There sure are a lot of folks worrying about what the Conclave might bring. With the vast majority of red hats appointed by an antipope, it raises questions, but this is NOT an unprecedented situation. There have been dozens of antipopes, who appointed dozens and dozens of Cardinals, who in turn have voted in Conclaves which elected valid popes. At the Council of Constance, multiple Cardinals who had been appointed by multiple rival antipopes, voted to depose those antipopes and then validly elected a true Pope! The See is vacant (since31 Dec 2022), and this Conclave will have been validly convoked (unlike in 2013). So now we wait and see… because a heretic cannot be Pope. The Office of the Papacy is conferred BY CHRIST HIMSELF. Not by the Cardinals, not by the Church. Remember this, and fear not. Prepare to engage your rational intellect.
EPISTLE I Peter 2:1-10.
Beloved: Wherefore laying away all malice and all guile and dissimulations and envies and all detractions, As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation: If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen and made honourable by God: Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore it is said in the scripture: “Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious. And he that shall believe in him shall not be confounded.” To you therefore that believe, he is honour: but to them that believe not, “the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner:” And, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal,” to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set. But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Who in times past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy: but now have obtained mercy.
You always help.