Determining Antipopes

[MacroConnectome]

How exactly does the Catholic Church do it? Is there an established mechanism or process by which the church is able to determine which of multiple papal claimants is the legitimate pope and which are fraudulent? If so, when did this begin in history?

If not, then is it just a matter of historical hindsight? If so, what effect does that have on Catholics who are contemporaries of said antipope? How can a Catholic know which “pope” is the real deal?

 

[DavidFilmer]

It’s not really different than determining anything else. The Magesterium settles such questions. Often it is flippin obvious who is the antipope.

When it is not so obvious, the Bishops may ask the contenders to resign their claim so that a Pope may be chosen in an unequivocal manner.

If one of the contenders will not do so, the Bishops have the authority to depose him and cleanly elect a Pope. This is what happened at the Council of Constance - where there were three contenders with no clear indication of which one (if any) had a valid claim. Two resigned, but one refused. The Council Fathers reasoned that - in this particular situation - a Council of Bishops has more authority than a single Bishop (even the Bishop of Rome), and has the authority to depose someone acting as Pope but with questionable validity.

Could that third guy’s claim have been legitimate? Did the Church depose a valid Pope (something that should be impossible)? I guess we must rely on the Holy Spirit to guide the Church away from such an act (or, at least, to guide a legitimate Pope to resign).

FWIW, many antipopes have been men of good will and intent. One antipope is a Saint of the Church.

 

[MacroConnectome]

One antipope is a Saint of the Church.

That’s actually who I had in mind (St. Hippolytus). As I understand it, it was the Roman laity who clamored for his papacy, while his fellow bishops disputed it. He actually reigned during the time of three of the official popes.

Does longevity or the desires of the laity every factor into this, even if not in this particular case? I was under the impression that at this time in history bishops were elected by their dioceses.