Somehow I got drug into this, so I will attempt a moderate reading of things. I think that one could perhaps give a somewhat more charitable reading to the Archbishop's letter. The main statement is: "The See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome being occupied by anti-Christs..." I do not read this as necessarily stating that John Paul the Great (I use that term sincerely) is an anti-christ, but rather that Rome was (according to his way of thinking) occupied by anti-christs, who could be cardinal types or even others in the Curia, I suppose, as he would see it, wielding the power perhaps in spite of the Holy Father. That is a view that I do not share, but it is a possible reading of the letter, I believe.
On the subject of anti-christs itself, there is an interesting tape by Fr. Robert Bradley SJ, entitled Fatima and the Anti-Christ (maybe still available from the Blue Army), in which he makes the point that scripture foretells that there will be many anti-christs on earth before the coming of THE Anti-Christ. He said that the first Christians considered that several of these lesser anti-christs had already come, in particular Herod the Great and Julian the Apostate, of those that I remember; and of course later, Napoleon, not to mention Hitler, Stalin, et al., were considered by many to be anti-christs.
All the best to everyone.
Dear Theophane,
"'The See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome being occupied by anti-Christs...'
"I do not read this as necessarily stating that John Paul the Great (I use that term sincerely) is an anti-christ,..."
That is kind of you, but I believe it is an unsupportable interpretation.
The sentence you cite indicates that the See of Peter, as well as posts of authority in Rome, are being occupied by anti-Christs. A see can only be occupied by its ordinary.
The ordinary of the See of Peter is the pope. Not his assistants, helpers, aides, etc. It is the pope who occupies Peter's See, not cardinals or other bishops.
Thus, Archbishop Lefebvre called Pope John Paul II an anti-christ. There is no other reasonable interpretion of his remarks.
It's perfectly reasonable that actual Catholics would take objection to that remark.
sitetest
I thoroughly agree with your entire second paragraph.
However, you are, I believe, overly generous in searching for Catholic meaning in Archbishop Lefebvre's letter in the first paragraph. The burden was on Archbishop Lefebvre, in writing and publishing his thoughts by letter, to make it clear that he was not referencing Pope John Paul the Great as an antichrist. Rank has privileges but ecclesiastical rank has obligations as well, particularly that successors of the apostles have the obligation not to give scandal. A higher obligation even than that of Caesar's wife. I did not think he was referencing the pope as THE Antichrist. The late archbishop lacked the virtue of clarity. Also, he was quite justly excommunicated for violating the direct orders of Pope John Paul the Great not to consecrate his four partners in ecclesiastical crime (including Fellay, de Mallerais, Wlliamson and one other) and facilitated the excommunication of the elderly and otherwise holy Bishop Castro de Mayer of Brazil who acted as co-consecrator.
The Barque of Peter has been tossed and threatened by far worse than Marcel and company can devise but, as guaranteed by Christ Himself, He will be with it to the end, whether Luther thought so or not, or Calvin or Zwingli or Marcel. All are dead. All were excommunicated. All died excommunicated. Each willed that outcome.
You forgot Mohamet--another anti-Christ.
Having said that, I second the opinion of SiteTest. It is impossible to read the letter in any other way than to read that one (or perhaps TWO) Pope(s) is "an anti-Christ."
I think we all concede that there are Curial problem-children and certainly staff-level problems. But JPII? B-16?
Really?