There are multiple problems with the recent Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church that charges Pope Francis with heresy, but here we will focus on the core problem: the letter fails to sustain the charge of heresy.
This fault is likely due to the lack of familiarity that the 19 signatories have with the details of the concept.
A cursory review of the list of signatories indicates that none have doctorates in the relevant fields of canon law or sacred theology, though a few have licentiates (the equivalent of master’s degrees).
Lionel: Invisible cases of the baptism of desire(BOD), baptism of blood(BOB) and being saved in invincible ignorance(I.I) are not physically visible. This is a fact of life. It is objective. One does not need an academic degree to observe this. For the two popes and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith(CDF), invisible cases of  BOD, BOB and I.I are objective examples of salvation outside the Church. This is irrational. It is non Catholic and it is deception.Upon this false reasoning a new theology is created and magisterial documents are interpreted with it, to create a rupture with Sacred Tradition.
The same irrationality is used in the interpretation of Vatican Council II. Even a school boy would know there is something wrong with this logic.
This is expressed in love for Jesus and the Church and not to condemn any one. It is hoped that the Church will right itself theologically and so it is mentioned here.
It is painful to have to point out the mistakes of a religious more so of a pope. The aim is to correct the mistake.The aim is not to judge any one.
I respect Pope Francis as the pope even though he is repeating the same error of the previous popes.

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None seem to be specialists in ecclesiology—the branch of theology that deals most directly with the Magisterium of the Church—and none seem to have published a book on the Magisterium and how it engages its infallibility.
From this perspective, some of the flaws in the letter may be understandable, but from another perspective, they are not.
If you are going to charge anybody with heresy—but especially if you are going to charge a pope with it—you need to prove your case, and this letter doesn’t.

What Heresy Is
According to the Code of Canon Law, “heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith” (CIC 751; cf. CCC 2089).
Lionel: The dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS) has been defined by three Church Councils.It is denied by Pope Francis and Pope Benedict.
Being saved in invincible ignorance(I.I), the baptism of desire(BOD) and the baptism of blood(BOB) referred to hypothetical and theoretical cases for the Church Fathers, the Medieval Fathers and the popes and saints before the 1930s. For the present ecclesiastics at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith(CDF)  BOD, BOB and I.I refer to personally known non Catholics saved outside the Catholic Church. So they are objective exceptions to EENS.This is EENS according to the Magisterium of the 16th century. Pope Benedict confirmed that EENS today( 2016) was no more like it was for the missionaries in the 16th century. He said that there was a rupture with Vatican Council II. (Avvenire).He interpreted Vatican Council II interpreting  LG 14, LG 16 etc as  referring  to known people saved outside the Church.So they become exceptions to EENS as it was interpreted over the centuries and in the 16th century.He was admitting that the Magisterium was wrong either in the past or the present.So at one time, the ecclesiastics were not magisterial. Since the Holy Spirit cannot make an objective mistake.
1.So there is a denial of traditional EENS by Pope Francis which is confirmed in public by Pope Benedict.Pope Pius XII called EENS an 'infallible teaching'(Letter of the Holy Office 1949). So this is heresy.
2.Since both popes interpret BOD, BOB and I.I as referring to known people saved outside the Church, they have  rejected the Athanasius Creed which says outside the Church there is no salvation. This is heresy.
3.With seen- in- the- flesh cases of BOD, BOB and I.I(otherwise they cannot be exceptions to EENS) for the present two popes they have changed the meaning of the Nicene Creed to ,'I believe in three or more known baptisms, desire, blood and invincible ignorance... and they exclude the baptism of water in the Catholic Church'. This is first class heresy.
4.Since BOD, BOB and I.I refer to known people saved outside the Church( otherwise they could not be exceptions to EENS according to the 16th century) the Catechism of Pope Pius X is contradicted when it says that all need to be members of the Catholic Church for salvation.
The Catechisms would also contradict themselves with the use of the pontiff's irrationality.They would be contradicting EENS and the Creeds according to the 16th century. This is heresy.
5.Vatican Council II can be interpreted with hypothetical cases just being hypothetical and not objectively known people saved outside the Church. Then Vatican Council II would not be a rupture with EENS according to the Magisterium of the 16th century.But this is not the interpretation of the two pontiffs. This is heresy. They intentionally interpret Vatican Council II  with a hermeneutic of rupture with Tradition( past ecclesiology, ecumenism of return, Syllabus of Errors, Creeds and Catechism).
6.Dominus Iesus and Redemptoris Missio was written assuming that BOD, BOB and I.I referred to known people saved outside the Church.So there was salvation outside the Church. This is irrational but this is the basis of the New Theology.Possibilities and theoretical cases are assumed to be practical exceptions to EENS in the present times(2019). With the New Theology Dominus  Iesus and Redemptoris Missio do not affirm exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church and so they are a rupture with Tradition( 16th century EENS, past ecclesiology).A heretical theology creates new doctrines.They are heretical.They are  expressed in the new ecumenism( in which Protestants do not need to convert), a new ecclesiology( in which there is salvation outside the church), new mission( in which non Catholics are saved in their religion since there is known salvation outside the Church,possibilities are real people) etc.This is heretical doctrine. 
7. With visible- for- the- pontiff cases of BOD, BOB and I.I and so they have re-interpreted St. Thomas Aquinas who was a Feeneyite. Aquinas affirmed the strict interpretation of the dogma EENS and knew that hypothetical cases of being saved in invincible ignorance and the case of the unknown catechumen, were not objective exceptions to EENS.The pontiffs and the CDF also project St. Augustine. St. Francis of Assisi  and the  other saints who affirmed exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church, as denying it.They deny it with alleged practical exceptions of BOD, BOB and I.I.The saints are interpreted heretically.

So we have heresy in theology and doctrine and it is manifest. 
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For heresy to occur, the following conditions must be met:
  1. The person committing it must be baptized
  2. Afterward, he must refuse to believe (doubt or deny) a particular truth
  3. He must do so obstinately
  4. The truth in question must be one that is to be believed by “divine and Catholic faith”
Lionel: EENS and the Creeds come in this category.
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What Divine and Catholic Faith Is
“Divine and Catholic faith” is a term of art that is explained in the previous canon:
A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium (CIC 750 §1).

Lionel: They reject EENS according to the Magisterium of the 16th century. 
They reject BOD, BOB and I.I according to the Magisterium of the 16th century.
They have changed the meaning of the Creeds. It is not as it was interpreted in the 16th century and the earlier centuries.Pope Benedict has confirmed this in public.
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This requires some unpacking, but for a truth to require divine and Catholic faith, the following conditions must be met:
  1. It must be divinely revealed (i.e., be found in Scripture or Tradition)
  2. The Magisterium must have proposed it to be divinely revealed
  3. The Magisterium must have done so, either by (a) the solemn magisterium or (b) the ordinary and universal magisterium. (Lionel: EENS was defined in the Extraordinary Magisterium by three Church Councils. The Creeds were also solemnly defined.)
“The solemn magisterium” means an infallible definition issued either by a pope or an ecumenical council.
“The ordinary and universal magisterium” means an infallible exercise of teaching performed by the bishops in union with the pope, even though they are not gathered in an ecumenical council.
Consequently, a truth that requires divine and Catholic faith is a truth that, one way or another, the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.
We have a name for such truths: dogmas.
Lionel: They have rejected the dogma EENS ( with an irrational interpretation of BOD, BOB and I.I).This has been confirmed by Pope Benedict (Avvenire, March 2016).EENS was defined three times in a Solemn Magisterium by three different popes and Church Councils over Church history.
They interpret LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, GS 22 etc in Vatican Council II as referring to known people saved outside the Church. They can choose to interpret them as referring to only hypothetical cases.Then  Vatican Council II would not be a rupture with Tradition. So this interpretation of Vatican Council II is false and politically motivated. Vatican Council II comes in the category of the Ordinary Magisterium.It has to be obeyed and not re-interpreted as a break with Tradition when it is really in harmony with the strict interpretation of EENS.
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What Dogma Is
A dogma is a special kind of Church teaching. Any time the Church authoritatively teaches something, it is a doctrine (Latin, doctrina = “teaching”).
Within the set of doctrines is a smaller set of teachings that have been infallibly defined by the Magisterium. These are infallible doctrines.
Within the set of infallible doctrines is a smaller set that consists of those infallible teachings that the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed. These are the dogmas.
Note that just because something is infallible, that doesn’t make it a dogma. The Magisterium has to have infallibly said that it is divinely revealed for that to be the case.
The distinctions between these categories, as well as examples of doctrines that belong to them, are discussed in a 1998 commentary by Joseph Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone.
To give one example of how a doctrine can be infallible but not a dogma, Ratzinger and Bertone note that the Magisterium has infallibly defined that the priesthood can be conferred only on men, but it has not yet defined that this truth is divinely revealed.
Consequently, the reservation of the priesthood to men is an infallible doctrine but not a dogma—at least not yet.
Lionel : The dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus was a dogma of the Church. For centuries it was accepted as a dogma. However Pope Benedict rejected it as a dogma with alleged personally known cases of BOD, BOB and I.I. So in the Catechism of the Catholic Church  he called EENS an 'aphorism'. This was heretical.
In two papers of the International Theological Commission, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Fr. Luiz Ladaria Sj, rejected the dogma EENS.They have also proposed ' a theology of religions' and a Christian theology of religious pluralism.Since for them there was known salvation outside the Church.This is heretical.

Preliminary Consolidation
Putting the above together, the following conditions need to be met to sustain a charge of heresy:
  1. The person committing it must be baptized
  2. Afterward, he must refuse to believe (doubt or deny) a particular truth
  3. He must do so obstinately
  4. The truth in question must be a dogma—that is, a truth the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.
This is where the flaws in the Open Letter come in.

Failing to Demonstrate that Dogmas are Involved
The Open Letter lists seven propositions that the signatories take to be heresies, or denials of dogmas.
To support each claim, they cite various biblical passages and Church documents.
The biblical passages are neither necessary nor sufficient to demonstrate a dogma. They are not necessary because a dogma can be based in Tradition rather than Scripture.
They are not sufficient because, at most, they show that a truth is found in divine revelation. They do not show that the Magisterium has infallibly defined it to be divinely revealed.
This means that, to demonstrate a dogma, we need to focus on the Church documents.
Unfortunately, many of the documents they cite are simply not relevant to this endeavor. Many do not contain any infallible definitions, and nobody has ever claimed that they do.
Others do contain infallible definitions, but it is not clear that they give rise to dogmas. Remember: To be a dogma, the Magisterium must infallibly define that a truth is divinely revealed, not just that it is true.
In some cases, the documents use language indicating infallibility (e.g., the word “anathema,” though one has to be careful about this word, as it is sometimes used without making a definition, see Teaching With Authority §§480-488).
But to create a dogma, the Magisterium needs to go further and, in some way, indicate that a truth is divinely revealed (e.g., by saying “is divinely revealed” in the case of a positive expression of dogma or by saying “is heretical” in the case of a doctrinal violation).
Lionel: The Creeds are divinely revealed for Jimmy Akins. His interpretation of the Nicene Creed is different from mine. His interpretation of the Apostles Creed is different from mine.
This Easter when a Profession of Faith was made in Church there were two versions.
So one interpretation has to be wrong.
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The signatories of the Open Letter make no attempt to do the needed work. They either do not quote the language used by Church documents or they do not argue that the language they do quote shows that a truth has been infallibly defined as divinely revealed.
Instead, they cite passages as if the sheer number of them proves their case, which it doesn’t.
Indeed, it isn’t even clear that the passages they cite mandate the specific propositions they have in mind.
This is sloppy. It may sound impressive to someone not familiar with this area, but it is simply inadequate to the task they are attempting.

Failure to Demonstrate the Allegation
In addition to failing to demonstrate dogmas, the Open Letter also fails to demonstrate that Pope Francis obstinately doubts or denies dogmas.
Lionel: 1.Pope Francis does not affirm EENS.He calls it triumphalism.
2.He does not affirm Vatican Council II ( Feeneyite i.e hypothetical cases are just hypothetical) which says all need faith and baptism for salvation.Vatican Council II does not does not mention any exceptions to EENS( hypothetical cases of LG 16 etc are not exceptions).
This is a rejection of the teaching of the Catholic Church in the Extraordinary and Ordinary Magisterium.There have been no denial from the two pontiffs and the CDF over the years.
3. He interprets BOD, BOB and I.I and LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, GS 22 etc irrationally to create a rupture with EENS and change the meaning of the Creeds and Catechisms.
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One of the requirements for doing this is showing that his statements or actions cannot be understood in another sense.
Lionel: I think the Open Letter has showed this fact with many examples, many actions which are now common knowledge for Catholics and people at large.
Here I have shown how a false theology is used to create false doctrines of the Church. I have mentioned the precise theology and have given specific examples. The Open Letter lists the bad effects of this theology.They have documented it well.
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If they can be understood consistently with dogma then the obligation of charity—and Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity”—requires that they be taken this way.
Lionel : Pope Benedict has said that EENS is no more like it was for the missionaries in the 16th century. There is a rupture with Vatican Council II.So has confirmed that for him, Vatican Council II does not have a hermeneutic of continuity. This is heretical.
For me Vatican Council II has a continuity with the strict interpretation of EENS, the past ecclesiology and an ecumenism of return.
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Many of the Open Letter’s charges deal with the issue of divorce and civil remarriage, as discussed in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, but as Cardinal Gerhard Müller has shown, the relevant statements in this document can be understood in harmony with Church teaching.
Lionel: For Cardinal Muller invisible cases of LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, Gs 22 etc were visible exceptions to traditional EENS. He confirmed this in an interview with Edward Pentin for the National Catholic Register and it is documented on this blog Eucharist and Mission. He was heretical.
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You can’t make a successful charge of heresy as long as this is the case.
Lionel: Amoris Laetitia contradicts Veritatis Splendor of Pope John Paul II.It changes the teachings on mortal sin. It suggests that at some time manifest mortal sin is not a mortal sin and a priest can know it. This is false.
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Neither does the piling up of questionable staffing decisions—which the Open Letter does at length—prove the case. Staffing decisions are influenced by multiple factors, and you can’t cherry pick the data to support a claim of heresy, especially when the person in question is on record supporting Church teaching (e.g., regarding homosexuality).

Summing Up
The Open Letter has many other flaws, but its chief one is that it fails to make the case that the present pope is guilty of heresy. To do that, it would need to show the following:
  1. The Magisterium has infallibly defined some specific truth ( The Creeds and EENS for starters)
  2. It has infallibly defined that this specific truth is divinely revealed, creating a dogma (EENS and the Creeds)
  3. The pope has been baptized (that’s easy)
  4. The pope’s words or actions indicate that he refuses to believe the dogma (EENS was refuted at the Abu Dhabi meeting. It has been refuted many times with a Christian theology of religious pluralism. EENS is never affirmed in public )
  5. His words or actions cannot be understood in a way consistent with the dogma (This is documented in the The Open Letter with reference to EENS and Vatican Council II(Ad Gentes 7 )
  6. He does so obstinately (This is documented in the Open Letter with reference to EENS and Vatican Council II (AG 7- all need faith and baptism for salvation in the Catholic Church )
If you can’t do those things, then don’t waste the public’s time.
In particular, don’t waste our time citing irrelevant documents that don’t prove your point, and don’t waste our time—as the signatories of the Open Letter do—with loopy charges regarding a pastoral staff that the pope has carried or a cross he has worn.
Lionel: I have cited seven examples here, which I can remember off hand.I have mentioned the specific dogma. I have shown how there is a rupture with the dogma as it was known to the popes in the 16th century. I have cited Pope Benedict confirming this in an interview with Avvenire (2016).
I have shown how the irrationality used to change the meaning of EENS also changes the interpretation of the Nicene Creed. The Athanasius Creed is made obsolete.The  Apostles Creed now means ' I believe in the Holy Spirit which teaches the Church that there is known salvation outside the Church and so all do not need to be members.' So there are known exceptions also to the Great Commission of Jesus.
I have shown how there can be two interpretations of Vatican Council II and the one used by the present two  popes is irrational and heretical.
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It’s one thing to ask for clarifications, voice concerns or express disagreement, but making charges of heresy is another matter.
It’s gravely reckless and irresponsible to charge anyone with an ecclesiastical crime as serious as heresy if you can’t prove it, and it’s even worse to do so with regard to the pope, given the scandal, confusion, and risk of individual schism that it will create for the faithful.
Lionel: The popes can be asked to affirm that 1)invisible cases of BOD, BOB and I.I are not physically visible. So they are not visible exceptions to EENS in 2019.
They can also be asked to affirm that 2) invisible cases of LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, GS 22 etc in Vatican Council II are not visible exceptions to EENS, as it was intepreted over the centuries, for example, in the 16th century.So Vatican Council II is not a rupture with the past exclusive ecclesiology of the Catholic Church. 
They can confirm that they personally do not know of non Catholics saved outside the Church in 2019 and neither do people in general know of such cases. If any one was saved as such it would only be known to God. -Lionel Andrades
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/on-charging-a-pope-with-heresy


JIMMY AKIN
Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant pastor or seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith. Eventually, he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, “A Triumph and a Tragedy,” is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on “Catholic Answers Live.”