The Cardinals of the Catholic Church Elected an Antipope on May 8, 2025 - P1

A Canonical Analysis - Four Reasons Explaning Why

Cardinals in Conclave 2013

Part I: On the Violations of the Prescriptions of the Papal Law of John Paul II

The Press Release of April 30: the claim to have a dispensation

The first legal problem results from the Press Release authorized by the Cardinals present in General Congregation for the Conclave, on April 30, 2025, which text was published by Vatican News, and by the Vatican Website. That release spoke of two things, (1) the claim of the Cardinals to have received a dispensation from Pope Francis, and (2) matters regarding the presence of specific Cardinals at the Conclave.

Here is that text of that Claim:

Declaration of the Congregation of Cardinals, 30.04.2025

The Congregation of Cardinals wishes to make public the following two matters of a procedural nature, on which it has reflected and debated in recent days:

1) Regarding the Cardinal electors, the Congregation has revealed that His Holiness Francis, by creating a number of Cardinals higher than the 120 stipulated by no. 33 of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis of Saint John Paul II, of 22 February 1996, in the exercise of his supreme power, has dispensed with this legislative provision, whereby the Cardinals exceeding the set limit have acquired, in accordance with No. 36 of the same Apostolic Constitution, the right to elect the Roman Pontiff, from the moment of their creation and publication;

Legal Problems with the Claim of April 30, 2025

1. Founded upon the revelation of a fact not publicly known

The legal problems in this Press Release are immediately obvious. First, the Cardinals claim to be revealing something which was not publicly known. This is outstanding, since the last time was 1130 A. D., that the Cardinals have made a claim, before a Papal Election, that the prior, now deceased Pope, had made some decision which would have effected in some way the manner of the election. — When the thing to be revealed is documented, there is no problem, but a secret which is not documented can never have force of right or law — this is an ancient principle of Roman jurisprudence.

And it is even more astounding, that the Cardinals say that only now they are revealing to the world, that this decision was made, even though they refer to an event on Dec. 8, 2024, nearly 6 months before!

If you want to understand how radically problematic this is, just call up any Estate Attorney, who deals with inheritances, and ask him what would be the legal value, if the heirs of someone who has passed away, claim before the reading of the will, that they had secret knowledge of how the deceased wanted his will to read, which they are only now revealing.

2. A Patent Conflict of Interest underlies the claim

The second problem is also obvious: the claim by the Cardinals is colored by self-interest, since the claim allows 13 more of them to vote during the Conclave than the rule of the Papal Law,

3. The claim runs counter to a formal precept or prescription of written law

Universi Dominici Gregis, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, allows in paragraph n. 33, even though therein the Papal Law reads in the Latin:

Maximus autem Cardinalium electorum numerus centum viginti ne excedat.

Or, in English,

“Moreover, let the maximum number of Cardinal electors not exceed one-hundred and twenty.”

As is clear to anyone, this verbal statement is a command. In law it is called a precept, or prescription. A precept refers to a rule which is laid down before some action is to be undertaken; a prescription is a rule written beforehand in a binding text.

The Papal Law on Conclaves is a Constitution, because it explains completely how a Pope is to be elected, in the normal course of things. It was promulgated by the Vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul II, and as such represents the binding obligatory norm, which no one can obviate or ignore.

So to claim that you have a dispensation to not follow part of it, is really a momentous claim, not any small thing.

4. The Claim is not supported by any written document

Thus, when examining the claim, it becomes obvious that there is something very wrong: first of all, that their claim has no evidence of being true. That is, they are not making the claim, because they have a paper or document from Pope Francis formally granting this dispensation from the rule of no more than 120 Cardinal electors participating in the Conclave at any one time.

5. The Claim cites no specific verbal statement by Pope Francis

What is even more amazing, is that the Cardinals are making a claim without even citing any specific moment, in time or space, when they all heard from Pope Francis’ lips some same utterance in which he granted such a dispensation, or words equivalent. This is totally extraordinary. Such a claim would not even meet the most basic requirements for evidence to be admitted to any court of law in the world!

6. The Claim involves an interpretation of another legal act by persons without any authority to interpret such an act, as Canon 16 and UDG 1 declare

No authority to Interpret

And to add offense to injury, the Cardinals are claiming that a specific act of Pope Francis was equivalent to granting the dispensation which they claim to have. This is really outstanding, to speak in the most gentle terminology! Because if the legal act has such a meaning, the Cardinals could well cite the law that declares this. But no such law exists. And that they cite no such law or document which declares that the naming of more Cardinals than 120 by that very fact dispenses from the rule, they have conceded that there is no such document or law.

And this is very serious: because in Canon Law, canon 16 §1, the Cardinals do NOT have the authority to interpret Papal acts, unless this has been granted to them by some Pope or Canon of the Code of Canon Law. Here is the Latin of that canon:

Canon 16 §1. Leges authentice interpretatur legislator et is cui potestas authentice interpretandi fuerit ab eodem commissa.

Or in English,

Canon 16 §1. The legislator and the one to whom the authority to authentically interpret them has been given by the same, authentically interpret the laws.

So if the Cardinals’ claim implies an interpretation, which it obviously does, since they claim the act of naming Cardinals has a juridical effect, which no papal law says it has, they have to quote some Papal Law which granted them this authority to interpret the papal act in this manner. Thus their implicit claim to interpret has no foundation either in the law or in the grant of the authority to interpret. This is simply outrageous.

Faulty reading of the Law

I have mentioned before, elsewhere, but it is worth the while to repeat it here, that the Claim of the Cardinals contains an incoherent and false argument, since they say that UDG n. 36 gives all of them the right to vote in Conclave, even though UDG n. 36 expressly makes its declaration bound by the strictures in UDG. n. 33, which limits the number of Electors during the Conclave to 120. — Moreover, they seem not even to be able to read, because UDG n. 33 does not place restrictions on how many Cardinals a pope can nominate, it only places a restriction on how many can vote at any single time during a Conclave! Thus, their pretense that there is some sort of connection between the act of being named a cardinal and the right to vote is totally vacuous and inane, a reading which is based on an interpretive presumption, which they have no right to make since they are not legislators.

Matter about which they claim to interpret, excluded by UDG n. 1

In addition, I wish to add here that UDG n. 1 forbids the Cardinals all authority and right to make ex post facto declarations about the actions of the deceased Roman Pontiff,

1. Sede Apostolica vacante, Cardinalium Collegium nullam potestatem aut iurisdictionem habet in ea quae pertinebant ad Summum Pontificem dum vivebat vel muneribus officii sui fungebatur; ea omnia exclusive uni Pontifici futuro debent reservari. Quapropter invalidum et irritum esse decernimus quidquid potestatis aut iurisdictionis – ad Romanum Pontificem dum vivit pertinentes, vel ad perfunctionem officii ipsius – coetus ipse Cardinalium duxerit exercendum nisi quatenus in hac Nostra Constitutione expresse permittatur.

Which in English would be:

1. With the Apostolic See vacant, the College of Cardinals has no authority or jurisdiction in those things which pertained to the Supreme Pontiff while he lived and/or while he exercised the munera of his Office; all these things ought to be reserved exclusively to the next future Pontiff. On which account, We judge as invalid and irritus whatever of authority or jurisdiction — pertaining to the Roman Pontiff while he lived and/or to the performance of his office — the congregation of the Cardinals itself decided to do except to the extent that it be expressly permitted in this Our Constitution.

Thus, it should be clear that the Cardinals never had any authority to interpret the act of being nominated Cardinals as having the right to vote in the Conclave, since over that act by the deceased Roman Pontiff they never had any authority or jurisdiction whatsoever, not even to interpret it as having such an inherent or consequential effect.

7. The Claim of the Cardinals is explicitly nullified by UDG n. 4

On top of all these legal problems, the Papal Law of Pope John Paul II, Universi Dominic Gregis, in paragraph n. 4, explicitly says that no laws can be dispensed from during a sede vacante, and that if anyone claims to have such a dispensation, no matter how they claim it, their claim is null and void:

4. Sede Apostolica vacante, leges a Romanis Pontificibus latas non licet ullo modo corrigi vel immutari, neque quidquam detrahi iis sive addi vel dispensari circa partes earum, maxime eas, quae ad ordinandum negotium electionis Summi Pontificis pertinent. Si quid contra hoc praescriptum fieri vel attentari contigerit, id suprema Nostra auctoritate nullum et irritum declaramus.

Which in English, would be:

4. With the Apostolic See vacant, it is not licit that the laws promulgated by the Roman Pontiffs, be in any way corrected and/or changed, nor that anything whatsoever be taken away from or added to them and/or dispensed from concerning their parts. most of all those, which pertain to the ordering of the business of electing the Roman Pontiff. If anything would happen to be done and/or attempted against this prescription, We, by Our Supreme Authority declare it null and irritus.

Here, “null” means it is to be treated as of no value, and “irritus”, as having never been done or granted. And since this prescription in UDG n. 4, does NOT say, “During a sede vacante no one can dispense, or receive a dispensation”, but rather “With the sede vacante, it is not licit in any manner that any laws be dispensed from”, not only is the claim that Pope Francis dispensed, while he was alive, of no value to escape the nullification by this precept, but even if he had, such a dispensation could not be used regarding any part of any papal law, such as UDG n. 33, where the maximum number of cardinal electors is set at 120. — In other words, dispensations by their very nature are impotent to change the observance of papal laws, after the death of a pope!

Objection: Pope Francis is the supreme legislator, so he can grant a dispensation, even though Pope John Paul II forbade it, because one pope cannot constrain another

Response: It is true that a living pope can alter the laws of his predecessors, since while alive he is the supreme legislator. But after he is dead, his decisions and wills no longer have the force of the authority as supreme legislator, because he no longer holds the office of Roman Pontiff. The only way a pope can make his decisions and wills live on with authority is if he promulgate them in a law.

This is why when Pope John Paul II published his law on Conclaves and put the stricture of 120 Electors maximum in paragraph n. 33, and then forbade any dispensations from this rule in his general censure in paragraph n. 4, Pope Francis being dead cannot undo it. And Pope Francis in granting a dispensation while he was alive, would have granted a dispensation which could not be used, UNLESS he also granted the faculty to the same Cardinals of not being bound ALSO to UDG. n. 4.

Now as Pope he could have granted this. It would have been a legal act of derogation: that is a change in the law which would have value during the next Conclave. But a derogation would have to have been written, signed by Pope Francis in the presence of two witnesses and published in the Acta Apostolica Sedis, which is the official Gazette for legal acts by the Pope.

But the Cardinals do not claim or cite any such derogation from UDG n. 4. Thus their problematic claim to have a dispensation from UDG. n. 33, is worthless and of no juridical value.

Legal Consequences from the use of the claimed dispensation during the Conclave of May 2025

The legal consequences are severe, therefore, because of the legal error of the Cardinals, if we are to use the most polite language for their outrageous, unfounded, unlawful claim, renders the election NULL, IRRITUS and INVALID, conferring no right upon Cardinal Prevost.

EXPLANATION:

For when the Conclave begins in its secret sessions of voting, UDG n. 68 requires them to determine if the number of ballots cast is equal to the number of Cardinal electors present:

… Quodsi schedularum numerus non respondet numero electorum, omnes comburendae sunt, et iterum, id est altera vice, ad suffragia ferenda procedatur; si vero schedularum numerus numero electorum respondet, subsequitur publicatio scrutinii, quae hoc modo fit.

Which in English reads:

… Wherefore, if the number of ballots does not correspond with the number of electors, all are to be burnt and again, that is another time, the balloting is to be taken; if, however, the number of ballots corresponds to the number of electors, there follows the publication of the vote-tallies, which is done in this manner.

And since UDG n. 33 sets the maximum number at 120, if more than 120 ballots are cast, UDG. n. 68 requires that the ballots be burnt NOT counted. And thus in every session of voting when there was more than 120 Cardinal Electors present, no count was lawful, and thus no one could ever have been elected.

And from this conclusion there is no escaping, because the Cardinals cannot claim that 133 Cardinal Electors can vote, since n. 68 says nothing about the limit, for two reasons: first of all, n. 68 is a section of the law over which UDG 5 forbids them to use any interpretations; and second, they cannot pretend to use a dispensation to change the meaning of n. 68, when as it has been shown, that without a derogation from UDG n. 4, they cannot excuse themselves from the limit on the number of Cardinal electors in n. 33.

OR in other words, you cannot claim you have a piece of cake in your hand, which does not exist, and then claim you ate it, on top of that. That would just compound lie upon lie, for no false claim can be used to make another claim. Logic does not work that way. And Law does not work that way.

Thus, by counting the votes in the wrong way, when they should not have been counted, the tallies taken were IRRITUS, that is, taken against the norm of the prescription to be followed, and thus of no legal value, as if they had never been taken or counted.

But even more so, since UDG n. 76, declares NULL and INVALID any Papal Election in which in the very act of voting any alteration is made:

76. Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam haec Constitutio statuit, aut non servatis condicionibus pariter hic praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida absque ulla declaratione, ideoque electo nullum ius tribuit.

Which in English is:

76. Wherefore, if the election will have been celebrated in another manner, than this Constitution has established, or with the conditions prescribed equally here not observed, the election for this very reason is null and invalid without any declaration, and for that reason grants no right upon the one elected.

This prescription addresses two parts of the Papal Law on Conclaves: first the entire constitution, “if the election … than this Constitution has established” — such as allowing 133 Cardinals to vote– and secondly the chapter in which UDG n. 76 is contained in, which includes n. 68: “or with the conditions prescribed equally here not observed” — such as counting 133 votes in each balloting session, though only 120 are allowed to vote. — And, the choice of the adverb, here, is very important: aliter, which in Latin means, “in another manner”, that is, in any other manner than. This adverb does not admit of degrees of difference, that is, it does not mean, “in any other significant manner”, or “in any other important manner”. It means simply “in any other manner”. So the conclusion is inescapable.

Thus, there is no escaping that the Conclave of May 2025 had no valid result and that Cardinal Prevost is not the Pope. And we do not have to petition anyone to declare this to make it so, it is so by the very fact of the discrepancy of what the Cardinals did with the prescriptions of the law.

Pope Paul IV – Jacopino Conte (Manner), ca. 1560 (Source)

PART II: On the Violations of the Prescriptions of the Papal Law of Paul IV

1. What do we have to believe by Catholic Faith – “De Fide Catolica”?

INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, 1989

In 1989, Cardinal Ratzinger, as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in his capacity as President of the International Theological Commission, authorized the publication of a document entitled, “The Interpretation of Dogma”, which was prepared by Msgr. Walter Kasper, when he was a professor at the University of Tubingen, Germany.

This document, despite its non binding nature, reiterates the standard definition of what is “de fide Catholica” which is found in older manuals of theology:

“According to the doctrine of the Church, “an act of divine and Catholic faith must be made in what is contained in God`s word, either as it is written in Scripture or handed on by tradition and proposed by the Church, whether that be by way of a solemn decision or by the ordinary Magisterium, and the obligation to believe is demanded because it is divine revelation” (DS 3011). This “credendum” includes the truths of faith (in the strict sense) and also those truths, witnessed to by revelation, which have a bearing on the moral life (DS 1501, 3074: “fides et mores“; LG 25: “fidem credendam et moribus applicandam“).

From this we can see that all that pertains to “de fide Catholica” in the sense of the virtue of faith — we can discern this sense by the texts use of “an act of” — namely, all which “is contained in God’s word, either as it is written in Scripture or handed on by tradition and proposed by the Church, whether that be by way of a solemn decision or by the ordinary magisterium, and the obligation to believe is demanded because it is divine revelation”.

DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CATHOLIC FAITH, VATICAN I

And this recalls the infallible teaching of the First Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholics Faith (Constitutio de Fide Catholica), which title is referring not to the virtue but the contents of what is believed by the virtue:

“Now this supernatural revelation, according to the belief of the universal church, as declared by the sacred council of Trent, is contained in which were written books and unwritten traditions, received by the apostles from the lips of Christ himself, or came to the apostles by the dictation of the holy Spirit, and were passed on as it were from hand to hand until they reached us [16]. The complete books of the old and the New Testament with all their parts, as they are listed in the decree of the said council and as they are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are to be received as sacred and canonical. These books the church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and were as such committed to the church. Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which holy mother church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture. In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers.”

So, from this we can see, that all which God has revealed, from which the Church has always drawn Her teaching on faith and morals, pertains to the Catholic Faith and must be believed by divine and Catholic Faith.

THEOLOGICAL MANUALS BEFORE VATICAN II

And we see this said in the same way, but more organized format, in Sixtus Cartechini S. J., 1951 treatise, De Valore Notarum Theologicarum (On the Force of Theological Notes), under his remarks at the end of this quotation:

Theological note: Dogma.
Equivalent terms: Dogma of faith; de fide, de fide Catholica; de fide divina et Catholica.
Explanation: A truth proposed by the Church as revealed by God.
Examples: The Immaculate Conception; all the contents of the Athanasian Creed.
Censure attached to contradictory proposition: Heresy
Effects of denial: Mortal sin committed directly against the virtue of faith, and, if the heresy is outwardly professed, excommunication is automatically incurred and membership of the Church forfeited.
Remarks: A dogma can be proposed either by a solemn definition of pope or council, or by the Ordinary Magisterium, as in the case of the Athanasian Creed, to which the church has manifested her solemn commitment by its long-standing liturgical and practical use and commendation.

Thus, we must believe by Divine and Catholic Faith all the truths revealed by God in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, which regard theological and/or moral truths. Even though we must believe by divine faith everything in Scripture, not all of it pertains to Catholic Faith, because many things revealed by God do not regard supernatural truths or regarded the Old Covenant, which has passed away.

For example, we must believe by divine faith that God ordered the Hebrews to circumcise their sons. But we do not believe in circumcision today, since with Christ’s Resurrection the obligation has passed away, being replaced by Baptism.

‘Fiducia supplicans’ contains, teaches and promotes what is contrary to Catholic Faith on the Priesthood, on Blessings and on the use of the Divine Name

For the above reason, we can now see more clearly why Cardinal Mueller said that Fiducia supplicans, which says Catholic priests can bless public sinners with a non-sacramental blessing, teaches contrary to Catholic doctrine, since the Church has never taught such a thing, rather She has taught the opposite, namely, that every blessing given by a validly ordained priest has a sacramental power. We can also now see why it is rightly said, at the same time, that ‘Fiducia supplicans” contains or teaches heresy, because the Church has always taught that priests always bless with the authority of Jesus Christ, even if they do not use the Divine Name, since this authority is the perennial basis of all blessings given by the clergy in the history of Christianity.

For to say that a priest can bless but not in the name of Christ, is to say a priest of Christ can in a morally upright way give a blessing in the name of someone else, not Christ, even though he is the ambassador of Christ, as Saint Paul teaches infallibly, and consecrated to Jesus Christ by his ordination, according to the Tradition of the Church. What ‘Fiducia supplicans’ is trying to do is to teach that a priest can be faithful by not being faithful to Christ. And that is a heresy. Though Cardinal Mueller calls it a contradiction.

It also implicitly presents an entirely novel idea of the source of authority of the priesthood, which in Tradition has always been held to be Christ’s authority. Thus ‘Fiducia supplicans’ teaches that when a priest does NOT pronounce the Name of God in a blessing, though he is a priest of Christ, he is NOT invoking the Divine Name by using his authority as a priest. But this is exactly the opposite of what the Church has always believed and taught, namely, that every exercise of priestly power, calls upon the power and Name of Divine Majesty, since the priest is not merely a ritual functionary, but is ontologically, theologically and juridically made the representative of the Living God by his ordination.

Moreover, as Cardinal Mueller points out, there are two notions of blessing in ‘Fiducia supplicans’ which contradict one another: the sacramental and the non-sacramental. If we strip away the sacramental, which is the kind Jesus Christ instituted and ordered the Sacred Heart to keep doing until the end of time, since they act in His Person as His representatives on Earth, to watch over His flock, a thing they do by imparting His Blessings: we are left with an entirely novel doctrine where it says a priest can impart a non-sacramental blessing.

The readers who support this document did not end up confused, however, because after the publication of the document the supporters of the document began using the Diving Name to bless public sinners, while at the same time arguing verbally, while forgetting in practice, that the part of the document did not teach this, whenever they attempted to defend the document. Thus the doctrine of ‘Fiducia supplicans’ as a whole contradicts Catholic Faith on the priesthood, on blessings and on the use of the Divine Name. And each contradiction is a heresy, even though in addition to this erroneous doctrine it fosters heresy and the worse possible Sacrileges, the misuse of the Divine Name to affirm and confirm sinners in their moral depravities.

This is why Catholic Bishops in Poland, Ukraine, the Mid-East and Africa and many other parts of the world rejected the teaching contained in this document. This was the first time in history that a pope signed a document which was rejected by a large part of the episcopacy precisely because it contradicted Catholic Faith. And this is why Cardinal Prevost, in affirming that he will continue to follow Pope Francis’s Magisterium, is reconfirming his own pertinacity in heresies against the Catholic Faith.

1. What all this has to do with Cardinal Prevost’s Election being invalid?

And as soon as a Catholic sees that Prevosts is doing this, he can have recourse to Pope Paul IV’s, “Cum ex apostolatus officio”, which says, in n. 6:

6. Adiicientes quod si ullo umquam tempore apparuerit aliquem Episcopum, etiam pro Archiepiscopo, seu Patriarcha, vel Primate se gerentem, aut praedictae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem, etiam ut praefertur, Legatum, seu etiam Romanum Pontificem ante eius promotionem, vel in Cardinalem, seu Romanum Pontificem assumptionem a fide Catholica deviasse, aut in aliquam haeresim incidisse,

(i) promotio, seu assumptio de eo etiam in concordia, et de unanimi omnium Cardinalium assensu facta, nulla, irrita,

(ii) et inanis existat, nec per susceptionem muneris, consecrationis, aut subsecutam regiminis, et administrationis possessionem, seu quasi, vel ipsius Romani Pontificis inthronizationem, aut adorationem, seu ei praestitam ab omnibus obedientiam, et cuiusvis temporis in praemissis cursum, convaluisse dici, aut convalescere possit,

(iii) nec pro legitima in aliqua sui parte habeatur,

Which in Brother Bugnolo`s English translation (which is more accurate than the version at Daily Catholic, quoted here):

6. Adding, that if at any time it will have appeared that any Bishop, even if acting as an Archbishop or Patriarch, and/or Primate, or a Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, even as has been aforesaid, Legate, or even a Roman Pontiff before his promotion, whether upon his assumption as a Cardinal, or as Roman Pontiff, has deviated from Catholic faith (a fide Catholica), or has fallen into any heresy (in aliquam haeresim):

(i) let his promotion or assumption, even with the agreement and unanimous consent of all the Cardinals, stand forth as null and irritus,

(ii) and void, nor be able to be convalidated or to be said to be convalidated through the susception of his munus, consecration, or subsequent rule, and possession of administration, nor even if through the enthronement as Roman Pontiff himself, or adoration, or proffering of obedience to him by all, nor through the passage of time in the same,

(iii) nor be held legitimate in any part thereof,

As can be seen, thus, that the precise conditions which we see after the Conclave of May 2025 are entirely fulfilled, because whether you already knew he spoke against the Catholic Faith before the Conclave, or recognize after the Conclave that he is speaking in the same way as before, the Bull of Paul IV, not only gives you the right to say his election was invalid, regardless of how many Catholics say otherwise, and no matter how long he claims to be the Pope, but his election and claim to office and powers, is legally rendered NULL, VOID, and IRRITUS, that is, invalid, empty of all just claim, and to be considered to have never existed in the sight of the Church and of God, since, being a Papal Bull, it falls under the precept of Jesus Christ, “Whatsoever you bound upon earth, shall be bound in Heaven; and whatever you lose upon earth, shall be loosed in heaven”, this Bull is going to be observed by Jesus Christ every time its conditions are met. (See these two - here and here articles for a demonstration that this Bull is still in force of law).

In addition, Cardinal Prevost holds the heretical position that the use of Capital Punishment is always inadmissible, which contradicts the truth taught by Saint Paul and the Church, that the authority to impose this punishment was given by God to the State. For if its use was always evil, then God is evil for granting its use. But it is of divine and Catholic Faith that God is good and all authority He grants is lawful to use, since Christ Himself approved of this when He said to Pilate: “You would have no authority over Me, if it had not been granted to you from above”.

Cardinals, bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church attend the Funeral Ceremony of Pope John Paul II. (Source)

PART III: The participation of non-Electors in the Conclave

The participation of non-Electors in the Conclave, either because

(i) more than 70 (there were 108) of them were nominated by a man who did not have the petrine munus, and therefore had no legal right to nominate them, since Pope Benedict XVI never renounced it, or because

(ii) as many as 70 (there were 83) of them were not validly nominated Cardinals, since they were nominated after 2017, when Bergoglio publicly denied in his letter to the Bishops of Argentina the authority of the Apostles to forbid the Sacraments of the living to public sinners. By this denial, he broke definitively with the Apostolic Faith of the Church as was ipso facto excommunicated in virtue of canon 1364, wherefore, which state

Can. 1364— § 1. An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication, without prejudice to the provision of can.

in accord with canon 1331, which states,

Can. 1331— § 1. An excommunicated person is prohibited:

5° from exercising any ecclesiastical offices, duties, ministries or functions;

6° from performing acts of governance.

even if it be hypothetically asserted that his nominations of these 70 had any juridical value. — Thus the presence in the Conclave of 2025, of the greater number of them who had never repudiated the heretical break of Amoris Laetitia, affirmed in the doctrinal note of Bergoglio to the Bishops of Argentina, in his letter of August/September 2017, rendered the Conclave invalid, since in accord with the Papal Law Universi Dominici Gregis, only validly nominated Cardinals can vote in a Conclave. This inability is a formal and manifest consequence of Canon Law and thus cannot be bypassed by an appeal to UDG n. 35, which refers to mere pretexts and undocumented claims.

Giovanni Battista Cardinal Re, 2023 (Source)

PART IV: Conclave of 2025 Convoked by Cardinal Re

The Conclave of 2025 was convoked by Cardinal Re¹, who

1. Participated in the schismatic conclave of 2013 that elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and which resulted in the election of an antipope, as Pope Benedict XVI had never renounced the munus. If he was ignorant of the situation, he was informed of this in a letter sent to him by Brother Bugnolo in 2020, but which he never acknowledged receipt, or responded, and never publically repented². During Pope Francis` funeral homily on April 26, 2025, he even reconfirmed the date of Pope Francis` election as March 13, 2013!

2. Never publicly repudiated the formally manifest heretical doctrines contained in Amoris Laetitia when it´s meaning was made clear in 2017 by Bergoglio, and Fiducia Supplicans when it was published in December 2023. His adherence to these doctrines was confirmed when delivering Pope Francis` funeral homily on April 26, 2025, he approved of all his teaching, and even saying that Pope Francis was in heaven.

But in accord with canon 1364, whereby he was ipso facto excommunicated for such adhesion, and canon 1331, §1, whereby he lost all right to exercise any ministry in the Church.

Furthermore, Cardinal Re was elected and confirmed as Cardinal Dean on January 18, 2020 for five years and renewed again in 2025 but in the first case Pope Francis was not the pope, and in the second, he as excommunicated for signing Fiducia Supplicans. Thus, for these three reasons his act in April 2025 of convoking the Cardinals into conclave was juridically invalid, null and void. And thus the Conclave had no legal standing to elect anyone, no matter who would be elected, even if all other rules were followed.

Credits: Assembled from Brother Alexis Bugnolo`s writing published at the links below. Reproduced and completed with his permission.

A Canonical Analysis of why the Conclave of May 2025 had no valid result | From Rome

What is part of The Catholic Faith, “De Fide Catholica” that Prevost denies? | From Rome

FAQ – Sedes Apostolica

1. Cardinal Re convoked the general congregations on April 22, 2025, and once the date of the conclave was agreed upon by the Cardinals on April 28, 2025, by virtue of his office as Dean of the College of Cardinals, he invited each of the Cardinals to the Conclave.

2. Brother Bugnolo published his letter to Cardina Re sent it to his subscribers via email. Since many clergy at the vatican are on his email list, it is likely that he was informed.