The career of Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) began like a star in the ascendant: as a seminarian in Rome (1923-1930) he earned doctorates in philosophy and theology from the Gregorian University; after he was ordained a priest at the age of just 24 by the future Cardinal Lienart, he began his ministry as the second assistant priest at a working class parish but then changed direction and became a religious and a missionary with the Spiritans.

After entering the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (1932), he was sent to Africa, to Gabon, where he remained for 13 years: first as rector of a seminary, but then as head of various mission posts in the bush, such as Lambarene, where he made contact with Dr. Albert Schweitzer.

But in the aftermath of the war he was called back to France to direct the Spiritan scholasticate in Mortain (1945-1947), deep in the heart of Normandy.

Marcel Lefebvre grew up in a deeply Catholic family where his priestly vocation blossomed naturally. The need to give himself to God and to souls leads him to enter the seminary and become a priest.

Marcel Lefebvre was born in Tourcoing on November 29, 1905, the third of eight children, five of whom consecrated themselves to God: Rene and Marcel as priests and missionaries, Jeanne as a Sister of Our Lady of Reparation, Bernadette as a Holy Ghost Sister, and Christiane as a Carmelite. The father of that large family was an industrialist from northern France who died in a Nazi labor camp in 1944. The mother of the family, also a descendant of factory owners in northern France, was a Third Order Franciscan and a Red Cross nurse; she was able to combine good works with the interior life, offering to God both her difficulties and her accomplishments.

Young apostle

As an adolescent, Marcel too felt the need to give of himself. He rode through the streets of Tourcoing on his bicycle to visit the poor. He repainted the apartment of a paralyzed, impoverished clockmaker, found him some clients and thus transformed his life. An ardent desire to save souls burned in his heart. After mature reflection, he decided to become a priest.

Roman seminarian

After entering the French Seminary in Rome (1923-1930), on the via Santa Chiara, he became the fervent disciple of Fr. Henri Le Floch who, in his spiritual conferences, revealed to his pupils the providential role of the popes over the course of Church history, in particular the constant battle of the most recent Roman Pontiffs against the errors of their century: Liberalism, Socialism, Modernism. But what captured his attention most was the inaugural encyclical of Pope Pius X, E supremi apostolatus (1903), as well as his motto, “To restore all things in Christ”, which Marcel made the program of his priestly life.

Young Fr. Lefebvre was on fire for the social and political reign of Christ the King, as it is promoted by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas primas (1925). At the Gregorian University, he soon earned doctoral degrees in philosophy and theology, which testify to his in-depth knowledge of all matters pertaining to the science of God and of souls.

“He had a lofty intelligence in theology,” reports one of his confreres from the seminary; but another is careful to point out: “I didn’t have the impression he was an intellectual; he was more oriented towards practical things.”

At the French Seminary of Rome, he was in charge of the bookstore, whose profits went to the poor children of the catechism classes. He was also M.C. and fulfilled his functions gracefully. Pious without display, “he was an unassuming confrere, who made no noise at all.” His most ordinary actions were filled with a religious spirit and during his last year, his daily Mass was a model of modesty.
A strong personality

But, “he already had a strong personality with very determined and well-rooted convictions,” that he revealed when the healthy doctrine seemed to be at stake or when St. Thomas Aquinas’ position was attacked; and he knew how to defend them!

Admirable and formidable, that is the image we had of Fr. Marcel Lefebvre, said one of his fellow students. Admirable in his care for the Truth as it appeared to him, according to St. Thomas Aquinas. Formidable: the opinion of those who did not share his point of view did not matter! His faith defied the lovers of theological nuances. No, his was not an ‘accommodating’ temperament. The Lord had made him ‘like that’.

At the same time, he was an exquisitely kind seminarian, who enjoyed an unquestionable reputation for devotion and goodness. “He was a model for us, always smiling, always affable.”

"A young priest remarked that Archbishop Lefebvre 'beneath his affable and very courteous exterior, was inflexible in his ideas.'"

Fr. Bernard Boulanger, CSSp

Allow us to point out the contrast, already mentioned by witnesses, between his rooted convictions that won him the nickname sana doctrina petrificata (the healthy doctrine petrified!), and his affability and sense of organization that earned him an aura of amiability. What was the key to this troubling psychological duality? In reality, Marcel did not have a closed mind, but rather a strong will that made of him a man of convictions.

Curate in a working-class suburb

After he was ordained a priest on September 21, 1929, in his home diocese, he was appointed curate in a working-class suburb near Lille (1930-1931). On the Feast of Corpus Christi he convinced the pastor, Fr. Delahaye, to organize a public procession with the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of the town of Lomme, despite the threats of the Communists. Though happy to conduct his priestly ministry among simple souls, he nevertheless felt attracted to the religious life and the missionary apostolate. And so he entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1932.

Novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers

There, with profound joy, he learned the principles of spiritual life that he regretted not having acquired in a sufficiently didactic way in Rome. He was captivated by God’s love for mankind, manifested in the Incarnation and the sorrowful Passion of the Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ. He meditated on and assimilated the statement by St. John, from which he later derived his episcopal motto: “God is charity. By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by Him... And we have known and have believed the charity which God hath to us” (1 Jn 4:8-16)

“God is charity.” Now the essence of charity, the essential feature of love is to give oneself. Therefore the Spiritan Marcel Lefebvre, like the adolescent of earlier years, would give himself to souls so as to draw them to Jesus Christ, to God.

"We remained attached to all those beautiful papal encyclicals which showed us where the truth is, the sources of evil, the sources of errors, and what is bad in the world today".

Archbishop Marcel lefebvre

The career of Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) began like a star in the ascendant: as a seminarian in Rome (1923-1930) he earned doctorates in philosophy and theology from the Gregorian University; after he was ordained a priest at the age of just 24 by the future Cardinal Lienart, he began his ministry as the second assistant priest at a working class parish but then changed direction and became a religious and a missionary with the Spiritans.

After entering the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (1932), he was sent to Africa, to Gabon, where he remained for 13 years: first as rector of a seminary, but then as head of various mission posts in the bush, such as Lambarene, where he made contact with Dr. Albert Schweitzer.

But in the aftermath of the war he was called back to France to direct the Spiritan scholasticate in Mortain (1945-1947), deep in the heart of Normandy.

Nevertheless, Pope Pius XII reassigned him to Africa as Apostolic Vicar (1947), then as first Archbishop of Dakar (1955), in Senegal. As of 1948, the pope appointed him his apostolic delegate for French-speaking Africa (Morocco, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa and Madagascar).
Bishop of the Diocese of Tulle

After the death of Pius XII (1958), John XXIII put an end to his African duties, both diplomatic and pastoral, and appointed him bishop of the little Diocese of Tulle, in France (1962). But Marcel Lefebvre remained there only six months, since he was soon elected Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (1962-1968), which at that time had more than 5,000 members. Meanwhile, John XXIII appointed him Assistant at the Papal Throne and member of the Central Preparatory Commission for Vatican Council II.

Archbishop Lefebvre participated actively in Vatican II as a Council Father (1962-1965). He distinguished himself by organizing a group of Fathers who were determined to counteract the leaders of the liberal wing.

Society of St. Pius X

In 1968 he left office as superior general, preferring to submit his resignation rather than to support destructive reforms of religious life in his congregation. He was retired at the age of 63, but the following year he founded in Fribourg, Switzerland, an international seminary and then a priestly society which, although approved by the local ordinary, became a sign of contradiction. Paul VI later said of him: “Archbishop Lefebvre is the cross of my pontificate.”

After the Vatican sanctions against his priestly society (1975) and against him personally (1976), his work would have to live — it seemed — on the periphery of the Church. And yet the “forbidden Mass” that he celebrated in Lille in August 1976, attended by 10,000 laity, had enormous repercussions throughout the world. It popularized the “Iron Bishop”, the intrepid defender of the traditional Mass who opposed the reforms that were all over the map in the Church, emptying novitiates, seminaries and parish churches.

"That’s my vocation! Bishops exist in order to ordain priests. Bishops help the Church to expand, and this is how they serve as missionaries. For me it is most trying, I’m constantly worried, because I so dearly wish to give district superiors and the faithful good priests."

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre,

Econe, February 11, 1982

Consecrating bishops

In 1988 he ensured that his work of restoring the Catholic priesthood would continue by consecrating four bishops in Econe, even though Pope John Paul II had forbidden it. For that act he incurred the gravest of all ecclesiastical sanctions, which he deemed unjust, like all the previous attempts that were aimed exclusively at forcing him to abandon the good fight of the Faith, in the name of a misunderstood obedience.

He died in Martigny, Switzerland, on March 25, 1991, in profound peace, proud “to have handed on what I had received,” alluding to the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:3) which he had engraved on his tombstone.
Salvific work

What is the common thread running through the life of this non-conformist prelate who claimed never to have acted impulsively on the basis of his personal ideas? What is the force that impelled that obedient Roman Catholic churchman — Roman in mind and heart — to confront and contradict two popes? What is the unifying theme of his turbulent career? What sort of faith did that man have, who cited love for God, love for Jesus Christ and love for the Church as his reasons for taking such serious steps? Instead of considering him as the “rebel bishop”, should we not see him as a man led and guided by a providential plan for a salvific work?