It seems the Church headed by the current legal authorities in the Vatican has fallen into heresy. This has come about because of one particular heresy that has been allowed to grow in the Vatican and wrap itself around everything. Now that Pope Francis is at the helm it is no longer something that is being kept in check but has instead been weaponized against the lay faithful.
That heresy is DONATISM.
A little background might be in order. The donatist heresy is actually something that either very few people or actually a lot of people believe in depending on how you look at it so it is important to understand what exactly it is. When the Roman persecution of the Church ended there were a lot of traitors to the faith who wanted to be forgiven and let back into the church. Rome said 'sure come on back, the more the merrier'. However, there was another group of people who thought that it would be very inappropriate for men who betrayed their fellow Christians to again hold leadership positions in the church.
Just to be clear, the idea that lay faithful would say that it would be inappropriate for someone who is a traitor to be their bishop is NOT donatism. Lay faithful are perfectly free to give their opinion to church leaders about best practices and Canon Law backs them up when doing so.
The way donatism becomes a heresy is when someone says that a former traitor is no longer validly ordained. This is to say that something that is actually valid to be invalid. It's like saying that someone who was born in the US and has a US passport is not in fact an American because of some crazy twisted reasoning.
When donatism was popular there were a few people who did believe this and taught it but the vast majority of the donatists were really just saying that it wasn't a good idea to put a man guilty of selling out his fellow Christians and stealing from them into a position to do it again. But nonetheless, all the donatists were branded with the heresy brush because a few went too far and started to claim invalidity of the sacraments.
At this point you might be reading this and wondering how I could be claiming Pope Francis was guilty of this. Isn't he the kind and friendly pope who wants to get along with everyone? Certainly it must actually be the sedevacantists who claim the pope's ordination to be invalid who are the real donatists. Right? They're the one's who have gone too far in wanting purity, certainly; you might say.
The key thing to understand about donatism isn't that the lay faithful were demanding that their priests and bishops actually live according to the Christian ideal. In reality we should all want that and if we discover a man stealing money or abusing children we should want him removed from power. That is not donatism. Donatism is specifically the calling of something that is valid to be invalid because you just don't like the people who have it.
Yes, there are sedevacantists who say the pope's ordination is invalid. If they are wrong, then they are donatists.
A much more common issue however is when the Pope and the Vatican turn that argument around and point to faithful clerics and tell them that their sacraments are now invalid. For a long time many Catholic bishops were saying the sacraments performed by the SSPX were invalid. Now certainly some in the SSPX have launched that argument at the Vatican but two wrongs do not make a right. SSPX sacraments from baptism to ordination are all Valid and it is donatism for anyone to claim that they are not. Additionally, for those among the traditionalist movement and the old catholic movement who have valid ordination, yes they are outside of communion with Rome but their sacraments are in fact valid. When a married man becomes a priest or even a bishop, that consecration is valid. The church has said very clearly that a man's moral state does not determine if the sacraments administered to him or by him become invalid. This means that even if a priest brakes his vows and gets married, he is still a priest no matter what the Vatican wants to say about it.
When the Vatican judges a man's sacraments to be invalid just because they don't like him or he doesn't fit in with them, then the Vatican itself is guilty of donatism.
In this time of crisis in the church when it is blatantly apparent that the officials in the Vatican all the way up to the pope are not only stealing money and allowing clerics to abuse children and seminarians but they are also now weaponizing the donatist heresy to silence faithful Catholics and exclude us from the church so that they can have a free hand to teach a message counter to that of Christ; it is time to pick up our cross and follow Christ even if it means letting Peter deny Christ as he runs away.
Faithful lay Catholics can no longer trust in the Vatican or our bishops but we must always continue to trust in Christ. Faithful priests and bishops need to break ties with the Vatican and offer valid sacraments to their faithful, even if the Vatican tries to claim those sacraments to be invalid. We need to stop recognizing legalistic restrictions on a Bishop's powers and understand that each bishop is a full successor to the Apostles and can administer sacraments to all of Christ's faithful.
The current crisis in the church as a hundred years in the making and it will be at least a hundred years for any of it to begin to be fixed. I'm not going to live that long. Being a Christian does not mean having legal loyalty to whoever is the current monarch of Vatican city. Christ is the head of the Church, not Peter if he's going to run away crying. We follow Christ even to the foot of the cross and to be nailed on our own cross if need be. We stay with Christ. If Peter ever comes to his senses then that's good for him but we aren't going to deny Christ like him. Time will tell if the Vatican still truly has valid orders and if so can retain valid orders but faithful Catholics need something more solid than the vast amounts of sand the Vatican has been shoveling out to us.
Faithful Catholics need to seek up faithful priests and bishop and form their own communities. They need to teach the faith to the next generation. They need to be more active in learning the faith, teaching the faith, and living the faith. Once a community is established outside of the Vatican's control, you need to reach out to others who have done the same and reestablish the communion with other faithful Catholics outside of Rome's control. We need our own hierarchy who will take care of us but we can't depend on the church or the clerics to do everything. Each Catholic now has a responsibility to Christ to learn, live, teach, and promote the faith in your own life.
No one wants to join the mess that the Vatican has become because they no longer teach Christianity. Well, obviously people who want to be Christians don't want to join something that doesn't teach Christianity. We need to look past the Vatican's laws, focus on Christ and help save souls. Protestantism, paganism, and secularism are leading so many to hell. You don't have to go with them. Let Christ save you and let Christ save your loved ones.
