POPE FORMOSUS AND STEPHEN VII

The pope is the man Catholics believe that Jesus Christ has put on earth to stand in his role of ruling the Church. The history of the papacy shows no sign of any real divine direction. Catholics believe that the power to ordain priests and bishops is passed down and if by mistake a man is not ordained correctly then he is not a priest and bishop even if the Church thinks he is. He does not have the power and his priests whom he ordains will not be priests at all.
 
Karl Keating’s apologetic for Roman Catholicism in Catholicism and Fundamentalism, page 220 tells us that Pope Stephen VII declared that the ordinations performed by his predecessor pope Formosus were invalid and that Formosus was not a real pope.

Typically, Keating and the Catholic Church pretend that there is no problem with this and that it does not disprove papal supremacy or papal infallibility. Equally typical is how this is only briefly discussed and glossed over when it is a complex issue. That is what is done by a religionist when going in too deep into something will show the fallacy of her or his position.

Stephen was claiming that Formosus was head of a false Church and that is more than just a problem.

If Formosus was a true pope then Stephen was a schismatic for not acknowledging him even though he was dead.

Stephen accused the Church of being infested with fake ordinations.

Stephen officially decreed that it was heresy to believe that Formosus was a real pope even though Keating lies that he did not interfere with doctrine and contradict the faith of the Church. Keating lies that these two popes did not dispute the faith and contradict each other in their official teaching for Formosus claimed to be true pope and Stephen denied it. Stephen denied that the Church under Formosus was the true Catholic Church for only an untrue Catholic Church, a counterfeit can be built on the wrong rock.

Stephen even excommunicated Formosus. Formosus was dead so he excommunicated his rotting corpse! You cannot excommunicate the legitimate head of the Church without dividing from that Church even if the excommunication is null and void. To divide from the head of the Church even a past one is to commit the sin of schism and excommunicate yourself. Stephen was officially and implicitly saying that this logic is false which marks him out as a heretic who taught official doctrine that was wrong and also as somebody that was not infallible. He also committed the heresy of inferring that Christ’s promise that the Roman Church would never stray or become apostate was false. His standards for valid ordinations were so strict that if valid he was right to reject the validity of those performed by Formosus which would rule out the validity of most ordinations performed by the Church. The Church cannot approve of Stephen’s attitude. It is downright insane to say that doctrine matters and that attitudes towards the validity of ordinations do not. His attack on the ordinations is sufficient proof that the claims made for the papacy are hoaxes.