There have been any number of godles Popes before Francis, men history now calls "The Bad Popes".
"I have never heard historically of a godless pope so refute your assertion in that regard."Oh?
Now you demand refutation? How nice. I've been asking for as much regarding my laundry list of sources indicting Francis' predecessrors including Benedict XVI.
Strangely, you aren't quick to provide
any such refutation. Funny thing about that, eh?
Since I'm not you and stand on solid factual ground this is an easy thing to do.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popeswww.patheos.com/…/bad-popes-how-m…The Medici and Borgia Popes were notorious for their impiety and worldliness.
"I’m not going to argue the apostolic succession as you seem to believe it ended with Pius xii."We both know better than that.
You're not going to argue the apostolic succession for a far more cynical reason....
Your choice for the "real" Pope is just as guilty of heresy and apostasy and worthy of "automatic exommunication" as Francis. And so was his predecessor and the two before that pope as well.
I -don't- believe the apostolic succession ended with Piux XII, nor do I believe it ended with Benedict XVI.
What
I believe is your standards for condemning Pope Francis are hypocritical in the extreme.
If you want to play at being an amateur canon lawyer and comb through everything Pope Francis says and does looking for any reason, any excuse to scream about heresy and apostasy and how he's automatically excommunicated himself... fine.
If that's your standard for a legitimate Papacy, great!
Then by all rights, you need to do the
same with Benedict XVI and JP 1, and JP 2, and John XXIII. You should go picking through every single thing those Popes ever said or wrote with the same uncompromising standard.
Better still, others have done all that hard work
for you. They've found numerous reasons to claim each of the Popes I mentioned was every bit as unworthy to be Pope as Francis is today.
They apply your standards, your keen examination of Canon Law and Church Teachings, to Popes you'd rather ignore and one you, in fact, champion.
Since those Popes weren't as visible or as vocal in their heresies, you're perfectly willing to ignore them, to make excuses for them, to pretend these issues simply don't exist.
If you
truly believed in these standards you love endlessly prattling about all over GTV, you'd be
just as eager to judge
every Pope against them.
The problem is you don't. You don't truly believe in them which is why you don't apply them uniformly They're just a propaganda tool for you to make "Canonical-Sounding Criticisms" against Francis' papacy and nothing more.
..and
that is one very shameful double-standard.