Misplaced Pages

#265734

73-458: During the first session of the council, they acted informally as an unnamed "study group" of individual Council fathers of traditionalist orientation. Between the first and second sessions of the council, Archbishops Marcel Lefebvre ( Superior CSSp ) and Geraldo de Proença Sigaud ( Diamantina, Brazil ) and Bishop José Maurício da Rocha ( Bragance, Brazil ) decided to organize a more formal group of like-minded bishops. The group soon established

146-575: A Christian revival. His father ran a spy-ring for British Intelligence when Tourcoing was occupied by the Germans during World War I . René died at Sonnenburg aged 65 in 1944, having been sentenced to death one year before. In 1923 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

219-464: A 12-year term as their Superior General. He won 53 of the 75 votes cast on the first ballot, though some delegates had "strong misgivings". This meeting also moved the order's headquarters from Paris to Rome. Upon being elected Superior General, Lefebvre resigned as bishop of Tulle; Pope John accepted his resignation on 7 August and named him titular archbishop of Synnada in Phrygia . As a member of

292-445: A 1987 sermon, Lefebvre, his health failing at age 81, announced his intention to consecrate a bishop to carry on his work after his death. Under Catholic canon law , the consecration of a bishop without the permission of the pope incurs excommunication : "A bishop who consecrates someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to

365-569: A bloc that became known as the Coetus Internationalis Patrum (CIP) or International Group of Fathers, with the aim of guaranteeing their views were part of every council discussion. The CIP was especially concerned about the principle of religious liberty . During the council's third session (September to November 1964), Archbishop Pericle Felici , the secretary of the council and a prominent Curial conservative, announced that Lefebvre, with two other like-minded bishops,

438-522: A cleric. They asked for a conservative seminary to complete their studies. After directing them to the University of Fribourg , Switzerland, Lefebvre was urged to teach these seminarians personally. In 1969, he received permission from the local bishop to establish a seminary in Fribourg which opened with nine students, moving to Écône , Switzerland in 1971. Lefebvre proposed to his seminarians

511-523: A condemnation of communism in the constitution on the Church in the Modern World was only slightly more successful; it led to the insertion of a footnote which referred to an earlier papal condemnation of communism, without mentioning the word. Perhaps their greatest success involved a last minute papal intervention, where Pope Paul VI insisted on the insertion of an explanatory note into the document on

584-542: A condemnation of the Pope, which Lefebvre vigorously denied. In November 1974, two Belgian priests carried out a rigorous inspection on the instructions of a commission of cardinals, producing, the SSPX claims, a favourable report. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", on 21 November 1974, Lefebvre wrote a "Declaration" in which he attacked the modernist and liberal trends that he saw in

657-788: A doctorate in theology in July 1930. Lefebvre asked to be allowed to perform missionary work as a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers , but in August 1930 Liénart required him to first work as assistant curate in a parish in Lomme, a suburb of Lille. Liénart released him from the diocese in July 1931 and Lefebvre entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly in September. On 8 September 1932, he took simple vows for

730-500: A group of Council fathers attached to the traditions of the Church. Sources close to the organization report it had 250 members out of the approximately 2,400 bishops attending the Council at any given time. Other studies describe it either as having 16 "core members" or as having 5 members in the steering committee, 55 general members, and 9 supporting cardinals. In addition to the Council fathers, there were also theologians who formed

803-587: A letter severely admonishing him and repeating the appeal he had made at the audience. In his letter to Lefebvre, Paul VI ordered him to accept the documents of the Second Vatican Council in their obvious meaning ( sensu obvio ) and the subsequent reforms, to retract his accusations against the Roman Pontiff and his collaborators and recognise the authority of the local bishops; furthermore, he demanded that Lefebvre hand over all activities of

SECTION 10

#1732776412266

876-560: A minor group that helped formulate the group's responses on issues being discussed in the council. On specific topics they were able to gather additional adherents among the Council fathers; they obtained 435 signatures on a petition calling for an explicit condemnation of communism. As a member of the Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council , Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had taken part in

949-805: A period of three years. Lefebvre's first assignment as a Holy Ghost Father was as a professor at St. John's Seminary in Libreville , Gabon . In 1934 he was made rector of the seminary. On 28 September 1935 he made his perpetual vows. He served as superior of a number of missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Gabon. In October 1945 Lefebvre returned to France to become rector of the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary in Mortain . On 12 June 1947, Pope Pius XII appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Dakar in Senegal and titular bishop of Anthedon . On 18 September 1947 he

1022-775: 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 . 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

1095-452: A second meeting on 3 March. In May, the commission announced it approved Mamie's plan. Lefebvre contended that canon law gave the pope alone the authority to suppress a religious congregation, and only by his direct decree. Tabera responded in April expressing full agreement and telling Mamie to proceed himself, and Mamie suppressed the SSPX on 6 May 1975, effective immediately. This action

1168-636: A social ideal of brotherhood and justice. We have had our Christian socialists . On the Continent, however, Socialism is uncompromisingly anti‑religious, or almost a substitute for religion, and Communism is seen as the natural development from it. This is the Socialism the Archbishop is writing about. And when he rejects Liberalism, he is not thinking of the [British] Liberal Party  ... but of that religious liberalism that exalts human liberty above

1241-572: A specific condemnation of communism and that there should be a separate Council document elevating the status of the Blessed Virgin Mary , not merely a chapter in Lumen gentium . Continuing complaints from the group about the presence of Protestant observers led Pope Paul VI, who was "concerned not to alienate the traditionalists ", to ask Cardinal Augustin Bea "if perhaps the presence of

1314-568: A steering committee, of archbishops Lefebvre and Proença Sigaud, bishops Luigi Maria Carli ( Segni ), Antônio de Castro Mayer ( Campos, Brazil ). and the Abbot of Solesmes , Jean Prou OSB . After the second session of the council, the group came formally into existence, issuing a circular letter, signed by archbishops Lefebvre, Proença Sigaud, Cabana (Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada), Silva Santiago (Concepción, Chile (emeritus)), Lacchio (Changsha, China) and Cordeiro (Karachi, Pakistan), which announced

1387-485: 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

1460-481: The Papal Curia who shared their traditionalist point of view, and in the early years of the Council they were effective in using these back channels to make their opinions known at the highest levels. In the later years of the council, they produced an almost uninterrupted flood of modi (amendments) to the proposals before the council. These moves were not always successful; between the third and fourth sessions

1533-654: The Roman Curia , as substitute adjunct of the Consistorial , on 16 December 1922. After holding a variety of pastoral and curial positions, Cicognani was appointed Apostolic Delegate to the United States and Titular Archbishop of Laodicea in Phrygia on 17 March 1933. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 23 April from Cardinal Raffaele Rossi , with Archbishops Giuseppe Pizzardo and Carlo Salotti serving as co-consecrators , in

SECTION 20

#1732776412266

1606-703: The Roman church of Santa Susanna . Cicognani would remain Apostolic Delegate to the United States, serving as liaison between the American hierarchy and the Vatican , for the next 25 years. During World War II, Cicognani expressed reservations about Zionism . In a letter dated 22 June 1943 to American representative Myron C. Taylor , he said: "It is true that at one time Palestine was inhabited by

1679-533: The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), at which he served as Chairman of the Secretariat for Extraordinary Questions. Cicognani was also one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1963 papal conclave , which selected Pope Paul VI . On 30 April 1969, Cicognani resigned all of his posts. However, on 24 March 1972, he was elected and confirmed as Dean of the College of Cardinals and thus received

1752-558: The Second Vatican Council . After Senegal declared its independence in June 1960, its first president, Léopold Sédar Senghor proposed the country adopt its own form of socialism, which he as a Catholic believed compatible with Church doctrine. Lefebvre, still Archbishop of Dakar, criticized Senghor's views in a March 1961 pastoral letter and then in a personal audience with Senghor, drawing on Pope Pius XI's denunciation of socialism in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno . Now at odds with

1825-465: The consistory of 15 December 1958. Cardinal Cicognani was later raised to Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati on 23 May 1962. Because his brother, Gaetano, was already a living cardinal, having been elevated in 1953, an exception had to be made to the Church law that prohibited brothers from holding the title of cardinal simultaneously. On 14 November 1959, Cicognani became Secretary of the Congregation for

1898-826: The seminary in Faenza, he was ordained a priest on 23 September 1905 by Bishop Gioacchino Cantagalli . Cicognani continued his studies at the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum S. Apollinare , and in 1910 he was appointed an official of the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments . First raised to the rank of monsignor in 1917, he taught at his alma mater of the Athenaeum S. Apollinare from 1921 to 1932, and then entered

1971-468: The 'separated brethren' and their 'mentality' were 'excessively dominating the council, thus diminishing its psychological freedom.' (He) emphasized that protecting 'the coherence of the teaching of the Catholic Church' was more important than pleasing the observers.'" After thus consulting Cardinal Bea, the Pope decided not to disinvite the observers. Their influence on the outcome of the council

2044-573: The Apostolic See". During 1987 Lefebvre tried to reach an agreement with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . However, on 4 September 1987, in Ecône, 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

2117-562: The Catholicism of the emerging African elite" was later adopted by Pope Pius in his encyclical on the missions, Fidei donum (1957). Lefebvre's chief duty was the building up of the ecclesiastical structure in French Africa . Pope Pius XII wanted to move quickly towards an ecclesiastical structure with dioceses instead of vicariates and apostolic prefectures. Lefebvre was responsible for selecting these new bishops, increasing

2190-662: The Central Preparatory Commission Lefebvre participated in drafting documents for consideration by the Council Fathers, meeting in seven sessions between June 1961 and June 1962. Within the first two weeks of the first session of the council (October to December 1962) the Council Fathers rejected all the drafts. Lefebvre and some like-minded bishops became concerned about the direction of the council's deliberations and, led by Archbishop Geraldo de Proença Sigaud of Diamantina , formed

2263-863: The Church, which significantly weakened the force of its claims for collegiality. In October 2019, shortly before the opening of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region , an anonymous group of bishops and Catholic laypeople calling itself the Coetus Internationalis Patrum Working Group released a text, claiming that four theses drawn from the Synod's Instrumentum Laboris or Working Document were unacceptable as they contradicted points of Catholic doctrine. Marcel Lefebvre Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre CSSp FSSPX (29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991)

Coetus Internationalis Patrum - Misplaced Pages Continue

2336-688: The FSSPX to the Holy See. The Pope reminded Lefebvre of his duty of obedience to the Chair of Peter , quoting the dogmatic constitutions Pastor aeternus (1870, First Vatican Council ) and Lumen gentium (1964, Second Vatican Council ). Following the death of Paul VI, both Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II made various attempts to reconcile the FSSPX with the Church; the latter received Lefebvre in audience sixty days after his 1978 election , where he repeatedly expressed his desire for peace. In

2409-556: The Hebrew Race, but there is no axiom in history to substantiate the necessity of a people returning to a country they left nineteen centuries before ... If a 'Hebrew Home' is desired, it would not be too difficult to find a more fitting territory than Palestine. With an increase in the Jewish population there, grave, new international problems would arise." He was created Cardinal-Priest of S. Clemente by Pope John XXIII in

2482-407: The Holy Ghost Fathers held an Extraordinary General Chapter to respond to it. The order's leadership, though their terms had years remaining, tendered their resignations effective with the close of the meeting as was traditional. The membership had insisted on a larger role for elected delegates, and they constituted half of the body. Lefebvre's opponents were well organized, and when he tried to assume

2555-432: The Holy Ghost Fathers met with him to express their disagreement with his views and the role he was playing at the Council. He heard their views but did not engage in dialogue. His closing statement, "We all have a conscience: everyone must follow his own.", left them dissatisfied. One said: "He seemed to have a blockage. He seemed incapable of reviewing his ways of thinking." Lefebvre felt the Council's impact directly when

2628-666: The Oriental Churches . He was later named to the posts of Cardinal Secretary of State , President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State , and President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See on 12 August 1961. With the appointments of 1962, Cicognani essentially became the foreign minister , prime minister, and interior minister of the Vatican. He attended

2701-549: The Popes for a century or more... In similar vein, the pro-SSPX English priest Michael Crowdy wrote, in his preface to his translation of Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics : We must remember that Lefebvre is writing against the background of France, where ideas are generally more clear‑cut than they are in Great Britain. ... Take the word "socialism", for example; that means to some of us, first and foremost,

2774-429: The SSPX's status as a "pious union" should end. On 24 January 1975, he asked the prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious , Cardinal Arturo Tabera , to terminate its status as a "pious union". On 13 February, Lefebvre was invited to Rome for a meeting with the commission of cardinals, which he described as "a close cross examination of the judicial type", regarding the contents of his "Declaration", followed by

2847-482: The Second Vatican Council and, after the Council in all the reforms which flowed from it. The Commission of Cardinals declared in reply that the declaration was "unacceptable on all points". At the same time, the French episcopate indicated that they would not incardinate any of Lefebvre's priests in their dioceses. In January 1975, Bishop Pierre Mamie , who had succeeded Charrière in Fribourg in 1970, determined that

2920-464: The Society of St Pius X. Ratzinger agreed that one bishop would be consecrated for the Society, to be approved by the pope. Amleto Cicognani Amleto Giovanni Cicognani (24 February 1883 – 17 December 1973) was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church . He served as Vatican Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969, and Dean of the College of Cardinals from 1972 until his death. Cicognani

2993-592: The additional responsibilities of Apostolic Delegate to French Africa , with his title changed to titular archbishop of Arcadiopolis in Europa . He became responsible for representing the interests of the Holy See to Church authorities in 46 dioceses in "continental and insular Africa subject to the French Government, with the addition of the Diocese of Reunion , the whole of the island of Madagascar and

Coetus Internationalis Patrum - Misplaced Pages Continue

3066-454: The appeals were not denied. In 1976, Mamie warned Lefebvre that saying Mass though Catholic Church authorities had forbidden him from exercising his priestly functions would further exacerbate his relationship with Rome. During the consistory of 24 May 1976, Pope Paul VI criticized Lefebvre by name and appealed to him and his followers to change their minds. On 29 June 1976, Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without

3139-409: The approval of the local bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them. As a result Lefebvre was suspended a collatione ordinum , i.e. , forbidden to ordain any priests. A week later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops informed him that, to have his situation regularized, he needed to ask the pope's pardon. Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernization of

3212-756: The article on the famous Dreyfus affair ). Thus it has been said that "Lefebvre was... a man formed by the bitter hatreds that defined the battle lines in French society and culture from the French Revolution to the Vichy regime". Lefebvre's first biographer, the English traditionalist writer Michael Davies , wrote in the first volume of his Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre : In France political feeling tends to be more polarized, more extreme, and far more deeply felt than in England. It can only be understood in

3285-523: The bishops of France, gathered as the Plenary Assembly of French Bishops at Lourdes, whose theological outlook was quite different from Lefebvre's, treated the then-legal Écône seminary with suspicion and referred to it as Séminaire sauvage or "Outlaw Seminary". They indicated that they would incardinate none of the seminarians. Cardinal Secretary of State Jean-Marie Villot accused Lefebvre before Pope Paul VI of making his seminarians sign

3358-533: The chair, they insisted that the Chapter was a legislative body entitled to elect its own officers. On 11 September 1968 the Chapter supported that position on a vote of 63 to 40, and Lefebvre stopped attending. The Chapter then elected its leaders and proceeded with intense but respectful debate on the critical issue: the balance between the constraints of the order's religious life and the exercise of its missionary charge. Lefebvre returned on 28 September and addressed

3431-400: 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

3504-413: 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. Lefebvre was then notified that, since he had not apologized to the pope, he was suspended a divinis , i.e., he could no longer legally administer any of the sacraments. Lefebvre remarked that he had been forbidden from celebrating

3577-473: The claims of God or of His Church ... Lefebvre was associated with the following positions: Political positions espoused by Lefebvre included the following: After retiring from the post of Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Lefebvre was approached by traditionalists from the French Seminary in Rome who had been refused tonsure , the rite by which, until 1973, a seminarian became

3650-550: The defeated royalists after the 1789 French Revolution . Lefebvre's political and theological outlook mirrored that of a significant number of conservative members of French society under the French Third Republic (1870–1940). The Third Republic was reft by conflicts between the secular Left and the Catholic Right, with many individuals on both sides espousing distinctly radical positions (see, for example,

3723-624: The diocesan seminaries of liberal leanings. He later credited his conservative views to the rector , a Breton priest named Father Henri Le Floch . He interrupted his studies in 1926 and 1927 to perform his military service. On 25 May 1929 he was ordained deacon by Cardinal Basilio Pompili in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. On 21 September 1929 he was ordained a priest of Diocese of Lille by its bishop, Achille Liénart . After ordination, he continued his studies in Rome, completing

SECTION 50

#1732776412266

3796-434: The discussions about the draft documents submitted to the bishops for consideration at the council. His concerns with these proposals led to the formation of the study group to deal with a number of issues at the council. A primary element of their agenda was opposition to the principle of episcopal collegiality , which they feared could undermine papal primacy and the rights of individual bishops. They thought there should be

3869-517: The establishment of a society of priests without vows. In November 1970, Bishop François Charrière of Fribourg established, on a provisional ( ad experimentum ) basis for six years, the International Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) as a " pious union ". He 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,

3942-405: The fourth session of the council, where, on 7 December 1965, an overwhelming majority approved the final text of the declaration Dignitatis humanae . Lefebvre was one of the 70, about 3%, who voted against the declaration, but he added his signature to the document after that of the pope, though some withheld their signatures. At one point during the Council, some 40 bishops who were members of

4015-421: The government, 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. He 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 Lefebvre was taken care of properly. On 23 January 1962, Lefebvre

4088-455: The group was repudiated by Cardinal Cicognani , the Vatican Secretary of State , for their divisive influence on the assembly. On specific issues, they failed to defeat the constitution on the liturgy, which introduced the vernacular and gave greater authority to episcopal conferences, or the decree on ecumenism, which some say undermined the traditional belief that the Catholic Church was the unique path to salvation. Their petition insisting on

4161-489: The issue in uncompromising language. He predicted any changes would lead to "a caricature of community life where anarchy, disorder, and individual initiative have free rein". His tone and arguments won him no support; the convention elected Fr. Joseph Lécuyer, a French theologian, his successor as superior general on 26 October. Defunct Defunct Lefebvre belonged to an identifiable strand of right-wing political and religious opinion in French society that originated among

4234-409: The light of the French Revolution and subsequent history... At the risk of a serious over-simplification, it is reasonable to state that up to the Second World War Catholicism in France tended to be identified with right-wing politics and anti-Catholicism with the left... [Lefebvre's] own alleged right-wing political philosophy is nothing more than straight-forward Catholic social teaching as expounded by

4307-404: The missions to Rome, though not directly, and with indications he was at times favored and at times disfavored by the new pope. Pope John XXIII replaced Lefebvre as Apostolic Delegate to Dakar on 9 July 1959, a position that would quickly evolve as the colonies gained their independence in the 1960s. The next year, Pope John appointed Lefebvre to the 120-member Central Preparatory Commission for

4380-457: The new rite of Mass. Pope Paul apparently took this seriously and stated that Lefebvre "thought he dodged the penalty by administering the sacraments using the previous formulas". In spite of his suspension, Lefebvre continued to celebrate Mass and to administer the other sacraments, including the conferral of Holy Orders to the students of his seminary. Pope Paul received Lefebvre in audience on 11 September 1976, and one month later wrote to him

4453-407: The number of priests and religious sisters, as well as the number of churches in the various dioceses. On 14 September 1955, Pope Pius decreed a complete reorganization of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions in French Africa. The Apostolic Vicariate of Dakar was made an archdiocese and Lefebvre became its first archbishop. Lefebvre's career shifted rapidly with the death of Pope Pius XII, moving from

SECTION 60

#1732776412266

4526-467: The other neighbouring islands under French rule, but excluding the dioceses of North Africa, namely those of Carthage , Constantine , Algiers and Oran ." In the late 1940s, Lefebvre established a ministry in Paris to care for Catholic students from the French colonies in Africa. He and other missionaries in Africa thought young Africans would otherwise be attracted to radical ideologies, including anti-colonialism and atheism. This idea of "safeguarding

4599-400: The pope's express prohibition but, according to Lefebvre, in reliance on an "agreement given by the Holy See ... for the consecration of one bishop." 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

4672-404: The reforms being undertaken within the church at that time: We adhere with all our heart and all our soul to Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic Faith and the traditions necessary to maintain it, and to Eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth. On the other hand we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of the neo-Modernist and the new Protestant trend which was clearly evident in

4745-428: Was consecrated a bishop in his family's parish church in Tourcoing by Liénart, now a cardinal, with Bishops Jean-Baptiste Fauret and Alfred-Jean-Félix Ancel as co-consecrators. In his new position Lefebvre was responsible for an area with a population of three and a half million people, of whom only 50,000 were Catholics. On 22 September 1948, Lefebvre, while continuing as Vicar Apostolic of Dakar , received

4818-506: Was a French Catholic archbishop who greatly influenced modern traditionalist Catholicism . In 1970, five years after the close of the Second Vatican Council , he founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), 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

4891-416: Was appointed to a special four-member commission charged with rewriting the draft document on the topic, but it was soon discovered that this measure did not have papal approval, and major responsibility for preparing the draft document was given to the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity . The CIP managed to get the preliminary vote (with suggestions for modifications) on the document postponed until

4964-452: Was born in Tourcoing , Nord . He was the second son and third child of eight children of textile factory-owner René Lefebvre and Gabrielle, born Watine, who died in 1938. His parents were devout Catholics who brought their children to daily Mass . His father, René, 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

5037-520: Was decidedly mixed. Their opposition to the principle of episcopal collegiality, and specifically to the granting of greater authority to conferences of bishops, made it difficult for them to work effectively with the national and regional bishops' conferences. Some have seen the Group's opposition to collegial decision-making also had an effect on their reluctance to achieve consensus by developing compromise positions. They did, however, have more success using other channels. The Group had many contacts in

5110-440: Was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958. His brother, Gaetano Cicognani , was also a cardinal. To date they are the last pair of brothers to serve together in the College of Cardinals . Amleto Cicognani was born in Brisighella , near Faenza , as the younger of the two children of Guglielmo and Anna ( née Ceroni) Cicognani. His widowed mother ran a general store to support him and his brother, Gaetano . After studying at

5183-478: 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 , which Lefebvre refused to acknowledge. Marcel Lefebvre

5256-590: Was transferred to the Diocese of Tulle , one of the smallest in France, while retaining the personal title of archbishop . On 4 April 1962, he was named a consultor to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith . On 26 July 1962, the Chapter General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, dominated by those in leadership positions with fewer representatives of local communities, elected Lefebvre to

5329-554: Was upheld by Pope Paul, who wrote to Lefebvre in June 1975. 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. Lefebvre also argued that there were insufficient grounds for suppression as the Apostolic Visitors, by the Commission's own admission, delivered

#265734