51 Facts About Marcel Lefebvre

Marcel Francois Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Catholic archbishop who greatly influenced modern traditionalist Catholicism.

Marcel Lefebvre was a major leader of the conservative bloc during its proceedings.

Marcel Lefebvre later took the lead in opposing certain changes within the church associated with the council.

Marcel Lefebvre refused to implement council-inspired reforms demanded by the Holy Ghost Fathers and resigned from its leadership in 1968.

In 1975, after a flare of tensions with the Holy See, Marcel Lefebvre was ordered to disband the society, but ignored the decision and continued to maintain its activities and existence.

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, which Marcel Lefebvre refused to acknowledge.

Marcel Lefebvre was the second son and third child of eight children of textile factory-owner Rene Lefebvre and Gabrielle, born Watine, who died in 1938.

Marcel Lefebvre's parents were devout Catholics who brought their children to daily Mass.

Marcel Lefebvre's father, Rene, was an outspoken monarchist, devoting his life to the cause of the French Dynasty, seeing in a monarchy the only way of restoring to his country its past grandeur and a Christian revival.

Marcel Lefebvre's father ran a spy-ring for British Intelligence when Tourcoing was occupied by the Germans during World War I Rene died at Sonnenburg aged 65 in 1944, having been sentenced to death one year before.

In 1923 Marcel Lefebvre began studies for the priesthood; at the insistence of his father he followed his brother to the French Seminary in Rome, as his father suspected the diocesan seminaries of liberal leanings.

Marcel Lefebvre later credited his conservative views to the rector, a Breton priest named Father Henri Le Floch.

Marcel Lefebvre interrupted his studies in 1926 and 1927 to perform his military service.

Marcel Lefebvre asked to be allowed to perform missionary work as a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers, but in August 1930 Lienart required him to first work as assistant curate in a parish in Lomme, a suburb of Lille.

Lienart released him from the diocese in July 1931 and Marcel Lefebvre entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly in September.

Marcel Lefebvre served as superior of a number of missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Gabon.

In October 1945 Marcel Lefebvre returned to France to become rector of the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary in Mortain.

On 22 September 1948, Marcel Lefebvre, while continuing as Vicar Apostolic of Dakar, received the additional responsibilities of Apostolic Delegate to French Africa, with his title changed to titular archbishop of Arcadiopolis in Europa.

Marcel Lefebvre was responsible for selecting these new bishops, increasing the number of priests and religious sisters, as well as the number of churches in the various dioceses.

The Apostolic Vicariate of Dakar was made an archdiocese and Marcel Lefebvre became its first archbishop.

Marcel Lefebvre's career shifted rapidly with the death of Pope Pius XII, moving from the missions to Rome, though not directly, and with indications he was at times favored and at times disfavored by the new pope.

Now at odds with the government, Marcel Lefebvre watched as the Holy See replaced European missionary bishops with Africans and tried to delay his own removal by asking for the appointment of a coadjutor, which met with no response.

Marcel Lefebvre told Pope John "the Africans are not yet ripe" and did not want to be responsible.

Pope John said he took the responsibility and would see Marcel Lefebvre was taken care of properly.

On 23 January 1962, Marcel Lefebvre was transferred to the Diocese of Tulle, one of the smallest in France, while retaining the personal title of archbishop.

Marcel Lefebvre won 53 of the 75 votes cast on the first ballot, though some delegates had "strong misgivings".

Marcel Lefebvre heard their views but did not engage in dialogue.

Marcel Lefebvre seemed incapable of reviewing his ways of thinking.

Marcel Lefebvre felt the Council's impact directly when the Holy Ghost Fathers held an Extraordinary General Chapter to respond to it.

Marcel Lefebvre's opponents were well organized, and when he tried to assume the chair, they insisted that the Chapter was a legislative body entitled to elect its own officers.

Marcel Lefebvre predicted any changes would lead to "a caricature of community life where anarchy, disorder, and individual initiative have free rein".

Marcel 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.

Marcel Lefebvre proposed to his seminarians the establishment of a society of priests without vows.

Marcel Lefebvre chose the name of Pope Saint Pius X as the patron saint of the society, because of his admiration for the pontiff's stance on modernism.

In November 1972, the bishops of France, gathered as the Plenary Assembly of French Bishops at Lourdes, whose theological outlook was quite different from Marcel Lefebvre's, treated the then-legal Econe seminary with suspicion and referred to it as Seminaire sauvage or "Outlaw Seminary".

In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", on 21 November 1974, Marcel Lefebvre wrote a "Declaration" in which he attacked the modernist and liberal trends that he saw in the reforms being undertaken within the church at that time:.

Marcel Lefebvre contended that canon law gave the pope alone the authority to suppress a religious congregation, and only by his direct decree.

Marcel Lefebvre nevertheless continued his work citing legal advice from canon lawyers that the Society had not been "legally suppressed" and that the Society continued to enjoy the privilege of incardinating its own priests.

Marcel Lefebvre argued that there were insufficient grounds for suppression as the Apostolic Visitors, by the Commission's own admission, delivered a positive report, and that since his Declaration had not been condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he appealed, twice, to the appellate court of the church, the Apostolic Signatura.

Marcel Lefebvre later wrote that Cardinal Villot blocked the move, and one of his supporters wrote that Villot threatened the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Cardinal Dino Staffa, with dismissal if the appeals were not denied.

In 1976, Mamie warned Marcel Lefebvre that saying Mass though Catholic Church authorities had forbidden him from exercising his priestly functions would further exacerbate his relationship with Rome.

On 29 June 1976, Marcel Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without the approval of the local bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them.

Marcel Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernization 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 before the council.

Marcel Lefebvre remarked that he had been forbidden from celebrating the new rite of Mass.

Pope Paul apparently took this seriously and stated that Marcel Lefebvre "thought he dodged the penalty by administering the sacraments using the previous formulas".

In spite of his suspension, Marcel Lefebvre continued to celebrate Mass and to administer the other sacraments, including the conferral of Holy Orders to the students of his seminary.

However, on 4 September 1987, in Econe, Marcel Lefebvre stated that the Vatican was in apostasy and that he would no longer collaborate with Ratzinger.

On 5 May 1988, Lefebvre signed an agreement with Ratzinger to regularize the situation of the Society of St Pius X Ratzinger agreed that one bishop would be consecrated for the Society, to be approved by the pope.

Shortly after the agreement Marcel Lefebvre announced that he had received a note from Ratzinger that asked him "to beg pardon for [his] errors", which he interpreted to mean that he would be made to accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and the "spirit of Assisi".

Marcel Lefebvre responded by contradicting Pope John Paul II, saying that he and the other clerics involved had not "separated themselves from Rome" and were not schismatic.

Marcel Lefebvre died from cancer on 25 March 1991 at the age of 85 in Martigny, Switzerland.