When others accuse me or try to demonise me as being a sedevacantist, I reply that I refuse to call myself a sedevacantist, not because I am a “papist” in the sense of those who, while admitting that Benedict XVI is not Catholic, still affirm that he is pope. I insist on offering the following reflection and leaving the reader to reach his own conclusions.

When Archbishop Lefebvre declared, at the conclusion and the end of his life, and therefore after long maturing his attitude towards that Rome which he was seeking right up until the consecrations, “the official Church does not represent the Catholic Church. (...) It is a puerile illusion to want to become part of it in order to convert it from within,” it seems to me that the problem he proposes goes far beyond that of the simple “sedes vacans”.

The vacant see in the sense of the pope who by virtue of heresy ceases to be pope, was considered by the the theologians in the context of a Church which is normally Catholic. But today the problem – mysterious and apocalyptic – is different. Along with the “pope”, it is the orbis catholicus which no longer professes the Catholic faith, the body of bishops who are no longer Catholic, the faithful – even those who are in good faith – who are no longer Catholics. Ought we not therefore to understand that the problem today is therefore greater than that of the heretical pope? Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Archbishop Lefebvre dismissed the sedevacantist solution as “too simple”: the issue is much more complex. Then there is the fact that Josef Ratzinger, whether or not he is pope, is reigning in the Vatican – occupying it, usurping it, if you wish – but he is there, and the great mass of so-called Catholics find that acceptable.

How are we to get through to them that he is not Catholic? How are we to get them to understand that they themselves are no longer Catholics? This may be the reason why Archbishop Lefebvre – finding himself up against such a tough problem – chose in all simplicity to content himself with building : schools, families and Catholic priests, denouncing openly the apostasy in tiara and cope and leaving history to judge definitively the “popes” whom he doubted to be popes and who, today, seem really to give every sign of no longer being so. Has the Society, today, still got the credibility to affirm such truths?

Have not diplomacy and politics in the “disservice” of the combat of tradition made the salt lose its savour? God in his omnipotence can raise up other heralds of the faith. Perhaps some bishop who has been long since dreaming of converting from the oriental schism and heresy to Catholicism? Some precursor of the conversion of Russia? It is very important to admit the highly mysterious character of the present situation without seeking to rationalise the mystery of the general apostasy. Hence, beyond the See, it is the Church that is in a certain sense vacant while nonetheless remaining visible in her humanity and in her divinity wherever the faith is professed without compromise in fact with Modernist Rome.

People say and do uncharacteristic things after the death of loved ones.  You did not hurt your friend.  She is just not in her right mind at present and you got a little scorpion sting for having prayed the holy Rosary.  May God bless you.  We should all have friends like you.