When Cardinals and Bishops oppose other Cardinals and Bishops, to whom should we listen?

The wrong answer is to believe those Cardinals and Bishops with the same opinions and the same understanding of the faith as you yourself hold.

This is wrong because we fallen sinners are often influenced toward wrong theological opinions and misunderstandings of doctrine, thereby falling into error. The fallen state means that we can misunderstand many things in life, including the truths of the Gospel. Certain subcultures and ideological trends within Catholicism can exercise undue influence on us. Our own experiences in the faith and our personal point of view on politics and society can affect our theological views. And do not think to yourself that you are largely immune from such influences because of your self-assessed love for God and devotion to the Catholic Christian Faith.

Saint Joseph and John the Baptist, despite being among the holiest Saints, misunderstood important matters of faith due to being in the fallen state. For concupiscence can cloud the mind and obscure the heart, even without sins in any particular case.

[Matthew]
{1:18} Now the procreation of the Christ occurred in this way. After his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they lived together, she was found to have conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit.
{1:19} Then Joseph, her husband, since he was just and was not willing to hand her over, preferred to send her away secretly.
{1:20} But while thinking over these things, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to accept Mary as your wife. For what has been formed in her is of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Joseph was very holy. And there is a theological opinion, with which I agree, that Joseph never committed the least personal sin, even though he was conceived with original sin, and that he received a baptism in the Holy Spirit while in the womb. The same pious opinion, with which I also agree, is applied to Saint John the Baptist.

Now Joseph had decided to send the Blessed Virgin Mary away, even though he was betrothed to her. Saint Bridget says Joseph suspected nothing sinful about Mary, but realized that her pregnancy was from God, and so did not feel worthy. Even so, he arrived at the wrong decision, to quietly separate from her, until an Angel sent by God corrected him.

As for John the Baptist, first this happened:
[John]
{1:28} These things happened in Bethania, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
{1:29} On the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and so he said: “Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold, he who takes away the sin of the world.
{1:30} This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me arrives a man, who has been placed ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”

Then, these next events show some doubt on the part of John:

[Matthew 11]
{11:1} And it happened that, when Jesus had completed instructing his twelve disciples, he went away from there in order to teach and to preach in their cities.
{11:2} Now when John had heard, in prison, about the works of Christ, sending two of his disciples, he said to him,
{11:3} “Are you he who is to come, or should we expect another?”
{11:4} And Jesus, responding, said to them: “Go and report to John what you have heard and seen.
{11:5} The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor are evangelized.
{11:6} And blessed is he who has found no offense in me.”

John the Baptist testified publicly that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John said that Jesus existed before him. But we know, and John likely also knew what his mother knew, that John was conceived before the human nature of Jesus. Yet John testified to the divinity of Jesus and that He was the Lamb of God. So how could Jesus not be understood by John to be the Messiah?

While in prison, John had some doubts or misunderstandings, and so he sent two disciples to ask Jesus if He is “he who is to come”, meaning the one greater than Moses and therefore the Messiah, or if Jesus is just a forerunner of the Messiah, of the Christ. This question contradicts John’s own prior testimony, which clearly was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and was not merely the result of John’s own reasonings.

Even very holy persons can misunderstand important matters of faith because we are each and all in the fallen state. This does not apply to Jesus or Mary, nor even to Adam and Eve before the Fall.

But the vast majority of Catholics, no matter how devout, are not Saints, and can misunderstand the questions of faith and morals rather badly sometimes. No matter how clear it may seem to you that such-and-such is the correct answer to a theological controversy, you can be wrong. I can be wrong. A group of liberal priests and theologians can be wrong. A group of conservative priests and theologians can be wrong.

If you take the point of view that the correct answer to every question of faith, morals, and discipline is the liberal answer, or is the conservative answer, then you are not practicing the Catholic Christian Faith. Jesus never taught such a thing. If theology were so simple, the Lord would have told us. The Church would have told us. The Saints, Fathers, and Doctors would have told us. Instead, the correct answer to each question or controversy may be liberal in one case, conservative in another, moderate in still another.

The teaching of Jesus was not always liberal or conservative — if we unfortunately categorize each point as conservative or moderate or liberal, just to clarify this topic. On divorce, Jesus was more conservative than the very conservative Pharisees. When faced with the woman caught in adultery, Jesus was more liberal than the most radical of the Sadducees. Jesus dispensed the Mosaic death penalty, rather than condemn the woman to stoning.

[John]
{8:3} Now the scribes and Pharisees brought forward a woman caught in adultery, and they stood her in front of them.
{8:4} And they said to him: “Teacher, this woman was just now caught in adultery.
{8:5} And in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a one. Therefore, what do you say?”
{8:6} But they were saying this to test him, so that they might be able to accuse him. Then Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the earth.
{8:7} And then, when they persevered in questioning him, he stood upright and said to them, “Let whoever is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.”
{8:8} And bending down again, he wrote on the earth.
{8:9} But upon hearing this, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest. And Jesus alone remained, with the woman standing in front of him.
{8:10} Then Jesus, raising himself up, said to her: “Woman, where are those who accused you? Has no one condemned you?”
{8:11} And she said, “No one, Lord.” Then Jesus said: “Neither will I condemn you. Go, and now do not choose to sin anymore.”

[Exodus]
{31:18} And the Lord, having completed speaking in this way on Mount Sinai, gave to Moses two stone tablets of testimony, written with the finger of God.

The Ten Commandments were written with the finger of God on tablets of stone from the earth. Jesus wrote on the earth, with his finger — the finger of the Son of God — twice. Jesus was writing the two new Commandments, Love God above all else, and Love your neighbor as yourself. These “new” Commandments are not entirely new, as they explicitly or implicitly contain all the Ten Commandments and other religious teachings of the Old Testament. But they are new, as they call the faithful to a higher degree of perfection:

{5:48} Therefore, be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Now when Jesus was asked how to obtain eternal life, He said this:

{19:16} And behold, someone approached and said to him, “Good Teacher, what good should I do, so that I may have eternal life?”
{19:17} And he said to him: “Why do you question me about what is good? One is good: God. But if you wish to enter into life, observe the commandments.”

Observe the Commandments is an ordinary common answer that the questioner could have obtained by asking any Rabbi or devout Jew. He could have asked his neighbor or his grandmother and received that response, perhaps. It was the moderate answer, neither conservative nor liberal.

The correct understanding of the Catholic Christian Faith is not the set of answers given by liberals, nor the set of answers given by conservatives or traditionalists, nor the set of answers given by those who take a moderate path of whatever is the common view. All those persons have gone astray from the Catholic Faith who follow any such ideology instead of the teachings of the Magisterium. And the proof of this is that many among the liberals, conservatives, traditionalists, or moderates have rejected particular magisterial teachings, as well as perhaps some Popes or Ecumenical Councils that they disdain (to say the least).

If you want to be a faithful Catholic, but you are, to give one example, a traditionalist, you can be faithful and traditionalist, but you absolutely must accept the teaching of Popes, of Ecumenical Councils, and the teaching of the Pope with the body of Bishops dispersed in the world, even when it is non-infallible, and even when it is contrary to the traditionalist ideology or contrary to the majority theological opinion among traditionalists. And the same is true for liberals, conservatives, and moderates, or any other system for understanding the Faith. For example, putting the majority opinion among the laity, such as the widespread acceptance of contraception, above and against the teachings of the magisterium is contrary to the virtue of faith and is gravely sinful. And the same for those who side with any such ideology or subculture or point of view. You can be a traditionalist who accepts Vatican II and Pope Francis. If you are unable, then you must leave traditionalism. For the Lord Jesus says this:
[Luke]
{14:26} “If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and yes, even his own life, he is not able to be my disciple.”
…
{16:13} No servant is able to serve two lords. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cling to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Some will say: “But Cardinal or Bishop so-and-so is faithful and holy and scholarly! I follow him, not Pope Francis!”

And I reply: “Schismatic! Heretic! For to depart from the teaching of the Pope or the teaching of the Pope with the body of Bishops, for any reason, is schism and a very short path to heresy.”

[1 Cor]
{1:11} For it has been indicated to me, about you, my brothers, by those who are with Chloes, that there are contentions among you.
{1:12} Now I say this because each of you is saying: “Certainly, I am of Paul;” “But I am of Apollo;” “Truly, I am of Cephas;” as well as: “I am of Christ.”
{1:13} Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
…
{3:3} And since there is still envy and contention among you, are you not carnal, and are you not walking according to man?
{3:4} For if one says, “Certainly, I am of Paul,” while another says, “I am of Apollo,” are you not men? But what is Apollo, and what is Paul?

Do not leave the Church by joining a contentious subculture or by accepting a divisive ideology, which oppose any Pope or Ecumenical Council.

Cardinal or Bishop so-and-so only seem faithful and holy and scholarly because they have the same point of view as you have. They follow the same ideology. They are part of the same subculture within the Church, from which you have unfortunately obtained your very identity as a Catholic. But if they rebel against the Pope, reject them. And that goes for liberals, moderates, conservatives, traditionalists, those who follow a particular private revelation, and any other ideological version of Catholicism that pretends to know the Gospel truths better than the Magisterium, which always teaches from Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. The three pillars of truth in the Catholic Faith are Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium. All three and not any one or two. The Magisterium is the SOLE authoritative interpreter of Tradition and Scripture; no subculture, ideology or individual Cardinal, Bishop, or small group of clergy and laity have that role from God in the Holy Spirit. An ideology or subculture or small group can err to any extent, while even the non-infallible decisions of the Roman Pontiff, an Ecumenical Council, or the body of Bishops teaching with the Pope can only err to a limited extent in what is non-infallible and not at all in what is infallible. But no subculture, ideology, or group can teach infallibly, nor are their opinions protected from grave error, like the non-infallible teachings of Popes exercising the Magisterium.

Those who say, “this teaching is infallible because it is taught by Tradition and Scripture,” can be wrong to any extent, unless they are the Pope, or an Ecumenical Council, or the body of Bishops teaching with the Pope. No matter how clearly it seems to you that such-and-such is a teaching of Tradition or Scripture, you can be wrong to any extent, unless you are the Pope (or Jesus himself).

Each Pope has the charism of truth and never-failing faith, so that he can never err gravely in any exercise of the Keys of Peter over doctrine or discipline, and can never err at all in what is infallible (dogma, dogmatic facts). Every Pope accepted by the body of Bishops as the Pope is certainly the true and valid Roman Pontiff and successor of Peter. Every Ecumenical Council approved by the Pope has the same protection from all error in what is infallible and from grave error in what is non-infallible (including doctrine and discipline). Any Canon or teaching or judgment of any Ecumenical Council, if rejected by the Roman Pontiff, is and always has been null and void. Nothing is “of an Ecumenical Council” unless approved by the Pope.

Do not listen to those who give examples of Pope who supposedly failed in faith or erred gravely in doctrine or discipline. These claims are false because they are contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium on the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and never-failing faith of the Roman Pontiff. Very often, these accusers of Popes and Councils rewrite the history of the Church. And the only reason so many persons are now making these claims against past Popes is to have grounds to accuse Pope Francis. Let’s consider one example.

Pope Honorius I was accused of heresy by some of the Fathers of the Third Council of Constantinople. But the then-current Roman Pontiff, Pope Saint Agatho, rebuked them with a Letter teaching that Peter and his successors have a never-failing faith. This letter was accepted into the Acts of that Ecumenical Council, with the Council giving its approval in these words:

“The chief Prince of the Apostles [Saint Peter] was fighting on our side: for we have had as our ally, his follower and the successor to his See [Pope Saint Agatho]: and the paper and the ink were seen, and Peter spoke through Agatho” (Actio xviii.).”

But when Pope Saint Agatho passed away, during the Council, it fell to the next Roman Pontiff, Pope Saint Leo II to consider whether to approve the Acts of the Council. Pope Saint Leo II did so in a set of three letters each written in Latin, approving the decisions of the Council, except for the judgment against Pope Honorius I, which he changed from a condemnation for heresy, to a rebuke for his negligence in not doing more against the heresies of his day.

It does not matter if the Council Fathers shouted out an anathema to Honorius. It does not matter how many voted to condemn Honorius. Nothing is of a Council unless approved by the Roman Pontiff. Pope Saint Agatho formally corrected the Council for accusing Honorius of heresy, and that Letter was accepted into the Acts of the Council. Then Pope Saint Leo II rejected the sentence of the Council against Honorius for heresy, changing it, with his authority from Christ, to a judgment that Honorius only erred by negligence. Saint Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church and others have written in defense of Pope Honorius I.

Here is proof that Nothing is of an Ecumenical Council unless approved by the Roman Pontiff, as found in Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, 15:

“It has ever been unquestionably the office of the Roman Pontiffs to ratify or to reject the decrees of Councils. Leo the great rescinded the acts of the Conciliabulum of Ephesus. Damasus rejected those of Rimini, and Hadrian I. those of Constantinople. The 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon, by the very fact that it lacks the assent and approval of the Apostolic See, is admitted by all to be worthless. Rightly, therefore, has Leo X. laid down in the 5th council of Lateran “that the Roman Pontiff alone, as having authority over all Councils, has full jurisdiction and power to summon, to transfer, to dissolve Councils, as is clear, not only from the testimony of Holy Writ, from the teaching of the Fathers and of the Roman Pontiffs, and from the decrees of the sacred canons, but from the teaching of the very Councils themselves.” Indeed, Holy Writ attests that the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were given to Peter alone, and that the power of binding and loosening was granted to the Apostles and to Peter; but there is nothing to show that the Apostles received supreme power without Peter, and against Peter. Such power they certainly did not receive from Jesus Christ. Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age (Sess. iv., cap. 3).”

The same is taught by the Fifth Lateran Council:

Lateran V: “For it is clearly established that only the contemporary Roman pontiff, as holding authority over all councils, has the full right and power to summon, transfer and dissolve councils. This we know not only from the witness of holy scripture, the statements of holy fathers and our predecessors as Roman pontiffs, and the decisions of the sacred canons, but also from the declarations of the same councils.”

Lateran V: “It arises from the necessity of salvation that all the faithful of Christ are to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

Lateran V: “the person who abandons the teaching of the Roman pontiff cannot be within the Church….”

See also Canon Law:

Can. 338 §1. It is for the Roman Pontiff alone to convoke an ecumenical council, preside over it personally or through others, transfer, suspend, or dissolve a council, and to approve its decrees.

Can. 341 §1. The decrees of an ecumenical council do not have obligatory force unless they have been approved by the Roman Pontiff together with the council fathers, confirmed by him, and promulgated at his order.

That Honorius was innocent of heresy is confirmed in these sources, among others:

Catholic Encyclopedia: “Pennacchi, followed by Grisar, taught that by these words [Pope Saint] Leo II explicitly abrogated the condemnation [of Honorius] for heresy by the council, and substituted a condemnation for negligence.”

Pope John IV: “Therefore, my aforementioned predecessor [Honorius I], while teaching on the mystery of the Christ’s Incarnation, said that there were not in him, as in us sinners, contrary wills of mind and flesh. Because certain people have transformed this to their own way of thinking, they have supposed that he taught one will of (Christ’s) humanity and divinity, which is altogether contrary to the truth.”

Pope John IV’s Pontificate ended in 642. A few years later, when the Lateran Synod of 649 condemned the adherents of the Monothelite heresy, the name of Honorius I was absent.

Bellarmine: “I say, no error is contained in these epistles of Honorius. For Honorius confesses in these epistles, what pertains to the matter of two wills and operations [or energies] in Christ, and he only forbids the name of one or two wills, which then were unheard of, and he did it with prudent counsel. That he confessed the matter itself is clear from the words of the second epistle: ‘We ought to confess both natures in the one Christ, joined in a natural unity, working in harmony with the other, and also confess operations. And certainly the divine operation, which is of God, and the human operation, which is of God, carrying it out not in division, nor confusion, informing the other but not changing the nature of God into man, nor the human into God, but confessing the different natures whole, etc.’ This confession is very Catholic, and altogether destroys the Monothelite heresy.”

Bellarmine: “I respond: In that place, Honorius spoke only on the human nature, and wished to say that in the man, Christ, there were not two wills opposing each other, one of the flesh and the other of the spirit; but only one, namely the spirit. For the flesh in Christ desired absolutely nothing against reason. Moreover, this is the mind of Honorius, and that is plain from the reason that he gave.”

Bellarmine: “Saint Maximus, who lived in the time of Honorius, confirms this with serious testimony. He wrote a dialogue against Pyrrhus, the successor of Sergius, which is still in the Vatican Library. In that Dialogue he introduces Pyrrhus the heretic, advancing in front of him the testimony of Honorius, then he responds, that Honorius was always Catholic, and proves it with another source, from the testimony of the Secretary of Honorius himself, who wrote those epistles dictated by Honorius, and who was then still living, and said that. Moreover the Secretary witnesses the mind of Honorius was never to deny two wills in Christ, and whenever it seems to deny two wills, it must be understood on two contrary and opposed wills in the same human nature, which is discovered in us from sin, but was not in Christ. St. Maximus records these very words….”

Bellarmine: “If Honorius was a Monothelite heretic, how could [Pope Saint] Agatho disputing in the face of which concerning this very heresy, write that none of his predecessors ever erred?”

[References found here, along with long quotes from the Letter of Pope Saint Agatho]

Note also that the example of Honorius was discussed at length at the First Vatican Council, and yet the Council taught that every Pope has the charism of truth and never-failing faith, and that the Apostolic See is always unblemished.

To repeat the question: “How do we know which Cardinals and Bishops are Right?”

The answer is found in the teachings of the Roman Pontiff and in the support for the Roman Pontiff and his teachings found in the body of Bishops. Any Cardinal, Bishops, or small group of the same, or large group of clergy and laity who oppose the Roman Pontiff, his decisions of doctrine or discipline, or who oppose any Ecumenical Council are schismatics and heretics. They might seem holy or faithful or scholarly, from a human point of view. But from the point of view of Faith, they have departed from the true Faith by opposing Popes and Councils.

Often, such persons who have rejected a Pope or Council are rebuked by the Church. And then they usually claim to be suffering a type of martyrdom for Christ. This is not true, since their suffering is the result of their own sins, and no one is a martyr unless they are cooperating with the grace of God in the infused theological virtue of charity.

[1 Corinthians 13]
{13:1} If I were to speak in the language of men, or of Angels, yet not have charity, I would be like a clanging bell or a crashing cymbal.
{13:2} And if I have prophecy, and learn every mystery, and obtain all knowledge, and possess all faith, so that I could move mountains, yet not have charity, then I am nothing.
{13:3} And if I distribute all my goods in order to feed the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, yet not have charity, it offers me nothing.

[1 Peter]
{2:19} For this is grace: when, because of God, a man willingly endures sorrows, suffering injustice.
{2:20} For what glory is there, if you sin and then suffer a beating? But if you do well and suffer patiently, this is grace with God.
…
{4:14} If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you will be blessed, because that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is of his Spirit, rests upon you.
{4:15} But let none of you suffer for being a murderer, or a thief, or a slanderer, or one who covets what belongs to another.
{4:16} But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, he should not be ashamed. Instead, he should glorify God in that name.

Those who claim to be suffering injustice, from the Church!!!, and even claim to be like the martyrs, because the Roman Pontiff corrected them!!!, are actually suffering because of their own sins of schism, heresy, and leading the faithful astray by scandalous behavior toward the Pope, an Ecumenical Council, or the body of Bishops led by the Pope. They are rejecting the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and never-failing faith of the Roman Pontiff. This is worse than suffering for being a thief. And many of these persons have actually slandered the Roman Pontiff or an EC. So they are suffering for being a slanderer — as well as a schismatic and heretic. They are not truly suffering for being a Christian or for Christ. They suffer because they have exalted themselves, by the grave sin of pride, above the Pope, the body of Bishops, the Ecumenical Councils, and the Magisterium itself.

Pope Saint Pius X: “The authority of the Pope is not preceded by that of other people, however learned, who disagree with the Pope, who, if they are learned, are not saints, because whoever is holy cannot disagree with the Pope.” [Pope Saint Pius X, Speech, 18 November 1912]

Ronald L Conte Jr