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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ( November 29, 1905 - March 25, 1991) was a leader of Catholics opposed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, especially the revision of the then existing Roman Missal and the saying of Mass in the vernacular rather than in Latin.
Marcel Lefebvre was born in Tourcoing, France. By the early 1960s, he had risen to high office in the Roman Catholic Church, including Archbishop, Assistant to the Papal Throne and Roman Count, and General Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers, when in 1962 he was appointed by Pope John XXIII to the Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. There he was in the majority with the Commission members who opposed the reformist plans of the minority Commission members.
During and after the Second Vatican Council, he became increasingly opposed to the direction the Church was taking; and for this opposition he was progressively removed from his positions of authority within the Church. In 1970 he opened with the approval of the local ordinary a small seminary in Fribourg, Switzerland, concerned that the existing Catholic seminaries were falling into heresyHeresy according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church. There he established the "Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X" with at first canonical legitimacy, which became the Society of St. Pius XThe Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is an international society of Catholic priests administered by a Superior General and District Superiors in various countries. The official name of the organization is: Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X or Priestly Fr (SSPX).
After Pope Paul VIPaul VI Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini ( September 26, 1897 August 6, 1978), served as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1963 to 1978. He presided over the Catholic Church during most of the Second Vatican Council and played a central’s 1969For other uses, see Number 1969. For the movie, see 1969 (movie). Events January January 1 Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World January 5 The Derry Riots leave over 100 people i promulgation [1] of the revised Roman MissalNovus Ordo Missae (New Order of the Mass) and Mass of Pope Paul VI or Pauline Mass or Second Vatican Council Mass are terms used to refer to the Roman-rite liturgy of the Mass as revised by the Roman Catholic Church by decree of the Second Vatican Council, Lefebvre supported the objections of CardinalsA cardinal is an official of the second-highest rank of the Roman Catholic Church, inferior in rank only to the Pope. The cardinals serve a number of functions: they advise the Pope, they run the Vatican administration and the Roman Curia (the government Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci [2] [3] to what they saw as grave defects in the new liturgy of the Mass. The Holy SeeThe term Holy See ( Latin: Sancta Sedes lit. holy seat") refers in a geographic sense to the episcopal see of Rome, of which the Pope is the ordinary i. the diocesan bishop); in canon law, the terms Holy See and Apostolic See refer to the Pope ("Roman Pon passed over their recommendations in silence. The Church hierarchy in general opposed Lefebvre's actions. In 19711971 is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). Events January January 1 British divorce Reform Act comes into force January 2 66 die in stairway crush at Rangers v Celtic football match, Glasgow, Scotland. See Ibrox disaster. Janua, Lefebvre announced to his seminarians his rejection of the “Novus Ordo” liturgy, and in 1974 stated that "not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church's Magisterium for nineteen centuries." [4]
SSPX opened seminaries, and Lefebvre was invited by Catholic laymen to open chapels around the globe. These chapels were opened outside of the norms of Cannon Law which requires the permission of the local Bishop.
Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican engaged in dialogue, with Lefebvre meeting with Pope Paul VI and later with Pope John Paul II. The talks did not result in consensus. Lefebvre’s view of the dispute is outlined in the SSPX document, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre.[5]
In 5 May 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre and Cardinal Ratzinger signed an agreement wherein the SSPX would become a unique entity within the Catholic Church with its own Bishop. This entity would have the authority to open its own parishes inside the diocese of other bishops. The agreement would have normalized the ordination of the priests and churches of the SSPX. Lefebvre and Ratzinger agreed to the consecration of a single Bishop on 15 August 1988. Despite this agreement and a formal canonical warning, Lefebvre consecrated four bishops, on 30 June 1988, without the required authorization from Rome. Lefebvre claimed that his actions were permissible because according to Canon Law 1323 and 1324 forgives offenses wherein a person acts out of "Grave Fear." The argument was that he knew his society and the Traditional Latin Mass were doomed without its own Bishop, and he couldn't trust the (yet unnamed) bishop Rome would choose from among the SSPX members..
Pope Pius XII, one of the great Popes in the SSPX Tradition, however wrote in 1958's Apostolorum Principis, “Episcopal consecrations against the will of the Pope is an offense against Divine and human law.” He goes on to say "43.In no sense do they [the Bishops who were consecrating other Bishops in China] excuse their way of acting by appealing to another custom [of acting from Grave Fear], and they indisputably prove that they follow this line deliberately in order to escape from the discipline which now prevails and which they ought to be obeying. 44. We mean that discipline which has been established not only for China and the regions recently enlightened by the light of the Gospel, but for the whole Church..."
In response to the Consecration, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree declaring him automatically excommunicated.[6] On the following day, Pope John Paul II confirmed this declaration with his apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei. Like the declaration of excommunication, the Pope’s letter stated that Lefebvre’s “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”, and that, accordingly, since schism is defined as “withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him”(Code of Canon Law [7], canon 751) it "constitute[d] a schismatic act".
A pro Society of St. Pius X tract quotes canonists distancing themselves from that statement on the ground that, as Lefebvre had consecrated only auxiliary bishops, he had not in fact attempted to establish a parallel Church. Example statements from the tract:
Many of the quotes found in the tract have been shown to be taken out of context. Professor Geringer has declared, “I would like to say that at the time in an interview with the radio [that the above quote was made], I explicitly declared that through the consecration of the four bishops by Lefebvre the schism had become definitive and that Lefebvre and his adherents had lost all their rights within the church… there can be no doubt that Lefebvre and his adherents are de facto schismatics.” (Letter to John Beaumont 17 August 1993).
Father Gerald Murray “In this publication you make use of modified quotations from my interview in the Fall 1995 issue of the Latin Mass. You have intentionally misquoted me and even put words into my mouth” (Letter to Fr Scott 14 June 1996).
Other canonists view with regard to the term “schismatic act”.[8].
The Holy See holds that Archbishop Lefebvre committed a schismatic act, not that he created a schismatic Church. It considers that the Society he founded has not yet reached the stage of constituting a separate Church, which would bring it under the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, as Cardinal Edward Cassidy remarked when presenting a revised edition of the Directory. He said: "The situation of the members of this Society is an internal matter of the Catholic Church. The Society is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the Directory." By saying this, he was, of course, not distancing himself from Pope John Paul II’s statement that Lefebvre had committed a schismatic act; nor was he saying that no SSPX members are personally schismatic.
In fact, the Holy See judges that the expressions used by many members of the Society, in spite of protestations of loyalty, indicate a personal outlook of "withdrawal from submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him", which, as already mentioned, is the definition of schism in canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law.
The SSPX, for its part, hopes that the Church will not continue to deny that any priest has a right, without requesting permission, to say the Mass as codified by Pope Pius V and modified by his successors previous to Pope Paul VI. SSPX continues to question facets of Church activity, as in the area of ecumenism and liturgical innovation. Dialogue has not yet been successful.
The Society claims that Catholics may attend its chapels “without worrying that they may be in schism by doing so” [9] [10]. However, the judgement of the Holy See is that such attendance is in normal circumstances “morally illicit” for Catholics, because the priests of the Society, being illicitly ordained, are by canon law automatically suspended from priestly functions, and because of the danger of imbibing schismatic ideas from them.[11] [12] [13] The repeated declarations by the Holy See that Catholics who find the traditional rites more fulfilling are to be respected demonstrate that the difficulty resides not in attending the “ Tridentine Mass” but precisely in participating in celebrations by priests who are suspended by law and who display schismatic attitudes. No such problem exists for attendance at a “Tridentine Mass” celebrated by priests who are in full communion with Rome and their local bishops, such as the members of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP)[14].
Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991 in Martigny, Switzerland. Numerous miracles have since been attributed to his intercession.