Marcel Lefebvre


Marcel Lefebvre

Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Tulle
Archbishop Lefebvre, c. 1962.
SeeTulle
Appointed23 January 1962
Term ended7 August 1962
PredecessorAimable Chassaigne
SuccessorHenri Clément Victor Donze
Other post(s)Founder and Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X (1970–1982)
Orders
Ordination21 September 1929
by Achille Liénart
Consecration18 September 1947
by Achille Liénart
Personal details
Born
Marcel-François Marie Joseph Lefebvre

(1905-11-29)29 November 1905
Died25 March 1991(1991-03-25) (aged 85)
Martigny, Switzerland
BuriedInternational Seminary of Saint Pius X, Écône, Switzerland
NationalityFrench
DenominationCatholic
ParentsRené Lefebvre (father)
Gabrielle Watine (mother)
Previous post(s)
Alma mater(Pontifical) French Seminary, Rome
MottoEt nos credidimus caritati
(And we believed in charity)[1]
Coat of armsArchbishop Lefebvre's coat of arms
Styles of
Marcel Lefebvre
Reference styleHis Excellency
Spoken styleYour Excellency
Ordination history of
Marcel Lefebvre
History
Priestly ordination
Ordained byAchille Liénart
Date21 September 1929
Episcopal consecration
Principal consecratorAchille Liénart
Co-consecratorsAlfred-Jean-Félix Ancel,
Jean-Baptiste Victor Fauret
Date18 September 1947
Episcopal succession
Bishops consecrated by Marcel Lefebvre as principal consecrator
Georges-Henri Guibert19 February 1950
Prosper Dodds26 October 1952
François Ndong2 July 1961
Bernard Tissier de Mallerais30 June 1988
Richard Williamson30 June 1988
Alfonso de Galarreta30 June 1988
Bernard Fellay30 June 1988

Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre CSSp FSSPX (French: [maʁsɛl fʁɑ̃swa maʁi ʒɔzɛf ləfɛvʁ]; 29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991) was a French Catholic archbishop who influenced modern traditional Catholicism. In 1970, five years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, he founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX),[2] a community to train seminarians in the traditional manner, in the village of Écône, Switzerland. In 1988, Pope John Paul II declared that Archbishop Lefebvre had "incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law" for consecrating four bishops against the pope's express prohibition[3] but, according to Lefebvre, in reliance on an "agreement given by the Holy See ... for the consecration of one bishop."[4][5]

Ordained a diocesan priest in 1929, he had joined the Holy Ghost Fathers for missionary work and was assigned to teach at a seminary in Gabon in 1932. In 1947, he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Dakar, Senegal, and the next year as the Apostolic Delegate for West Africa. Upon his return to Europe he was elected Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers and assigned to participate in the drafting and preparation of documents for the upcoming Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) announced by Pope John XXIII. He was a major leader of the conservative bloc during its proceedings. He later took the lead in opposing certain changes within the church associated with the council. He refused to implement council-inspired reforms demanded by the Holy Ghost Fathers and resigned from its leadership in 1968. In 1970, he founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) as a small community of seminarians in the village of Écône, Switzerland, with the permission of the local bishop.

In 1975, after a flare of tensions with the Holy See, Lefebvre was ordered to disband the society, but ignored the decision and continued to maintain its activities and existence. In 1988, against the express prohibition 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,[a] which Lefebvre refused to acknowledge.[6][7]

  1. ^ Credidimus Caritati Archived 15 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Sspxseminary.org. Retrieved on 1 November 2013.
  2. ^ "A Story of Providence: Born in a Time of Confusion for Holy Mother Church". SSPX. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  3. ^ "Apostolic Letter "Ecclesia Dei"".
  4. ^ "Other Letters: Correspondence between Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Lefebvre". FSSPX. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  5. ^ "Protocol of Agreement, May 5, 1988". FSSPX. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference sermon was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "One Year After the Consecrations". archives.sspx.org.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).


© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search