Marcel Lefebvre

Marcel-François Lefebvre 29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991) was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.
In 1970, Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which is still the world's largest Traditionalist Catholic priestly society. In 1988, against the orders of Pope John Paul II, he consecrated four bishops to continue his work with the SSPX. The Holy See immediately declared that he and the other bishops who had participated in the ceremony had incurred automatic excommunication under Catholic canon law.Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law Lefebvre's supporters disputed the excommunication. In 2009, the Holy See lifted it for the four surviving bishops.Pope lifts excommunications of Lefebvrite bishops
== Early life and ministry ==
Marcel Lefebvre was born in Tourcoing, Nord,
Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 1). the second son and third childMonsignor Lefebvre in his own words (February 2002). of factory-owner René Lefebvre,René Lefebvre, a factory owner The ghost at all our tables, Oriens, Summer 2005 who died in 1944 in the Nazi concentration camp at Sonnenburg (in East Brandenburg, Germany), where he had been imprisoned by the Gestapo because of his work for the French Resistance and British Intelligence.
Jeanette M. Pryor & J. Christopher Pryor, "René Lefebvre and the Holocaust, Le Floch Report, March 19, 2006. Marcel's mother and René sr.'s wife was Gabrielle Wattin, who died in 1938.
His parents were devout Catholics who brought their children to daily Mass. His father was an outspoken monarchistA convinced monarchist, he devoted himself during the whole of his life to the cause of the French Dynasty, seeing in a royal government the only way of restoring to his country its past grandeur and a Christian revival. A Calvary 1941-1944 René Lefebvre Part 1, June 1984, Volume VII, Number 6, The Angelus who ran a spy-ring for British Intelligence when Tourcoing was occupied by the Germans during World War I.
In 1923 Lefebvre began studies for the priesthood; at the insistence of his father he went to the French Seminary in Rome.In 1923 Marcel followed his brother to the French Seminary in Rome , taking his father’s advice (or rather, obeying his father’s command) to avoid the diocesan seminaries, which he suspected of liberal leanings. The ghost at all our tables, Oriens journal He would later credit his conservative views to the rector, a Breton priest named Father Henri Le Floch.Archbishop Lefebvre readily admitted that were it not for the solid formation he received from Fr. Le Floch, he too might have succumbed to the creeping liberalism of the age. I have handed on what I have received by John Vennari, published in The Angelus [August 2005] His studies were interrupted in 1926 and 1927 when he did his military service.Monsignor Leferbve in his own words (April 2002). On 25 May 1929 he was ordained deacon by Cardinal Basilio Pompilj in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: une vie (Étampes: Éditions Clovis, 2002). On 21 September 1929 he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop (soon to be Cardinal) Achille Liénart in Lille,Ordained priest at Lille, France, by Msgr Achille Liénart, Bishop of Lille, on 21 September 1929 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - Useful Information Society of Saint Pius X, District of Great Britain the diocese in which he was incardinated.His Grace, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was ordained to the priesthood on September 21, 1929, and consecrated a bishop on September 18, 1947, by (the late) Achille Cardinal Lienart, Bishop of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Diocese of Lille (France). THE VALIDITY OF HOLY ORDERS By Fr. Douglas Laudenschlager, Society of Saint Pius X, United States District It has been reported in Issue No. 51 of Chiesa Viva, March 1976, that Lienart was a high ranking Freemason at the time of ordination. After ordination, he continued his studies in Rome, completing a doctorate in theology in July 1930.Seminary training: 1923-29 in the French Seminary, Rome, Doctor in philosophy and in theology. I - Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
In August 1930 Cardinal Liénart assigned Lefebvre to be assistant curate in a parish in Lomme, a suburb of Lille.Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 3). Even before this, Lefebvre had already asked to be released for missionary duties as a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the cardinal insisted that he consider this for a year while he engaged in parish work in the diocese of Lille. In July 1931 Liénart released Lefebvre from the diocese. In September Lefebvre entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly. A year later on 8 September 1932 he took simple vows for a period of three years.Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (June/July 2002)
Lefebvre's first assignment as a Holy Ghost Father was as a professor at St. John's Seminary in Libreville, Gabon.He entered the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1930 and was assigned to the Seminary of St. Mary at Libreville (Gabon) from 1932 to 1945.Some Memories of Archbishop Lefebvre's childhood, The Angelus, November 1980, Volume III, Number 11, Sister Marie Christiane Lefebvre In 1934 he was made rector of the seminary.Teacher of Dogma and Holy Scripture in the Seminary of Libreville, Rector from 1934, he managed to be at the same time teacher, bursar, printer, plumber, electrician, driver... maybe having already in mind his Society’s Priests! A Biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre by Father Ramón Anglés On 28 September 1935 he made his perpetual vows. He served as superior of a number of missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Gabon.St. Michel de Ndjolé (May 1938 - August 1939), Ste. Marie de Libreville (December 1939 - August 1940), St. Paul de Donguila (August 1940 - April 1943), and finally St. François Xavier de Lambaréné (April 1943 - October 1945) In October 1945 Lefebvre was ordered by the superior general to return to France and take up new duties as rector of the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary in Mortain.
== Bishop in Africa ==
Lefebvre's return to France was not to last long. On 12 June 1947, Pope Pius XII appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Dakar in Senegal;Archdiocese of Dakar - catholic-hierarchy.org he received the titular episcopal see of AnthedonAnthedon (Titular See) - catholic-hierarchy.org (El Blakiyeh near Gaza in Palestine). On 18 September 1947 he was consecrated a bishop in his family's parish church in Tourcoing by Achille Liénart (who had previously ordained him a priest); as co-consecrators acted the Bishop Jean-Baptiste Fauret, C.S.Sp. and Bishop Alfred-Jean-Félix Ancel."on the 18th of September, 1947, he was consecrated bishop in his hometown by Cardinal Liénart, Bishop Fauret —his former superior at Libreville— and Bishop Ancel." A Biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre by Father Ramón Anglés]
In his new position Lefebvre was responsible for an area with a population of three and a half million people, of whom only 50,000 were Catholics.Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (September 2002).
On 22 September 1948, Lefebvre, while continuing as Vicar Apostolic of Dakar,Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. † received additional responsibilities: Pope Pius XII appointed him Apostolic Delegate to French Africa.Nunciature to Sénégal In this capacity he was the papal representative to the Church authoritiesA papal representative who in the territory assigned to him has the power and duty of watching over the status of the Church and of keeping the Roman pontiff informed regarding the same. Apostolic Delegate, from the New Catholic Dictionary in 46 dioceses "in continental and insular Africa subject to the French Government, with the addition of the Diocese of Reunion, the whole of the island of Madagascar and the other neighbouring islands under French rule, but excluding the dioceses of North Africa, namely those of Carthage, Constantine, Algiers and Oran."Antonio G. Filipazzi: Rappresentanze e Rappresentanti Pontifici dalla seconda metà del XX secolo (ISBN 88-209-7845-8), p. X With this new responsibiity he was appointed Archbishop of the titular see of Arcadiopolis in Europa.Arcadiopolis in Europa (Titular See).
As Apostolic Delegate, Lefebvre's chief duty was the building up of the ecclesiastical structure in French Africa.Fr. Ramón Anglés, His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) - A short biography by one of his priests. Pope Pius XII wanted to move quickly towards a proper hierarchy (with bishops instead of vicariates and apostolic prefectures). Lefebvre was responsible for selecting these new bishops,Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (November 2002). increasing the number of priests and religious sisters
,Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (January 2003). as well as the number of churches in the various dioceses.
On 14 September 1955, the Apostolic Vicariate of Dakar became an archdiocese, and Lefebvre thus became the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Dakar.14 Sep 1955 49.8 Appointed Archbishop of Dakar, Senegal Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. †. Archbishop Lefebvre was the first and foremost advisor to Pius XII during the writing of the encyclical Fidei Donum (1957), which instructed the clergy and laity on the missions in the Third World countries and called for more missionaries.Vor 50 Jahren, am 21. April 1957, erschien die Missionsenzyklika Fidei donum von Papst Pius XII. Ein wichtigster Berater des Heiligen Vaters war kein geringerer als dessen Delegat für das französischsprachige Afrika, S. Ex. Erzbischof Marcel Lefebvre. Source: Enzyklika Fidei Donum und Erzbischof Lefebvre
In 1958 Pope Pius XII died and was succeeded by Pope John XXIII,At the death of Pius XII he was elected Pope on 28 October 1958, taking the name John XXIII. POPE JOHN XXIII, Vatican News Service who, in 1959, after giving Lefebvre the choice between remaining either as Apostolic Delegate or as Archbishop of Dakar, Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (January 2003). appointed another to the post of Apostolic Delegate for French Africa. Lefebvre continued as Archbishop of Dakar until 23 January 1962, when he was transferred to the diocese of Tulle in France, retaining his personal title of archbishop.23 Jan 1962 56.2 Appointed Archbishop (Personal Title) of Tulle, France Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. †, from catholic-hierarchy.org In 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed Lefebvre to the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council.Yes, it is correct that I was part of the Central Preparatory Commission during the two years before the Council An Interview With Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Given on 3 May 1982, to Louis Moore, Religion Editor of The Houston Chronicle
== Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers ==
On 26 July 1962 the Chapter General of the Holy Ghost Fathers elected Lefebvre Superior General.Question 2: Who is Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve?, SSPX USA Lefebvre was widely respected for his experience in the mission field. On the other hand, certain progressive members of his congregation, particularly in France, considered his administrative style authoritarian and desired radical reforms.Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography (Kansas City, Mo.: Angelus Press, 2004). On 7 August 1962 Lefebvre was given the titular archiepiscopal see of Synnada in Phrygia.Synnada in Phrygia (Titular See)
Lefebvre was increasingly criticized by influential members of his large religious congregation who considered him to be out-of-step with modern Church leaders and the demand of the bishops' conferences, particularly in France, for modernization and reforms. A general chapter of the Holy Ghost Fathers was convened in Rome in September 1968 to debate the direction of the congregation after the changes of the Second Vatican Council. The first action of the chapter was to name several moderators to lead the chapter's sessions instead of Lefebvre. Lefebvre then handed in his resignation as Superior General to Pope Paul VI.July/August 2003 Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (July/August 2003) He would later say that it had become impossible for him to remain Superior of an Order which no longer wanted or listened to him.
== Second Vatican Council ==
Appointed by Pope John XXIII a member of the Central Preparatory CommissionYes, it is correct that I was part of the Central Preparatory Commission during the two years before the Council An Interview With Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre given on 3 May 1982, to Louis Moore, Religion Editor of The Houston Chronicle for the Second Vatican Council, Lefebvre took part in the discussions about the draft documents to be submitted to the bishops for consideration at the Council.As a member of the Central Preparatory Commission the Archbishop worked for several years upon the draft documents which the Council Fathers were to discuss (the preparatory schemas). God Bless the Archbishop, from The Angelus, August 1983, Volume V, Number 8 During the first session of the Council (October to December 1962),The Second Vatican Council he became concerned about the direction the Council's deliberations were taking. Lefebvre took a leading part in a study group of bishops at the Council which became known as the Coetus Internationalis Patrum (International Group of Fathers).the Archbishop found himself drawn into the role of a leader of the International Group of Fathers which came together to defend orthodoxy(God Bless the Archbishop, from The Angelus, August 1983, Volume V, Number 8)
A major area of concern at the Council was the debate about the principle of religious liberty.The voting ensued, and Archbishop Lefebvre said: "On religious liberty, non placet…because it is based on false principles solemnly condemned by the sovereign pontiffs. Archbishop Lefebvre preparing the council During the Council's third session (September to November 1964)Second Vatican Council Archbishop Pericle Felici announced that Lefebvre, with two other like-minded bishops, was appointed to a special four-member commission charged with rewriting the draft document on the topic,"It was suddenly announced that the document on Religious Liberty would be handed to a new commission for revision — a commission that included some of the most moss-backed of the moss-backed conservatives (to borrow a phrase from Archbishop Connolly!), including Archbishop Lefebvre, who later established the schismatic Society of St. Pius X." Vatican II, Part 4: The Third Session, Corinna Laughlin, St. James Cathedral, Seattle but it was soon discovered that this measure did not have papal approval, and major responsibility for preparing the draft document was given to the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity."In interviews with Bea and Frings, Paul VI agreed that the Christian Unity office would bear the major responsibility for revising the two declarations."(Cum Magno Dolore, Time Magazine, 23 October 1964) Instead of the draft entitled "On Religious Liberty", Lefebvre and Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani had supported instead a text dealing with "Relations between the Church and State, and religious tolerance."Archbishop Lefebvre Preparing the Council The Coetus Internationalis Patrum did, however, manage to get the preliminary vote (with suggestions for modifications) on the document put off until the fourth session of the Council, but were unable to prevent the adoption, on 7 December 1965, of the final text of the declaration Dignitatis humanae by the overwhelming majority of the Council."Thus, during the final vote on the morning of December 7 (when the fathers had to choose between a simple approval or disapproval of the last draft), Lefebvre was one of the 70 — about 3 percent of the total — who voted against the schema." Marcel Lefebvre: Signatory to Dignitatis Humanae, by Brian Harrison The expressed view of some that this overwhelming majority was only due to intense lobbying by the reformist wing of Council Fathers among those prelates who initially had reservations or even objections,Der Rhein fliesst in den Tiber: eine Geschichte des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils, Wiltgen SVD, Ralph M., Feldkirch. Lins. cop. 1988. p. 316 however, is not accepted by all observers. Lefebvre was one of those who voted against the declaration, but he was one of those who added their signature to the document, after that of the Pope, though not all present did sign."Thus, during the final vote on the morning of December 7 (when the fathers had to choose between a simple approval or disapproval of the last draft), Lefebvre was one of the 70 — about 3 percent of the total — who voted against the schema. Nevertheless, when the supreme pontiff himself put his signature to the controversial declaration an hour or so later, the French traditionalist prelate followed suit, presumably as an act of submission of his private judgment to that of the Vicar of Christ." Marcel Lefebvre: Signatory to Dignitatis Humanae, by Brian Harrison Lefebvre later declared that the sheet of paper that he signed and that was "passed from hand to hand among the Fathers of the Council and upon which everyone placed his signature, had no meaning of a vote for or against, but signified simply our presence at the meeting to vote for four documents."Angelus magazine of January 1991 However, the paper on which his signature appears, and which was not "the relatively unimportant attendance sheet which Lefebvre recalled in his interview", bears "the title Declaratio de Libertate Religiosa (along with the titles of three other documents) at the top," and "(t)he fathers were informed that if they wished to sign one or more documents, but not all of them, they could make a marginal annotation beside their name, specifying which documents they did or did not wish to sign. No such annotation is found beside the names of either Lefebvre or de Castro Mayer, which proves that they were prepared to share in the official promulgation of that Declaration on Religious Liberty which they later publicly rejected."
==Lefebvre's theological and political positions==
===Background===
Lefebvre belonged to an identifiable strand of right-wing political and religious opinion in French society that originated among the defeated royalists after the 1789 French Revolution. Lefebvre's political and theological outlook mirrored that of a significant number of conservative members of French society under the French Third Republic (1870-1940). The Third Republic was riven by conflicts between the secular Left and the Catholic Right, with many individuals on both sides espousing distinctly radical positions (see, for example, the article on the famous Dreyfus affair). Thus it has been said that "Lefebvre was... a man formed by the bitter hatreds that defined the battle lines in French society and culture from the French Revolution to the Vichy regime".Rome’s Reconciliation: Did the Pope heal, or deepen, the Lefebvrist schism?
Lefebvre's first biographer, the English traditionalist writer Michael Davies, wrote in the first volume of his Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre:
:In France political feeling tends to be more polarized, more extreme, and far more deeply felt than in England. It can only be understood in the light of the French Revolution and subsequent history.... At the risk of a serious over-simplification, it is reasonable to state that up to the Second World War Catholicism in France tended to be identified with right-wing politics and anti-Catholicism with the left.... [Lefebvre's] own alleged right-wing political philosophy is nothing more than straight-forward Catholic social teaching as expounded by the Popes for a century or more....
In similar vein, the pro-SSPX English priest Fr. Michael Crowdy wrote, in his preface to his translation of Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics:
:We must remember that [Lefebvre] is writing against the background of France, where ideas are generally more clear‑cut than they are in Great Britain.... Take the word "socialism," for example; that means to some of us, first and foremost, a social ideal of brotherhood and justice. We have had our Christian socialists. On the Continent, however, Socialism is uncompromisingly anti‑religious, or almost a substitute for religion, and Communism is seen as the natural development from it. This is the Socialism the Archbishop is writing about. And when he rejects Liberalism, he is not thinking of the [British] Liberal Party... but of that religious liberalism that exalts human liberty above the claims of God or of His Church....
===Theological positions===
Lefebvre was associated with the following positions:
* The rejection of ecumenism;This spirit of adultery is also made clear in the ecumenism instituted by The Secretariat for the Unity of Christians. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's June 1988 Public Statement against False Ecumenism, 19 October 1983, hosted by the United States district of the Society of Pius X
* The espousal of pragmatic religious tolerance instead of the principle of religious liberty;Archbishop Lefebvre preparing the Council; Hence, to accept Religious Liberty was in principle to accept the “rights of man” within the Church. Now, the Church has always condemned these declarations on the “rights of man” which have been made against the authority of God. Conference Of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Long Island, New York, November 5, 1983, hosted by SSPXasia.com
* The rejection of collegiality within the Church;Archbishop Lefebvre is known most widely for his support of the Tridentine liturgy and his attacks on the liturgical changes initiated by Vatican II. But his complaints against Vatican II go far beyond liturgical reforms. He also rejects conciliar developments in collegiality, religious liberty and ecumenism. These are seen by him as corresponding to the Revolution's égalité, liberté and fraternité. Archbishop Lefebvre: Moving Toward Schism?, Thomas J. Reese, S.J., America, June 4, 1988
* Opposition to the replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Mass of Paul VI.However, Lefebvre’s continued use of the Tridentine Mass eventually became an issue with the Vatican. My Journey out of the Lefebvre Schism By Pete Vere
===Political positions===
Political positions espoused by Archbishop Lefebvre included the following:
* Condemnation of the 1789 French Revolution, and what he called its "Masonic and anti-Catholic principles".
* Support for the "Catholic order" of the authoritarian French Vichy régime (1940-1944), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and whose leader, Philippe Pétain, was later sentenced to death as a collaborator.Itinéraire spirituelRadical Powerhouse, Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center
* Support for authoritarian governments. In 1976, Lefebvre praised the regimes of Jorge Videla in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and in 1985 he spoke approvingly of the governments of Francisco Franco of Spain and Antonio Salazar of Portugal, noting that their neutrality in World War II had spared their peoples, including their Jewish populations, the suffering of the War.
* Support for the French far-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen. In 1985, the French periodical Présent quoted Lefebvre as endorsing Le Pen, on the grounds that he was the only leading French politician who was clearly opposed to abortion.
* Opposition to Muslim immigration into Europe. In 1990, Lefebvre was convicted in a French court and sentenced to pay a fine of 5,000 francs when he stated in this connection that "it is your wives, your daughters, your children who will be kidnapped and dragged off to a certain kind of places as they exist in Casablanca".Afterword: The Rushdie Affair?s Legacy, Dr. Koenraad Elst
== Society of Saint Pius X ==
After retiring from the post of Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Lefebvre was approached by traditionalists from the French Seminary in Rome who had been refused tonsure,The Wanderer Interviews Fr. Aulagnier, SSPX, Luc Gagnon, September 18, 2003 the rite by which, until 1973,motu proprio Ministeria quaedam a seminarian became a cleric. They asked for a conservative seminary to complete their studies. After directing them to the University of Fribourg, Switzerland,Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (September/October 2003) Lefebvre was urged to teach these seminarians personally. In 1969, he received permission from the local bishop to establish a seminary in Fribourg which opened with nine students, moving to Ecône, Switzerland in 1971. Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words (November/December 2003)
Lefebvre proposed to his seminarians the establishment of a society of priests without vows. In November 1970, Bishop François Charrière of Fribourg established, on a provisional (ad experimentum) basis for six years, the International Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) as a "pious union".Pia unio - the preliminary stage towards becoming an officially recognized religious institute or Society of Apostolic Life. For the decree see Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Appendix V).
The French bishops, whose theological outlook was quite different from Lefebvre's, treated the Ecône seminary with suspicion and referred to it as "the Wildcat Seminary".Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 2). They indicated that they would incardinate none of the seminarians.Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 4).
In November 1974, two Belgian priests carried out a rigorous inspection on the instructions of a commission of cardinals, producing, it was said, a favourable report."Archbishop Lefebvre was told that this examination was very positive and that he just had to come to Rome and clarify some questions."Conference of Father Franz Schmidberger, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X at Rockdale, Sydney, Australia October 16, 1990 by Father Gerard Hogan and Father François Laisney] However, while at Ecône, they expressed a number of theological opinions, such as that ordination of married men will soon be a normal thing, that truth changed with the times, and the traditional conception of the Resurrection of Our Lord were open to discussion, to which the seminarians and staff objected to as scandalous. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", the Archbishop wrote a "Declaration" in which he strongly attacked the modernist and liberal trends that he saw as apparent in the reforms being undertaken within the Church at that time.The Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre, 1974.
== Clash with the Vatican ==
In January 1975 the new Bishop of Fribourg stated his wish to withdraw the SSPX's pious union status. Though Lefebvre then had two meetings with the commission of Cardinals, the Bishop put his intention into effect on 6 May 1975, thereby officially dissolving the Society.Pope Paul VI canonically suppressed the SSPX and its seminary in 1975. My Journey out of the Lefebvre Schism, by Pete Vere, Envoy Magazine, Volume 4.6, Retrieved 11 September 2006 This action was subsequently upheld by Pope Paul VI, who wrote to Archbishop Lefebvre in June 1975. Lefebvre continued his work regardless.Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 11). In the consistory of 24 May 1976, Pope Paul VI criticized Archbishop Lefebvre by name and appealed to him and his followers to change their minds.Consistory for the creation of twenty new Cardinals (May 24, 1976)
On 29 June 1976, Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without the approval of the local Bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them. As a result, Lefebvre was suspended a collatione ordinum, i.e., forbidden to ordain any priests. A week later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops informed him that, to have his situation regularized, he needed to ask the Pope's pardon. Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernisation of the Church was a "compromise with the ideas of modern man" originating in a secret agreement between high dignitaries in the Church and senior Freemasons prior to the Council."Letter of Mgr. Lefebvre to Pope Paul VI" (July 17, 1976), quoted in: Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 12). Lefebvre was then notified that, since he had not apologised to the Pope, he was suspended a divinis,Roger McCaffrey and Thomas Woods, “All We Ask is for the Mass”, May 2005, Catholic World News i.e., he could no longer legally administer any of the sacraments.Holier than Thou, Brian O'Neel, This Rock, April 2003, Pages 18 - 24, quoting Vere and William Woestman, O.M.I., Is the Society of St. Pius X in Schism? Lefebvre remarked that he had been forbidden from celebrating the new rite of Mass.The International Priestly Society of Saint Pius X XXV Anniversary 1970-1995 A family diary, Conference given by Fr. Anglés at Kansas City, November 1, 1995 Pope Paul VI apparently took this seriously and stated that Lefebvre "thought he dodged the penalty by administering the sacraments using the previous formulas.")"arbitrans te poenam istam devitare, si sacramenta administras anterioribus formulis utens" (Letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, October 11, 1976) In spite of his suspension, Lefebvre continued to pray Mass and to administer the other Sacraments, including the conferral of Holy Orders to the students of his seminary.
Pope Paul VI received Lefebvre in audience on 11 September 1976,Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre (Chapter 14). and one month later wrote to him admonishing him and, repeating the appeal he had made at the audience.In this letter the Pope asked Archbishop Lefebvre to accept the documents of the Second Vatican Council in their obvious meaning, the legitimacy of the revised liturgy, the obligatory character of the norms of canon law then in force, and the authority of the diocesan bishops over preaching and administration of the sacraments in their dioceses. Pope John Paul II received Lefebvre in audience sixty days after his 1978 election,Weeks after becoming Pope in 1978, he granted Lefebvre's request for an audience (their only meeting) and repeatedly expressed his desire for peace.The Archbishop Calls It Quits, Richard N. Ostling, Time, 27 June 1988 again without reaching agreement.
David Allen White's biography of Lefebvre, The Horn of the Unicorn, reports that Lefebvre allegedly received a small number of votes (variously reported as three or "several") in the August 1978 conclave that elected Pope John Paul I. This was said to have caused some consternation among the cardinals as Lefebvre was not a cardinal, and casting a vote for a non-cardinal in a papal election is unusual, although permitted by Church law.
== Ecône consecrations ==
In a 1987 sermon Lefebvre, at age 81, announced his intention to consecrate a bishop to carry on his work after his death.The situation is such, the work placed in our hands by the good Lord is such, that faced with this darkness in Rome, faced with the Roman authorities' pertinacity in error, faced with this refusal to return to Truth or Tradition on the part of those who occupy the seats of authority in Rome, faced with all these things, it seems to us that the good Lord is asking for the Church to continue. This is why it is likely that before I give acco/sspof my life to the good Lord, I shall have to consecrate some bishops. Bishops to Save the Church, Marcel Lefebvre, June 1987 This was controversial because, under Catholic canon law, the consecration of a bishop requires the permission of the Pope."No bishop is permitted to consecrate anyone a bishop unless it is first evident that there is a pontifical mandate." TITLE VI Code of Canon Law, canon 1013
On 5 May 1988, Lefebvre signed an agreement with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) to regularise the situation of the Society of St Pius X. The cardinal agreed that one bishop would be consecrated for the society.Protocol of Agreement between the Holy See and the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X This is an English translation of the original French. However, Lefebvre came to the view that he was obliged both to reject the arrangement he had agreed to and to ordain a successor, if necessary without papal approval.That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. We would have evidently been under the authority of Cardinal Ratzinger, President of the Roman Commission, which would have directed us; we were putting ourselves into his hands, and consequently putting ourselves into the hands of those who wish to draw us into the spirit of the Council and the spirit of Assisi. This was simply not possible.Sermon on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecration, Marcel Lefebvre, June 1988 The Pope appealed to him not to proceed in "a schismatic act", warning of "theological and canonical consequences".On 3 June, Lefebvre wrote that he would still go ahead with the 30 June consecrations. On 9 June 1988, Pope John Paul II replied to him with a personal letter, recalling the agreement the archbishop had signed on 5 May and appealing to him not to proceed with a design that "would be seen as nothing other than a schismatic act, the theological and canonical consequences of which are known to you." When no reply came from Lefebvre, this letter was made public on 16 June.Pope John Paul II, an Obituary, Latin Mass Society of Ireland
On 30 June 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre, with Bishop Emeritus Antônio de Castro Mayer of Campos, Brazil, as co-consecrator, consecrated four SSPX priests as bishops: Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay. The next day, 1 July, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree stating that this was a schismatic act and that all six people directly involved had thereby incurred automatic excommunication.Decree of Excommunication
On 2 July, Pope John Paul II condemned the consecration in his apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, in which he stated that the consecration constituted a schismatic act and that by virtue of canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law,"A bishop who consecrates some one a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See" (TITLE III Code of Canon Law, canon 1382). the bishops and priests involved were automatically excommunicated."In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act (cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 751) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on June 17 last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law (cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 1382)."Ecclesia Dei
Lefebvre declared that he and the other clerics involved had not "separated themselves from Rome" and were therefore not schismaticWe are not schismatics! If an excommunication was pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why Pope Pius XII excommunicated them. There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals... It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought to separate ourselves from Rome! Sermon on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecration, Marcel Lefebvre, June 1988 and that they "found themselves in a case of necessity", not having succeeded, as they said, in making "Rome" understand that "this change which has occurred in the Church" since the Second Vatican Council was "not Catholic".Thus, we find ourselves in a case of necessity. We have done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters, several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento, this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors, this collegiality - all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church, and is in the process of destroying the Church. Sermon on the occasion of the Episcopal Consecration, Marcel Lefebvre, June 1988 In a letter addressed to the four priests he was about to consecrate as bishops, Lefebvre wrote: "I do not think one can say that Rome has not lost the Faith."Letter to the Four Bishops Elect
== Death ==
Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991 at the age of 85 from cancer in Martigny, Switzerland The French-born prelate died of cancer on March 25 at the age of 85, almost three years after being excommunicated for defying papal orders., Associated Press, reproduced in the New York Times April 3, 1991 and, eight days later, was buried in the crypt at the society's international seminary in Ecône, Switzerland. Archbishop Edoardo Rovida, Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland, and Bishop Henri Schwery of Sion, the local diocese, came and prayed at the body of the dead prelate.For an account of the funeral and burial see In Memoriam Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, The Angelus, April 2002 , Volume XXV, Number 4 Later that year, on 18 September 1991, Cardinal Silvio Oddi, who had been Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1979 to 1986, visited Lefebvre's tomb, knelt down at it, prayed, afterwards saying aloud: "Merci, Monseigneur". Thereafter Cardinal Oddi said he held Archbishop Lefebvre to have been "a holy man"Letter of Bishop Williamson on the visit of Cardinal Oddi (1 February 1992). and suggested that the Society of St Pius X could be granted a personal prelature by the Holy See like that of Opus Dei. In January 1992, the then-superior general of the Society, Fr. Franz Schmidberger, rejected this hypothetical offer by an unpublished private letter to the Holy See. The letter's content was described by bishop Richard Williamson as basically saying that, "as long as Rome remains Conciliar, a fruitful and open collaboration between the two [the SSPX and the Holy See] does not seem possible."
== Quotes ==
* "I well suspected that our refusal to use the New Mass would sooner or later be a stumbling block, but I would have preferred to die rather than confront Rome and the Pope!"
* "Perhaps one day, in thirty or forty years, a meeting of cardinals gathered together by a future Pope will study and judge the reign of Paul VI; perhaps they will say that there were things that ought to be clearly obvious to people at the time, statements of the Pope that were totally against Tradition. At the moment, I prefer to consider the man on the chair of Peter as the Pope; and if one day we discover for certain that the Pope was not the Pope, at least I will have done my duty. When he is not using his charism of infallibity, the Pope can err. So why should we be scandalized and say, 'So there is no Pope,' like Arius, who was scandalized by Our Lord being humiliated and saying in this Passion, 'My God why have you abandoned me?' Arius reasoned, 'Therefore he is not God!'"While preaching against the doctrine of Sedevacantism.
* "There are the facts upon which, I think, we can lean. We place ourselves in God's providence. We are convinced that God knows what He is doing. Cardinal Gagnon visited us twelve years after the suspension: after twelve years of being spoken of as outside of the communion of Rome, as rebels and dissenters against the Pope, his visit took place. He himself recognized that what we have been doing is just what is necessary for the reconstruction of the Church. The Cardinal even assisted pontifically at the Mass which I celebrated on December 8, 1987, for the renewal of the promises of our seminarians. I was supposedly suspended and, yet, after twelve years, I was practically given a clean slate. They said we have done well. Thus we did well to resist! I am convinced that we are in the same circumstances today. We are performing an act which apparently... and unfortunately the media will not assist us in the good sense. The headlines will, of course, be "Schism," "Excommunication!" as much as they want to - and, yet, we are convinced that all these accusations of which we are the object, all penalties of which we are the object, are null, absolutely null and void, and of which we will take no account. Just as I took no account of the suspension, and ended up by being congratulated by the Church and by Progressive Churchmen, so likewise in several years - I do not know how many, only the Good Lord knows how many years it will take for Tradition to find - its rights in Rome - we will be embraced by the Roman authorities, who will thank us for having maintained the Faith in our seminaries, in our families, in civil societies, in our countries, and in our monasteries and our religious houses, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls."SSPXAsia.com:On the Occasion of the Episcopal ConsecrationsAt the Ecône Consecrations, 30 June 1988.
== Episcopal succession ==
==References==
==Further reading==
* The definitive biography of Lefebvre, originally published in French (Clovis, 2002).
* 
==External links==
* Documentary about the 1988 Consecrations on YouTube
Category:Participants in the Second Vatican Council
Category:Society of St. Pius X
Category:People excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church
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