Incensed by “Protestant” Mass

The reforms in the traditional Catholic liturgy brought about by Vatican II are a particularly sore subject to Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers. The rebel prelate considers such reforms to have “Protestantized” the Mass. It is not just the question of using modern languages instead of Latin; Lefebvre feels that too much has been modified with a view to attracting the Protestants and that even in Latin the liturgy approved by Pope Paul VI is “heretical.”

To ensure the continuity of the traditional Latin Mass, Archbishop Lefebvre set up a seminary at Ecône, Switzerland, in 1970. It was administered by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, which Lefebvre founded the same year. As his movement gathered momentum, he established other conservative Catholic seminaries in Europe and the Americas. There hundreds of young men receive ultraconservative training for the priesthood.

The rebel prelate has ordained well over 200 traditionalist priests, although forbidden to do so by Pope Paul VI in 1976. These celebrate Latin Mass in priories and illegally occupied Catholic churches.a The Vatican admits that Lefebvre has about a hundred thousand militant traditionalist followers throughout the world, but other church officials concede that the number is closer to half a million. Lefebvre himself claims that millions of Catholics share his views.

The Need for a Successor

In the Catholic Church, a bishop can ordain priests. However, only the pope can approve the ordination of a bishop. For want of a bishop to ordain new priests, the elderly Lefebvre realized that his Priestly Fraternity risked dying out after his death. Apparently hoping that this would happen, the Vatican entered into protracted negotiations with him, eventually issuing an ultimatum. Either he would accept the ordination of a Vatican-approved bishop or if he proceeded to ordain a bishop himself, he would be excommunicated.

On June 30, 1988, at a ceremony attended by thousands of his followers, the rebel prelate consecrated four traditionalist bishops. The Paris daily International Herald Tribune reported: “Archbishop Lefebvre’s consecration of the four bishops cast a shadow over a Vatican consistory in which the pope elevated 24 bishops to the College of Cardinals. The Vatican canceled a special concert in order to register its ‘deep pain’ over Archbishop Lefebvre’s action. ‘It is a day of mourning,’ [French] Cardinal Decourtray said.”

Not only has this schism within the Catholic Church caused pain in the Vatican but it has left millions of sincere Catholics throughout the world perplexed and confused.

1988: Schism of Archbishop Lefebvre, who “initiated schism in the Catholic Church by his defiance of the Pope and the spirit of the second Vatican Council . . . who regards Protestants as heretical, who sees ecumenism as the work of the devil, and who is willing to die excommunicate rather than be reconciled to a ‘modernist’ Church.”​—Catholic Herald.