Pope Francis
Credit: Franco Origlia

ROME—Popes have had many enemies over the centuries. They have been poisoned, strangled, clubbed to death, and one supposedly was smothered with a pillow.

Even in our supposedly more civilized era the last two popes of recent memory had detractors. It was just that the whispers of dissent were often just that, low voices from fringe groups that no one took very seriously.

Now, in the era of fake news and alternative facts that has brought organizations like Breitbart to the mainstream (and has former Trump adviser Steve Bannon critiquing church doctrine), even fringe groups in Catholic circles are increasingly making their voices heard.

That’s exactly what happened over the weekend when a group of theologians and academics, bolstered by a handful of previously unknown but apparently very conservative clergy, issued what amounts to an online petition that accused Francis of propagating heresy.

Let’s repeat that: “Heresy.”

The accusations come in the form of a 25-page letter called a “Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis” which, for those whose Latin is […]