A few days ago, a lady who brought some donations to the convent said to me: ‘You know, I don’t follow these things very much, but it seems to me that the direction the Church has taken lately is not so good…!’ From the way she spoke, the tone of her voice, I perceived that she was embarrassed for expressing herself in this way to someone whom she believed represented that ‘Church’ that she had just questioned. I could make a great speech to her: my answer was a simple appeal about the need to intensify our personal prayer, leaving the lady in her ignorance and allowing me to ‘identify’ with that ‘church’ that I do not really feel I represent… The sensation was one of great impotence, in the impossibility of being able to give exhaustive and truthful answers. A few minutes earlier I had read the exhortation of Pope Pius XI when, one hundred years ago in his Encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei he had exhorted Catholics about their duty to hasten the return of the social kingship of Christ. A sort of ‘moral duty,’ of a personal and collective commitment.

I note that Msgr. Vigano does not respond to the million dollar question, which implies to me that he is uncertain (otherwise he would affirm or deny the question).

This strange phenomena whereby even conciliar nuns who read Sr. Kowalska now question the legitimacy of at least the Bergoglian papacy is what M. Ladislaus refers to as the "Vigano Effect:" Wherever you find yourself on the conciliar spectrum, he's pulling you out of it and at least into Resistance territory (I did not miss his reference to attic and basement Masses).

But did she actually ask this question? Or is it a question included by someone else to form a subtitle [I've seen this before in your Vigano posts]?  Could you please provide the link you got this letter and response from [you never do]?:

Francis is considered to be the pope, albeit an apostate, but is he the pope? Was he ever the pope?

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In the page linked to, it sure looks to me like it's part of the letter. It's just part of the text. I don't see any reason to doubt that that's how it's intended, and I also don't see any reason to think Tosatti tampered with the text.

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Oh, R&R people and conservative Novus Ordies talk like this all the time. They make statements that seem to imply they are sympathetic to sedevacantism, but they never really mean it. You see people like Taylor Marshall and Michael Matt always saying things like, "I don't see how Bergoglio can be the pope." Obviously the meaning of that statement is that they are considering sedevacantism, but they never seem to mean it the way they say it. What they actually do mean is unclear; I suspect they don't know themselves. I think it's more like they are just musing out loud without expressing any sort of belief or opinion. Because they certainly are not sedevacantists after saying such things.

This looks to me like pretty much the same phenomenon.

No, they clearly "mean" their SYMPATHY with SVism.  But they just hesitate to commit (at least openly to it).  Archibishop Lefebvre himself said in 1986 that he and Bishop de Castro Mayer had pondered the question for many year but had "preferred to wait".  What you assert for not "meaning" is SVism, but that's not right because they never said they were SVs.

They're leaning toward it but resist the urge for various reasons.  This has nothing to do with meaning or not meaning anything.

It reflects Archbishop Lefebvre’s true way of thinking concerning the mystery of a Pope presiding over the destruction of the Church: the Pope remains the Pope, but he is at the head of two churches; the Catholic Church, of which he was elected the head, and another society, the “conciliar church”, which has its dogmas, its liturgy, its new institutions, etc. The conciliar church is not the Catholic Church, but a counterfeit “church”. We must separate ourselves from it if we want to keep the Catholic Faith.