Marcel Lefebvre
French traditionalist Catholic archbishop · France · Religious Figures · Lived 1905 to 1991 · aged 85
Marcel Lefebvre is read about 613 times a day, in 38 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 7 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 90 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?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.
A life in dates
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Portrait of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
19470918 Consecration episcopale Mgr Marcel Lefebvre Tourcoing
19470918 NNSS Marcel Lefebvre Jean Baptiste Fauret Tourcoing 2
19511221 Consecration Episcopale Mgr Emile Verhille Orchies
Archbishop Lefebvre in Lille
Fraternità Sacerdotale San Pio X - La firma del protocollo
Fraternità Sacerdotale San Pio X - Le consacrazioni episcopali del 30 giugno 1988 01
Fraternità Sacerdotale San Pio X - Le consacrazioni episcopali del 30 giugno 1988In their own words 10
, On Pinochet's dictatorship, 13 April 1987: ‘As soon as a man stands up to save his country from communism and restores Christian order, everything is done to discredit him.
Interviewer: By saying this, aren't we running the risk of undermining the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Council? Mgr.
I see only one type of ecumenism: that promoted by the Council, which emphasizes respect and collaboration with false religions, placed on the same level.
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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.
In common with Marcel
Rosanna SchiaffinoAlso in Seven Times a Day (1971)
Dominique MichelAlso in There's Always a Way to Find a Way (1973)Frédéric de PasqualeAlso in A Few Acres of Snow (1972)
Denis HérouxAlso in Un enfant comme les autres... (1972)
Jean DuceppeAlso in A Few Acres of Snow (1972)
Mosko AlkalaiAlso in Seven Times a Day (1971)Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.