Answering Michael Lofton

What Did St. Robert Bellarmine Believe About Papal Heresy?
Reason & Theology, 6 Aug. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vG_tntlLvw

1:08 That quote from St. Robert Bellarmine by itself makes "John Paul II" a non-Pope.

2:23 If error can neither be in the highest grade, namely infallible teaching, nor in the lowest grade, namely private opinion, neither can it be in the mid grade, if there is one.

4:51 Let's use some context here.

Yes, St. Robert did not believe the situation that a heretic pope losing his office could arise. But he did believe that a Pope if he were to fall into heresy automatically would lose his office.

The Dimond brothers are also citing St. Francis of Sales, who did not express the same restriction you gave.

But either of them would believe, and it would be in keeping with Cum ex apostolatus officio, 1559 by Pope St. Pius V, sorry, Paul IV, that the election of a heretic to papacy would be invalid.

I also think, the case for kings or princes being invalidly promoted would be a positive law, a decision Paul IV took for Christendom, but certainly, when it comes to papacy, he would have been expressing directly the divine law here.

So, the most Bellarminian position would not be "John Paul II lost office at Assisi 1986" but "If by any chance John Paul II was ever Pope, he would have lost office at Assisi 86, but probably he was never even validly elected" ... while St. Francis of Sales would have been equally accepting of either scenario.

5:18 Excuse me, but when you state as St. Robert's position "if he's a manifest heretic, that is if he has been rebuked twice" ... are you verbatim quoting Bellarmine, or are you interpolating from what Church law says about manifest heresy in office holders like bishops or curates?

In the latter, it is illegal to call them "manifest heretics" unless they have first been rebuked twice, but as no one can rebuke the Pope, it is not at all obvious how St. Robert would consider this step necessary for considering the Pope or apparent such a manifest heretic.

Also, Pope St. Celestine I certainly made for Cyril first rebuking Nestorius and then excommunicating him within 10 days, if he did not repent, but he also confirmed that Nestorius had lost office from the moment he started preaching heresy. You know that letter cited by the Dimond brothers ...

6:34 No, we most certainly do not always miss that latter part.

I've known about it since 2002 or 2003 ... and that the solution when confronted with a heretical otherwise apparent pope is, he was never even validly elected.