At about the 16 minute mark of the video below, Fr. David Hewko seems to relent somewhat about whether Jorge Bergoglio is truly pope compared to what he has said in some of his previous sermons. That is good. However, he then states the following regarding Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
“Normally we hold the position of the soundness of….Archbishop Lefebvre who says they’re popes, but they’re bad popes…..”
Of course it is true that Archbishop Lefebvre accepted all the popes since the Second Vatican Council as true popes (i.e., up until John Paul II as the Archbishop died in 1991). However, why does Fr. Hewko assume that Archbishop Lefebvre would accept Jorge Bergoglio as a true pope? What principle of Archbishop Lefebvre does Fr. Hewko rely upon to make such an assumption? It seems to me that Fr. Hewko is attributing to Archbishop Lefebvre some universal principle that we must always accept a putative pope as pope until a future pope or the Church decides otherwise. [We know that Fr. Hewko’s position is that Jorge Bergoglio can only be judged by a future pope. See here.] I wrote about this subject in this post. If this is the basis for Fr. Hewko’s statement, then he is incorrect. I have shown in the same post that the Archbishop’s basis for whether a putative pope is pope is the evidence, that is, the evidence of formal heresy. Therefore, Fr. Hewko is not in line with Archbishop Lefebvre on this matter if my understanding is correct regarding the basis of his statement. And Fr. Hewko is not alone in this misalignment because many clergy in the so-called Resistance hold the same.