LETTER FROM LAUSANNE

In late July the Sacred Congregation of Bishops, at the request of Pope Paul VI, suspended Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre a divinis—thus depriving the founder and superior of Ecône, the traditionalist seminary in Switzerland, of the right to say Mass or administer the Sacraments. In so doing, they took the last canonical step short of excommunication. And it might even come to that. Monsignor Lefebvre, for his part, has shown no sign of backing away from his position. He insists that he will celebrate a Latin Mass at Lille on August 29, as he had promised before the Pope acted. The Times of London reports a storm of protest among French Catholic traditionalists at the disciplining of the Archbishop and suggests that this “may be the starting point of a small breakaway church.”

Each move and countermove since the struggle began in November 1974 [see also “Ecône—A Symptom,” May 28, 1976] has only served to widen the breach between the two ill-matched contenders—the Vatican v. the Priestly Society of St. Pius X and its founder, Monsignor Lefebvre. By May of this year things had reached the point where Pope Paul dedicated a thousand words of his consistory speech to Monsignor Lefebvre, who, he said, “puts himself outside the Church,” and Monsignor Lefebvre was insisting that he would ordain his graduating seminarians even though ecclesiastical approval had been withdrawn from his seminary. This would mean that the new priests would be ordained without the usual papal blessing, and bishops would be ordered not to accept (incardinate) them.

MM

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Mary Martinez

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In late July the Sacred Congregation of Bishops, at the request of Pope Paul VI, suspended Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre a divinis—thus depriving the founder and superior of Ecône, the traditionalist seminary in Switzerland, of the right to say Mass or administer the Sacraments. In so doing, they took the last canonical step short of excommunication. And it might even come to that. Monsignor Lefebvre, for his part, has shown no sign of backing away from his position. He insists that he will celebrate a Latin Mass at Lille on August 29, as he had promised before the Pope acted. The Times of London reports a storm of protest among French Catholic traditionalists at the disciplining of the Archbishop and suggests that this “may be the starting point of a small breakaway church.”

Each move and countermove since the struggle began in November 1974 [see also “Ecône—A Symptom,” May 28, 1976] has only served to widen the breach between the two ill-matched contenders—the Vatican v. the Priestly Society of St. Pius X and its founder, Monsignor Lefebvre. By May of this year things had reached the point where Pope Paul dedicated a thousand words of his consistory speech to Monsignor Lefebvre, who, he said, “puts himself outside the Church,” and Monsignor Lefebvre was insisting that he would ordain his graduating seminarians even though ecclesiastical approval had been withdrawn from his seminary. This would mean that the new priests would be ordained without the usual papal blessing, and bishops would be ordered not to accept (incardinate) them.