The Archbishop waffled... That's the TRUTH. To not recognize that is dishonest. Everyone just quotes what they want from him. It's not out of context. Some of you just can't handle the truth.

The Archbishop waffled...

“…a grave problem confronts the conscience and the faith of all Catholics since the beginning of Paul VI’s pontificate: how can a pope who is truly successor of Peter, to whom the assistance of the Holy Ghost has been promised, preside over the most radical and far-reaching destruction of the Church ever known, in so short a time, beyond what any heresiarch has ever achieved? This question must one day be answered…” (Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)

ultimately I agree with you; it's not possible that the Pope, who is protected by the Holy Ghost, could do things like this.  There we agree; it's not possible, it doesn't fit, this destruction of the Church ...

Apart from the Father Cekada's video, where he's clearly trolling R&R by entitling the video, "Marcel Lefebvre: Sedevacantist", I've never known a sedevacantist who claimed that +Lefebvre was a "closet Sedevacantist".  Most SVs recognize the objective truth, which some of the obsessive/dogmatic R&R like Plenus deny.

1) Apart from a period in the early 1980s, +Lefebvre was not particularly hostile to SVism.
2) There were times, 1976, 1986, 1988 where he flirted with it and appeared to come close to embracing it.
3) Unlike many of his later R&R followers, +Lefebvre did not deny that the Papacy is protected by the Holy Ghost and prevented from destroy the Church to the degree that the V2 popes did, thereby upholding the MAJOR premise of sedevacantism, but simple felt that the MINOR (the explanation for how this happened) was uncertain, deferring it to the Church's future judgment.

That is the objective reality that some / many of his followers refuse to admit, because they're intellectually dishonest.

See, here's the thing.  SVs can be objective because they don't uphold +Lefebvre as some kind of substitute rule of faith for the Magisterium.  "+Lefebvre did not embrace sedevacantism 100%.  So what?  He was wrong."  Meanwhile, many R&R have replaced the actual Catholic / papal Magisterium with the teaching of +Lefebvre (which changed at different times, so that their "Magisterium" is changeable, like that of the Modernist, ironically).  This is the full the vacuum of the Magisterium that they discard.

Father Cekada astutely points out that at different points in SSPX history, the so-called "hard-liners" were on the outs, and at other times the "soft-liners", but at all times the +Lefebvre-liners, the sycophants who didn't think but just believed as dogmatic truth whatever the Archbishop said on any given morning, thrived and were promoted into positions of authority, even if it means holding the opposite opinion from one day to the next.

Back to the Archbishop, he was not "dishonest" or "two-faced" or a "flip-flopper".  Archbishop Lefebvre was truly conflicted by the contradiction posed by the Conciliar Church, almost tormented by it.  This is a conflict that many modern R&R, like Plenus here, don't have, because they've discarded the one pole of that conflict, namely, Archbishop Lefebvre's conviction that the Papacy and the Church are protected and guided by the Holy Ghost and prevented from destroying the Church.  He couldn't resolve that principle with the reality of a Montini or Wojtyla.  So that's why he termed it a "mystery" and left it there, unable to definitively resolve the conflict in his mind.  But modern R&R have disposed of the one point or the one pole in the conflict, namely, the protection of the papacy and the Magisterium by the Holy Ghost.

I would avoid the term "waffled," which makes him sound weak-minded or even somewhat dishonest.  He was in fact truly and deeply conflicted.  Archbishop Lefebvre never abandoned the notion, the principle, that the Papacy is guided by the Holy Ghost, and prevented from destroying the Church the way that the Conciliar papal claimants did.  But then he was confronted with the terrible reality of Montini and Wojtyla.  That's why he ultimately called it a "mystery", since he could not resolve the conflict in his mind.
and from the video/audio above:
He himself was unable to "answer" this question definitively, and so he left it as a "mystery" and something that would "one day" have to be answered by the Church.  See also the video I posted above, where he called it a mystery, reaffirmed this same principle, that the Papacy is protected and guided by the Holy Ghost, then examines various possible explanations, from drugged pope to prisoner pope to insane pope, most of which he dismisses as "ridiculous", and finally to sedevacantism, which he says is a possible explanation ... but he's just not sure enough about it to commit to sedevacantism.

This is how sedevacantists resolve this conflict, by holding that these men did not in fact have the authority, which then permits the principle that the Papacy is guided by the Holy Spirit and is the unfailing rock upon which the Church has been founded.

Just for starters, 99% of sedevacantists are of the non-Conclavist variety, which makes them a joke. So they're basically saying "we don't need no pope!" like the Orthodox. I mean, no Pope for 65 years, and there have been no effort(s) to elect one? I'd have to conclude, quite honestly and correctly, that their position is "we don't need no pope" at least PRACTICALLY speaking.

How does that preserve the full package of the Catholic Faith in the hearts of the Faithful "better" than the R&R position? How does that make sedevacantism a better "lifeboat" during this Crisis? I firmly believe it DOES NOT.

The only sedevacantist worthy of my respect is the Conclavist variety. At least they are consistent, and putting their "sede" belief to some good use. If you're not Conclavist, you are living like a non-Sedevacantist, regular Trad Catholic practically speaking. Or to put it another way, like the dreaded "R&R" they malign so much. Let's face it, SSPV, CMRI, SSPX all resist the Pope, they all promote and live Traditional Catholicism, all are aloof from the Conciliar Church, and none of them are working to elect a new Pope.

(Now the SSPX has lately become the neo-SSPX, but I digress. Let's just say "Resistance" or "non-sedevacantists" in place of SSPX, if you must...)

I don't care what their excuse(s) is/are. In practice, practically speaking, it leaves ZERO difference between THEIR vision of Trad Catholic and that of other non-Sede groups. That was my point.

My point is that they are CONTENT to go on for decades with a "mystery", a bad pope (or no pope) that we can't solve. No practical difference why I should be with CMRI or SSPV instead of some non-Sede group which is equally Trad Catholic and aloof from the Conciliar Church.