I don't agree. It should have been made clear in the OP, but it wasn't, and it caused confusion. And, if I'm not mistaken, StonewallCatho is a sedevacantist, so he's likely going to take the issue farther than it should be taken.
I too agree with Fr. Girouard, but Fr. Girouard is not a sedevacantist.
Dear Meg,
1- As I said: It is a small space available for a title, and I wanted to put Fr. Girouard's name there, and still be able to encapsulate the final conclusion, which is the validity of the excommunications, because the Neo-SSPX claims they are invalid. I agree with you this title is not perfect. On the other hand, I think it helped viewers to want to know more about what Fr. Girouard meant. Once they clicked and opened the post, I made it clear it was valid in the framework of the Conciliar Church, just like Father said in the video. Actually, my title reflected Fr. Girouard's opening statement in the video.
2- You are right, Fr. Girouard is not sedevacantist. He prays for the Pope and the local bishop at every Mass. I agree with him. He says what we see now with the Pope is the fulfillment of St. Paul's prophecy about the "Mystery of Iniquity".
3- Apb Lefebvre was well aware of the Sede thesis. He has a conference at Écône where he says he got a book from Fr. Noël Barbara promoting Sedevacantism (in the 1970s). Fr. Barbara wanted Abp Lefebvre to write the preface of his book. The Archbishop said it was well docuмented, but it went too far in the conclusion Paul VI was not Pope, and he refused to preface it. That is when the sede movement turned against the Abp. They had wanted him to start a separate church. The Abp said he didn't have the knowledge nor the authority to settle the question, and this could only be done legitimately by a General Council or by a subsequent Pope.
4- To all people asking Fr. Girouard about sedevacantism, he always replies with that same story and says "If the Archbishop, who was a Doctor in Theology and Philosophy, and a Saint to boot, thought he was not able to decide this question, who am I to decide it?" I totally agree with Fr. Girouard. The problem with sedevacantists, is they don't like Mysteries. They want to have a clear-cut solution. They want to know.
6- Fr. Girouard's position about the Pope is this: Whether the Pope is Pope in the supernatural sense is a Mystery, and only God knows for sure. On the natural level of factual reality that we can see, there is a man (Robert Prevost) who was elected Pope in a Conclave, and who now has, in actual reality, all the levers of command of the apparatus of the Church. Nobody else in the world is able to do the things Popes do, like naming bishops, declaring a Jubilee year, etc. He is the only man in white cassock in the world who can buy and sell church property. And so forth and so on.
The Mystery of Iniquity, I think, along with Fr. Girouard, is the fact that the same man (Leo XIV) is at the same time the Pope of two Churches: The Catholic Church, (with all the
traditional laws, doctrine, books, liturgy, etc), and the Conciliar Church (with all its
new laws, doctrine, books, liturgy, etc.). Whenever he would do something traditional, he would act as Pope of the Catholic Church. Whenever he does something in the line of the Modern Popes, he acts as the Pope of the Conciliar Church.
Unfortunately, since he is Pope within the framework of the completely new organization called the Conciliar Church, we can say he is the Pope of the Conciliar Church in a permanent and substantial way, and he only exceptionally acts as Catholic Pope in some particular actions.
For instance: Pope JPII was, in a permanent and substantial way, a Pope of the Conciliar Church. However, when he used the charism of infallibility to declare, in two docuмents, that the embryo was a true human being, and that women cannot become Priests, he was still the permanent head of the Conciliar Church but, in these two acts, he acted as Pope of the Catholic Church.
That is what Fr. Girouard calls the Mystery of Iniquity.