Quote: (12-09-2017 07:27 PM)Mercenary Wrote:
The pope is only head of the catholic church, NOT of all christians.
Protestants and other various other christian denominations have not recognised his authority on anything for many centuries.
In fact, even large numbers of catholics have refused to follow the pope since the decisions of the 2nd vatican council from 1962 to 1965 and set up their own old style traditional churches.
Bottom line:
Unless you are a strict roman catholic, you don't have to follow the pope's orders on anything.
Thankfully, he's NOT the Pope. Benedict is still wearing the Papal white, and residing in Vatican City. He's in error thinking he can take over the contemplative role of the Pope, while Bergoglio takes on the active/secular role, and the result is an Anti Pope wandering around causing trouble - but there you go, no need to go full Sede Vacantist.
Barnhardt goes into detail here.