THE POPE IS THE PASTOR OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

A FREE TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH BLOG 'CREDIDIMUS-CARITATI'

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Lefebvre: The current Pope is the pastor of the universal Church

At the turn of the XIX ^th and XX ^th centuries, historians 

were wont to speak of "Two Frances." There was
 Catholic France, royalist and ultramontane on the 
one side and Republican France, anti-clerical and
 lay on the other. To say which of these two
 "Frances" we recognize is nota great mystery ...

It was for these authors to distinguish trends or rather 

the idea of movement, not to differentiate clearly defined 

structural entities. So, it would be absurd and it would

 even be a fallacy to suggest that the current president 

governs a country other than France under the pretext

 that it would be at the head of the secular France 
excluding the Catholic France.

To better help us in understanding the situation of 
the Church, Archbishop Lefebvre made a statement
 a very clear distinction between two tendencies in the Church: 
Eternal Rome, guardian of the Catholic faith on the one hand and the Rome
 of neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies on the other. But we would 
use the same fallacy if it were found that distinction that the Pope is simply 
the leader of the conciliar Church,but not of the Catholic Church. 
It also leads to a situation where the Catholic Church would, in turn,
 be without a head. Which has a name: sedevacantism.

Several years after delivering his famous declaration of 1974, Archbishop Lefebvre, 
addressing his seminarians in Écône, criticized some misinterpreted words of his
 and reminded that the current pope, despite their deviations, are bishops of Rome,
 successors of Peter andpastors of the Catholic Church:

"I do not want to dramatize what is not dramatic, but I sometimes feel 
that there really is a way of interpreting things, even the things I tell myself
 here or things that are said by teachers or a Headmaster, in a way that is
 not always accurate, which is not always fair. God knows how many times
 I've had the opportunity to speak very clearly about what to think of the
 Pope, what to think of the Mass, assisting at the New Mass, how often 
I had the opportunity to talk about these things, but it seems that there 
is always some discussion of misunderstanding about these things. 
I know we are in a difficult, painful period. There is more authority, 
there is no government. The pope is not a heretic, but unfortunately
 lets heresy spread everywhere, by the favor given precisely

to this ecumenism and the atmosphere that makes you wonder 
if the faith in the Church, in the truth of the Catholic Church and
 the unity of the Catholic Church, is still entrenched in his mind
 and in his view. But, I do not think we can say that the Liberal
 popes we've had since Pope John XXIII are formal heretics. 
So I also think that we should always remember that it can not be
 any other pope than that on theseat of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. 
The Pope because he is the bishop of Rome. It is first bishop of Rome. 
Then, because he is the bishop of Rome, is the seat of Peter, he is the 
successor of Peter and then pastor of the universal Church. This is a 
very important fundamental for the Church. Even if the Pope would 
leave Rome one day, driven from Rome which was devastated by the enemy,
 well, he would still be the Bishop of Rome who is the successor of St. Peter,
 even in the diaspora, the same party, it is always that which is chosen
 by the Roman clergy, elected by the Roman clergy.

 And the Roman clergy, who are the Cardinals now, all of which have a title

 in Rome, as a parish. They are all priests of Rome. These are the priests 

of Rome who elected the Pope. Because he is the bishop of Rome he is pope. 

And that is why the Pope will always take solemn possession of the 

cathedral of his diocese, the Diocese of Rome in the Lateran,
 in a solemn manner. So we can not separate. "

(Conference seminarians of 10 January 1983)