Antipope Anacletus II vs. Pope Innocent II

[Geremia]

The case of Antipope Anacletus II vs. Pope Innocent II seems analogous to what's happening in the Church today. Pope Innocent was elected a mere 3 hours before Anacletus, and they both received episcopal consecration the same day. Anacletus, who had great clout from making his fortune off usury, drove Pope Innocent away from Rome; thus, Anacletus was considered the valid pope by nearly everyone. When Anacletus died eight years later, Pope Innocent II convened the Second Lateran Council, which annulled Anacletus's anti-papacy, reversed all the laws he enacted, and deposed the bishops and priests that Anacletus invalidly ordained.

It's good that some bishops and cardinals are publicly recognizing Francis's errors and heresies, but more needs to be done than petitions. One can petition an arsonist to put out the fire he started, but what good does that do? Hopefully a council, analogous to the Second Lateran Council, will be convened to clarify things like:

• whether Francis is a heretic
  if so, whether he lost the office of the papacy or ever had it in the first place
  if so, the council would depose him and perhaps elect a valid pope or proclaim Benedict XVI as the valid pope (if he is still pope)
• whether Benedict XVI resigned the papacy itself or simply the "active ministry" of it (as he himself said)
• whether Francis's acts (laws, canonizations, Amoris Lætitia, etc.) are to be reversed/annulled
• Perhaps the council could even shed light on the pope-heretic question, which is still a theologically open question.
  St. Robert Bellarmine's view, in his De Romano Pontifice lib. II cap. 30, is that a manifest heretical pope would become an antipope, even before deposition.
  John of St. Thomas's opinion is that a manifest heretical pope would have to be deposed first before he loses the office of the papacy.

Oremus.

Vivid description of Innocent II's depositions at Lateran II, from Pope Innocent II (1130-43): The World vs. The City p. 311:

Shortly after the Second Lateran Council (1139), the chronicle of the French abbey of Morigny recorded a vivid account of the assembly.¹ When Pope Innocent II rose to address the fathers, he bemoaned the evil effects of schism and the problems created in the Church if the head itself was corrupt. Innocent made the point that 'the height of ecclesiastical honour is received by the permission of the Roman pontiff, as if by the custom of feudal law, and without his permission it is not legally held'.² He further and rather ominously declared that canon law ought to be taken up as a weapon in time of ecclesiastical war. Then, after demonstrating that Anacletus had taken the papacy by usurpation, Innocent announced: 'Because the decrees of an irregularly appointed person are irregular, whatever he had established we destroy, whomever he had exalted we degrade, and however many he had consecrated we unordain and depose'.³ In a dramatic ceremony, the pope called the creatures of the antipope forward by name and upbraided them 'with indignation and reproach'. Next he 'violently seized the pastoral staves from their hands, and shamefully pulled off the pontifical pallia, on which the highest dignity is based, from their shoulders, and also removed those rings by which betrothal to the church belonging to them is expressed, without regard for mercy'.

• La chronique de Morigny (1095–1152), ed. L. Mirot, 2nd edn (Paris, 1912), 71–75.
• '[A] Romani pontificis licencia ecclesiastici honoris celsitudo quasi feodalis juris consuetudine susci- pitur, et sine ejus permissione legaliter non tenetur', Chronique de Morigny, 72.
• '[Q]uia inordinate persone inordinata sunt decreta, quodcumque ille statuerat destruimus, quoscumque exaltaverat degradamus, et quotquot consecraverat exordinamus et deponimus', Chronique de Morigny, 74.
• 'His dictis, singulos quos reos cognoverat, propriis nominibus exprimens, eisque cum indignacione et jurgio exprobrans, pastorales baculos de manibus violenter arripuit, et pontificalia pallia, in quibus summa dignitas consistit, de humeris verecondose abstraxit, ipsos quoque anulos, in quibus ad ipsos pertinens ecclesie desponsacio exprimitur, sine respectu misericordie abstulit', Chronique de Morigny, 74.

[Kephapaulos]

It is all an interesting question to explore. Anything from 1945 onward I think would have to be examined. I say 1945 because that is when the novel (but optional) Bea Psalter was introduced, in light of the liturgical problems that arose since then even before the doctrinal problems that arose during the period form 1958 to 1965, although they go further back anyway.

1945 is also a good year from which to start analysis because the world changed much after World War II. After the war, as pointed out by Fr. Schmidberger in his conference on Vatican II several years ago, there was little moral reconstruction. People were more concerned with material welfare and neglected even more the spiritual realm with many perhaps not realizing it and did not see too much past the natural law and natural virtue. That is what helped pave the way for the acceptance of modernist heresy and error in the form of neomodernism that arose after coming out of hiding.

The very problem even today is also that many see not far beyond the need to return to the natural law; hence naturalism, which is promoted by the Jews. That is why the concept of a Catholic state has been lost since it has become unthinkable that the Catholic Church and state should be united. A pope is supposed to promote and encourage that, but we do not see that coming from the Vatican now. That concerns the supreme law of the salvation of souls, and for some it is hard to see how  a true Roman Pontiff could deny the true teaching concerning Church and state.

Some say this or that about when a pope would lose the papacy if he fell into heresy, I do know that however things play out, according to prophecy, God will judge in the end through His Church.

[Geremia]

1945 is also a good year from which to start analysis

Yes, 1945 is good year, roughly the height of the Nouvelle Théologie controversy, which Pope Pius XII first condemned in 1946 and to which Humani Generis responded in Dec. 1950. Pascendi and Lamentabili in 1907 merely buried Modernism, which resurfaced at Vatican II.
cf. Nouvelle Théologie New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (2010) by Jürgen Mettepenningen.

[Geremia]

Loughlin, J. (1907). Anacletus II, The Catholic Encyclopedia:

The life and character of our Pope Innocent [II] are above any attack, even of his rival; while the other's are not safe even from his friends. In the second place, if you compare the elections, that of our candidate at once has the advantage over the other as being purer in motive, more regular in form, and earlier in time. The last point is out of all doubt; the other two are proved by the merit and the dignity of the electors. You will find, if I mistake not, that this election was made by the more discreet part of those to whom the election of the Supreme Pontiff belongs. There were cardinals, bishops, priests, and deacons, in sufficient number, according to the decrees of the Fathers, to make a valid election. The consecration was performed by the Bishop of Ostia, to whom that function specially belongs.

felix festum S. Bernardi Abbatis et Ecclesiæ Doctoris!

[Geremia]

The Vita Prima Bernardi ch. 19 (pp. 76-80, PDF pp. 84-88) mentions "The Council of Etampes", which Innocent II, while in hiding in Pisa, told the French bishops to convoke, at which St. Bernard was, with the king's and bishops' approbation, the spokesman.