Praying for the late Pope and the forthcoming Conclave
Letter to the faithful of the District of Africa about the prayers for the late pope and the forthcoming conclave
By Fr. Christophe Legrier, Superior of the District of Africa
Dear faithful,
Following the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday 2025, our Superior General, Father Davide Pagliarani, requested that a Requiem Mass be celebrated in all our chapels for the repose of the late pope's soul. Our Superior General also asked that a novena be recited in all our houses in preparation for the forthcoming conclave. All the faithful in our chapels have been invited to join in these prayers.
These two calls to prayer are an opportunity to renew our faith in the divine mission entrusted to the successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome and head of the universal Church.
First of all, let's talk about praying for the late Pope. It's no secret that Pope Francis, far from “confirming his brothers in the faith”1, has on the contrary scandalised them, by systematically denigrating those who strive to live a Christian life in accordance with the Tradition of the Church, by attacking points of morality that remained intact until his Pontificate, by aggravating religious indifferentism, and by turning the very structure of the Church upside down through the Synod on ‘Synodality’.
If, despite this, we officially pray for the repose of his soul, it is because we firmly believe that the Bishop of Rome embodies supreme and universal power instituted by Jesus Christ, whatever his personal failings. This plenitude of divine power held by the Bishop of Rome has three consequences:
- The first is that a deceased pope cannot be deprived of the public prayers of the Church, because the deprivation of these prayers is an ecclesiastical penalty, and no member of the Church has the authority to inflict a penalty on the Supreme Pontiff. Only his successors will have this power.
- The second consequence is that the person of the Pope ensures the visibility and unity of the Church, even if his bad behaviour tends to diminish this unity. Whether we like Francis or not, it is a fact that during his lifetime, his very presence reminded everyone of the existence of the Catholic Church. This visibility is essential to the Church's survival.
- The third consequence is that the very existence of Pope Francis assured us that he would have a successor. If we were not fortunate enough to witness the restoration of Tradition under his pontificate, we can at least keep the firm hope that one day one of his successors will teach and govern the Church with dignity.
Our public prayer for the late Pope, as well as being an act of charity for him, is therefore also an act of faith in the divine authority given by God to Peter's successor, an authority that guarantees the unity, visibility and permanence of the Church, despite the Pope's personal failings.
Let us now turn to our prayer in view of the forthcoming conclave. The future Pope will immediately be invested by Our Lord Jesus Christ with supreme power over the whole Church. This power has a threefold purpose: to teach the faith handed down by the Apostles; to govern the Church in order to promote divine order; and to sanctify souls in order to lead them to heaven. Thus, the aim of this supreme authority is to lead souls to the revealed truth, to guide them to their Creator and Saviour.
But this aim is incompatible with the one sought by modern liberal ideologies. Born of Protestantism and the philosophy of the Enlightenment, actively disseminated by Freemasonry and imposed throughout the world at the cost of bloody or legal persecution, these ideologies aim for the complete emancipation of mankind. Their leitmotifs are the words “Liberty”, “Equality” and “Fraternity”. Their logical consequence is the destruction of all natural and supernatural order.
The confusion in which the Church finds itself today stems from the fact that these ideologies were officially imposed on the Church by the Second Vatican Council, which deliberately deprived itself of the charism of infallibility by refusing to define the truth and proclaiming itself a ‘pastoral’ council. Like a cancer, these ideologies have infested everything: magisterium, liturgy, canon law, teaching, catechism and pastoral care. “All these reforms, in fact, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said, have contributed and continue to contribute to the demolition of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the annihilation of the Sacrifice and the Sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist teaching (...) stemming from liberalism and Protestantism, condemned many times over by the solemn magisterium of the Church” 2.
Our prayers today must therefore ask the Lord for a pope who will use his authority not to make a pact with liberal errors - such a use of authority is not legitimate and cannot demand obedience - but, on the contrary, to promote the rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ and restore faith and piety within the Church; a pope who will “confirm his brothers in the faith” 3 and seek, according to the motto of Saint Pius X, to “restore everything in Christ”.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary and her chaste spouse Saint Joseph, whom we celebrate this day, hear our prayers and present our supplications to the Most Holy and Adorable Trinity.
Fr. Christophe Legrier †
