The longest true Papal interregnum in church history was about 2 1/2 years. That's not counting the Great Western Schism, when there were two and then later three Popes, all of dubious validity.
You're proposing that we've had an interregnum now of 60 years and still running. All of the Cardinals created by Pius XII or Popes who preceded him are long dead. Almost all of the diocesan clergy of Rome (who would be the next logical group to elect a Pope, there being no Cardinals and nobody competent to create new ones) are invalidly ordained, according to you.
It sounds to me like your position means the gates of hell have truly prevailed against the church.
“...It sounds to me like your position means the gates of hell have truly prevailed against the church.”
But on the same token, how about the idea that the Church is being led by a heretic or apostate? Wouldn’t that more so demonstrate that the gates of hell have prevailed?
Anyway, maybe there is a misunderstanding as to the meaning of that key phrase.
Please read the whole article on this very question right here:
https://novusordowatch.org/2015/12/have-gates-of-hell-prevailed/
Below is a significant snippet toward the conclusion:
What of the gates of hell, then? Does Manning not say that “the Son of God shall permit, for a time, the powers of evil to prevail”? Indeed he does, but a little bit further on he explains in what sense this must be understood:
We have already seen reason to believe that as our Divine Lord delivered Himself into the hands of sinners when His time was come, and no man could lay hand upon Him, until of His own free will He delivered Himself over to their power, so in like manner it shall be with that Church of which He said, “Upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” [Mt 16:18]. As the wicked did not prevail against Him even when they bound Him with cords, dragged Him to the judgment, blindfolded His eyes, mocked Him as a false King, smote Him on the head as a false Prophet, led Him away, crucified Him, and in the mastery of their power seemed to have absolute dominion over Him, so that He lay ground down and almost annihilated under their feet; and as, at that very time when He was dead and buried out of their sight, He was conqueror over all, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven, and was crowned, glorified, and invested with His royalty, and reigns supreme, King of kings and Lord of lords,— even shall it be with His Church: though for a time persecuted, and, to the eyes of man, overthrown and trampled on, dethroned, despoiled, mocked, and crushed, yet in that high time of triumph the gate of hell shall not prevail. There is in store for the Church of God a resurrection and an ascension, a royalty and a dominion, a recompense of glory for all it has endured. Like Jesus, it needs must suffer on the way to its crown; yet crowned it shall be with Him eternally.
Let no one, then, be scandalised if the prophecy speak of sufferings to come. We are fond of imagining triumphs and glories for the Church on earth,— that the Gospel is to be preached to all nations, and the world to be converted, and all enemies subdued, and I know not what,— until some ears are impatient of hearing that there is in store for the Church a time of terrible trial: and so we do as the Jews of old, who looked for a conqueror, a king, and for prosperity; and when their Messias came in humility and in passion, they did not know Him. So, I am afraid, many among us intoxicate their minds with the visions of success and victory, and cannot endure the thought that there is a time of persecution yet to come for the Church of God. Let us hear, therefore, the words of the prophet Daniel. Speaking of the person whom St. John calls the Antichrist, whom he calls the king that shall work according to his own will, the prophet Daniel says, “He shall speak words against the High One,”— that is, the Almighty God,—“and shall crush the saints of the Most High.” Again he says, “It”— that is, the power of this king—“was magnified even unto the strength of heaven: and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars and trod upon them. And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary.” Further, he says, “The victim and the sacrifice shall fail, and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation.” These three passages are taken from the seventh, and the eighth, and the ninth chapters of Daniel. I might add more, but they are enough, for in the Book Apocalypse (12:7) we find a key to these words. St. John, evidently referring to the Book of Daniel, writes of the beast, that is, the persecuting power which shall reign on the earth by might, “It was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.”
(Manning, Lecture IV, “Passion and ‘Death’ of the Church”, in The Present Crisis of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy, pp. 67-69; see The Pope and the Antichrist: The Great Apostasy Foretold)
The Son of God who guaranteed that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church is the same Son of God (cf. Heb 13:8) who also taught, through St. Paul and St. John, that the mystery of iniquity would be successful for a time. Indeed, He is the same Son of God who was wholly victorious in His own apparent defeat, where it appeared that His enemies had triumphed over Him as He suffered His bitter but glorious Passion. We can only marvel at the beauty of God’s ways — when all seems lost and evil seems to have prevailed, He proves through the inscrutable designs of His infinite wisdom that the opposite is in fact the case. “For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts”, says the Lord through His prophet Isaias (55:9).
Let us, therefore, not agonize over attempting to understand why God permits the operation of error, the mystery of iniquity, and the manifestation of the Antichrist to begin with. Let it suffice for us that the all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God has willed it so, and thus we know that, whether we understand it or not, it is ultimately to His glory and for the salvation of His elect (cf. Is 55:8-9; 1 Tim 2:3-4; 2 Thess 2:10-11; Rom 8:28).