# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/marcel-lefebvre
# Generated: 2026-08-31T23:25:57.791Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/marcel-lefebvre"
name: "Marcel Lefebvre"
slug: "marcel-lefebvre"
description: "He built a parallel seminary to preserve the Latin Mass, defied Rome's orders to disband, and in 1988 consecrated four bishops without permission — triggering automatic excommunication that severed one of modern Catholicism's sharpest internal fractures."
tagline: "French traditionalist Catholic archbishop"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Portrait_of_Archbishop_Marcel_Lefebvre.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "France"
  isoCode: "FR"
category:
  name: "Religious Figures"
  slug: "religious-figures"
profileType:
  name: "Religious Figure"
  slug: "religious-figure"
birthDate: "1905-11-29"
deathDate: "1991-03-25"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           60.43
  momentum:             6.892590465249858
  historical:           24.860072
  currentAttention:     38.2921692513881
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "RISING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: 189
tags:
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    slug: "religious-figures"
  - name: "TV Personality"
    slug: "tv-personality"
  - name: "News Broadcasting"
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    slug: "religion"
  - name: "France"
    slug: "france"
  - name: "Europe"
    slug: "europe"
  - name: "20th Century"
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    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
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    title: "مارسيل يفبفر"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Марсель Лефеўр (архіепіскап)"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
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    title: "מרסל לפבר"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Marcellus Lefebvre"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
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    title: "Marcel Lefebvre"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in Tourcoing in 1905, ordained in 1929, Lefebvre joined the Holy Ghost Fathers and spent years teaching at a Gabon seminary before rising to Vicar Apostolic of Dakar in 1947 and apostolic nuncio to French West Africa. Back in Europe, he was elected superior general of his order and helped draft documents for the Second Vatican Council, where he led the conservative bloc during proceedings. When the council's reforms took hold, he refused to implement them within the Holy Ghost Fathers and resigned in 1968. Two years later he founded the Society of Saint Pius X in a Swiss village, training seminarians in the old rite with local permission. By 1975 the Holy See ordered the society disbanded; Lefebvre ignored the command and continued. In 1988, against Pope John Paul II's express prohibition, he consecrated four bishops to carry the work forward. Rome declared all parties automatically excommunicated. Lefebvre never acknowledged it, and died in 1991; the excommunications were lifted in 2009, though the society remains canonically irregular.