suffer the damage alleged by Traditional Catholics, they say, it could not be the true Church. As such, they must either turn a blind eye to the crisis in the Church since Vatican II or else conclude that all such problems have taken place in a counterfeit church, such that the Catholic Church remains unaffected by the ravages of Vatican II and Francis. But St. Robert Bellarmine clearly saw a different reality: a destroyer pope can cause a significant amount of damage, and the only promise we have in this regard is that God will intervene before the pope destroys the Church.

It appears that those who are mistaken on these points imagine that St. Robert Bellarmine would have been content with a situation in which Catholics would individually declare the reputed pope to be an anti-pope without waiting for the Church to take the all-important steps of removing and replacing him.

We May Not Be Able to Depose a Destroyer Pope. St. Robert Bellarmine’s explanation contemplates that the Church may try, but fail, to depose a destroyer pope. So it is not really as simple as gathering holy and learned Catholics to call Francis an anti-pope — something more is required. As argued in a recent article, we can encourage our shepherds to consider calling an imperfect council to potentially remove and replace Francis, but God may allow the crisis to persist until we do all we can to beg His intercession.

We Can Resist a Destroyer Pope. Oftentimes today it is the sedevacantists who insist that it is “heretical” to resist the pope, but St. Robert Bellarmine (on whom the sedevacantists rely heavily for their arguments about a pope losing his office through heresy) obviously disagreed. Even if the faithful shepherds were to eventually depose the destroyer pope, there would necessarily be an interim period in which faithful Catholics would need to resist the man trying to destroy the Church.

We must also note that St. Robert Bellarmine evidently contemplated the likelihood that the “destroyer pope” would be a heretic: otherwise there would be no grounds to depose him, no reason to correct him, and no point in wanting to convert him. Indeed, we can say this as a general matter: all those false shepherds who actually try to destroy the Church will be heretics, but not all heretics seek to destroy the Church.

Why is it that so many sincere Catholics end up (unwittingly) opposing St. Robert Bellarmine on these points while simultaneously relying on his writings to defend their claims that Francis is an anti-pope? It appears that those who are mistaken on these points imagine that St. Robert Bellarmine would have been content with a situation in which Catholics would individually declare the reputed pope to be an anti-pope without waiting for the Church to take the all-important steps of removing and replacing him.

As we can readily discern from his words above, though, St. Robert Bellarmine saw that Catholics must (a) resist a destroyer pope they cannot depose, and (b) beg God to remove the destroyer. So those who today cite St. Robert Bellarmine for the proposition that we can practically replace that process with the mere act of declaring Francis an anti-pope misrepresent the saint. Calling Francis an anti-pope — without an accompanying process of removing and replacing him — is not an “efficacious human remedy,” even if we happen to have the entirely reasonable belief that the man cannot possibly be the pope.

In terms of what we can do, it seems reasonable to argue that Traditional Catholics (collectively) ought to be doing more to “beg the Lord that He would apply the remedy.” In other words, would St. Robert Bellarmine have supported a prolonged period — now six decades — of “recognizing and resisting” the popes without a more dedicated effort to petition God’s intervention than we have seen? It seems, at very least, that he (and all other saints) would see that God would be more likely to intervene if those who recognized the problem did all they could to petition God’s mercy, with prayer, penance, and the pursuit of holiness.

Accordingly, we should earnestly beg God not only to remove or convert Francis, but also to remove or convert all of the false shepherds who promote errors contrary to the unadulterated Catholic Faith. In the meantime, we have a duty to remain in the Church and resist Francis, the destroyer. St. Robert Bellarmine, pray for us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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