Trad Godfathers at Vatican II: Lefebvre on the Eve of the Council

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Posted on 01/24/2025 4:14:52 PM PST by ebb tide

Towards a Better Understanding of the Second Vatican Council:
The Importance of studying the Cœtus Internationalis Patrum.

Read part I The Coetus: Trad Godfathers at Vatican II

Part II: What Did the Leading Members of Coetus Want Vatican II to Address?

The Case of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

When the progressives won their first procedural victory at Vatican II on November 21, 1962 (John XXIII withdrew the schema on Revelation that had been prepared before the council), a conservative resistance formed around Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre throughout the rest of that first conciliar session. It organized itself formally (though unofficially) during the second session, on October 2, 1963, and took the name Cœtus Internationalis Patrum (“International Group of Fathers”). We outlined its origins in the first part of this series, “The Coetus: Trad Godfathers at Vatican II.”

The members of the Coetus’s steering committee were (their titles and functions are those they held during the Council):

• Marcel Lefebvre, C.S.Sp. (1905-1991), Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, CIP cofounder and leader (28 interventions at the Council);
• Luigi Maria Carli (1914-1986), Bishop of Segni in Italy, a canon lawyer, who joined the CIP in October 1963 (56 interventions);
• Antonio de Castro Mayer (1904-1991), Bishop of Campos in Brazil, CIP cofounder (50 interventions);
• Geraldo de Proença Sigaud, SVD (1909-1999), Bishop of Diamantina in Brazil, CIP secretary (25 interventions);
• Jean Prou, OSB (1911-1999), Abbot of Solesmes and Superior of the French Congregation of Benedictines, early member of the CIP (35 interventions).

In the next few instalments we shall go back before the Council assembled and examine what issues these prelates wished Pope John XXIII’s Council to address, that is, what they deemed to be the pressing matters for the Church in the mid-twentieth century and what they hoped the Church might do to deal with them.^[1]

Pope John XXIII announced both a Roman Synod and an Ecumenical Council on January 25, 1959.^[2] Contrary to what one usually hears, in this announcement he expressed joy at the fruits and prodigies of spiritual elevation where the grace of Christ reigned and sadness at the misuse men were making of their liberty in ignoring heaven and refusing faith in Christ—under the inspiration of one whom the Gospels call the prince of darkness. (The Pope’s 1960 Roman Synod, moreover, which was meant to be a diocesan model for Vatican II, was rather“traditional” in its aims and methods. In the same vein, as Apostolic Nuncio to France 1944-1953, John XXIII (then Archbishop Angelo Roncalli) had decried the liturgical abuses he had witnessed in Paris (such as Mass said facing the people) and as pope he had issued an Apostolic Constitution in 1962 (the famous, though much-ignored, Veterum Sapientia) on giving Latin an even greater place in the Catholic Church.)

The first order of business was to establish an Antepreparatory Commission to lay the groundwork for the Council. On May 16, 1959, John XXIII put Cardinal Domenico Tardini, the Secretary of State, in charge of it along with ten other members plus, as its secretary, Msgr. Pericle Felici.^[3] The Commission’s remit was to obtain from the Catholic world its expectations for the Council. To do so, it solicited from the Catholic bishops their advice and suggestions. It also requested proposals from the dicasteries of the Roman Curia as well as the opinions of the theological and canonical colleges of the Catholic Universities. It gathered and analyzed these responses in order to work out the general outlines of the topics the Council would deal with, and to suggest the make-up of the different committees called to prepare the Council documents.^[4]

A month later, on June 18, 1959, Cardinal Tardini sent a letter to all the future Council Fathers. In it, he asked them kindly to communicate to the Antepreparatory Commission their vota (wishes) for the Council.^[5] The Cardinal’s letter asked the recipients to send in, “with complete freedom and candor the remarks, advice, and wishes” their pastoral concern and zeal for souls might suggest. The future Council Fathers were encouraged to address “certain points of doctrine or discipline of the clergy and of the faithful, or any other type of activity that the Church” was then developing, as well as “the more important problems the Church needs to address . . . in a word, anything Your Excellency will deem worthy of presenting and explaining.”^[6]

The future Council Fathers were given considerable leeway to develop their responses and to express what they considered to be the “important problems the Church needs to address.” This is why, as Roy-Lysencourt puts it, these “preconciliar vota constitute an excellent instrument to analyze the dispositions and ecclesiastical concerns of the future Conciliar Fathers on the eve of Vatican II.”^[7] In the particular case that interests us, it provides a look into the concerns of the members of the steering committee of the CIP before the Council’s proceedings turned them, as it were, into reactionaries.

Now while the concerns of these five men overlap, they cannot necessarily be shoe-horned into shared categories. They labored in different corners of the vineyard: Dom Prou, the intellectual monk-theologian, had very different concerns to those of the pastorally oriented Italian Bishop Carli. The Latin American bishops de Proença Sigaud and de Castro Meyer were far more attuned to the political stakes of the twentieth century (Communism looms large in their contributions) than their Western European counterparts. Archbishop Lefebvre’s concerns reflect his formation at the French seminary of Rome in the 1920s (the flagship of ultramontanism at the time) as well as his years of experience as a missionary: an emphasis on clear orthodoxy as well as a boots-on-the-ground practicality. In this instalment, we shall focus on the future leader of the CIP, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

I. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

At the time that he received his copy of Cardinal Tardini’s letter, Archbishop Lefebvre was undertaking a new assignment: he had just been relieved of his functions as Apostolic Delegate to French-speaking Africa (he received the news on July 22, 1959), and was now Archbishop of Dakar, a post he would hold until early 1962.^[8] The move and other details this entailed, as well as his intention not to dash off a few hasty lines but to provide a well-thought-out response, explain why he sent it as late as February 26, 1960, as he explained in the cover letter to Cardinal Tardini. ^[9]

Archbishop Lefebvre’s letter is articulated under six headings: a.) points of doctrine; b.) points of Canon Law; c.) points of social doctrine; d.) relations between the bishops and the Holy See and the Roman congregations (today we should say “dicasteries”); e.) seminary formation and the doctrinal and disciplinary deviations of clergy and religious; f.) miscellaneous issues.

a. Points of Doctrine

The first point of doctrine Archbishop Lefebvre was proposing for the Council, which well expresses the devotional outlook of the African prelate, was the definition of the universal mediatorship of Our Lady. For him, this would “constitute a great consolation for the hearts of all her children, who now more than ever feel the need to seek refuge in her maternal heart.”^[10]

Next, he also requested greater precision in the doctrine extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. He had read of theological writers proposing errors that would ruin the Church’s missionary zeal. Likewise he sought clarity for the proposition that “infidels, under certain conditions of faith and morals, can be saved through their ‘implicit desire for baptism’.” Lastly, he desired a determination on whether one may claim that Muslims worship the same God as Catholics do.^[11]

He also called for an explicit condemnation of the errors contained in Yves Congar’s 1953 study, Lay People in the Church: a Study for a Theology of Laity,^[12] and added that it would be “most opportune to destroy forever erroneous notions” on Catholic Action “that have caused considerable damage,” although he did not specify the errors he meant.^[13]

b. Points of Canon Law

Here the Archbishop of Dakar first focused on episcopal assemblies. He wished that the role and jurisdiction of assemblies “extending beyond the limits of an ecclesiastical province” should be defined very precisely. These assemblies, he proposed, should be far more limited in both the frequency of their meetings and the scope of their powers—indeed, he reckoned that such assemblies paralyzed the bishops. For him, more frequent meetings of provincial assemblies would be more fruitful. The effects of Paul VI’s 1966 motu proprio Apostolic Letter “Ecclesiae Sanctae,” which established national Episcopal Conferences for the purpose of implementing Vatican II, would prove Archbishop Lefebvre’s perspicacity.

His remaining canonical proposals all concerned streamlining processes: cases of matrimonial nullity ought to be processed more quickly; the regulation of ecclesiastical benefices ought to be simplified and adapted; the chapter of the Code of Canon Law on delicts and penalties should be simpler; the faculty for hearing confessions ought to be extended; the possibility of saying Mass in the evening ought to be extended.^[14]

All of these points of Canon Law reveal the apostolic zeal of a missionary impatient with a legal system that retarded the extension of the Kingdom of God into pagan and Muslim territory; one has to look at them from the point of view of the missionary in a remote station with a willing population who is tired of having to wait for Roman delays in granting urgent pastoral requests.

c. Points of Social Doctrine

Here Archbishop Lefebvre started from principles shared with the two Brazilian bishops of the future Coetus Internationalis Patrum, though without descending to the same level of detail. His principal concern was that the future Council should define “absolutely certain affirmations to form a basic social code for any society claiming to be Christian.”

The five affirmations he provided were of “truths being destroyed by Communism, Socialism, and liberal Capitalism”: 1. society as God wills it will always include an organic unity in which there are, as there are within the family, diverse members unequal in their rights and duties; 2. this organic diversity is vitally necessary for the exercise of justice and charity; 3. this God-willed diversity condemns both exploitative selfishness and hate-fostering discord that claims the necessity of struggle; 4. private property legitimately acquired and charitably managed is natural and willed by God; 5. the family as established by God does not give the same rights and duties to husband and to wife, or to the children. . . .^[15]

d. Relations Between the Bishops and the Holy See and Roman Congregations

Here again, the missionary archbishop’s practicality comes out. Years of working under the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (since 2022 folded into the Dicastery for Evangelization) had taught him its inefficiencies; he bluntly stated: “It seems to me quite inadequate for its immense task.”^[16]

Furthermore, even what business it did, it did poorly. The archbishop complained:

Apostolic delegates ought to be received in a long and methodical audience, as happens in study commissions. As it is, one is listened to as would be any seminarian from wherever. . . . Serious matters are not really studied. . . .^[17]

Lastly, the Congregation’s financial officer simply would not hear of any of the pecuniary needs in the missions, with the result that “Africa for example now finds itself bereft of truly well-formed, staunchly Catholic intellectual elites, aside from a few exceptions due to the tenacity of a relentless struggle to obtain funds for such endeavors.”^[18] Clearly, the archbishop was the one who had been tenacious in such struggles.

As a remedy Archbishop Lefebvre proposed a root-and-branch reorganization: rather than there being a single, overworked secretary burdened with rounds of visits to nuncios and delegates, not to mention the many religious congregations, there ought to be sections led by undersecretaries for each continent (Africa, Asia, the Americas . . .). Only bishops, superiors general, apostolic delegates, and nuncios should have interviews with the secretary and cardinal prefect.

e. Seminary Formation and Doctrinal and Disciplinary Deviations

Under this rubric we find the topic that was to inform Archbishop Lefebvre’s postconciliar career. He first stated his observation that priests and religious were teaching manifest errors in the social, liturgical, and even dogmatic fields, and decried the laxity of morals among the clergy. He saw two causes to this state of affairs: the poor choice of bishops, who tended to operate according to “considerations that are foreign to the Church,”^[19] and the classes taught in houses of formation without the use of manuals. The reason for which manuals are important, added the archbishop, is that they “allow the bishops to monitor what is being taught.”^[20] In fact, Archbishop Lefebvre wished to see new manuals based on St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, as well as the teaching of philosophy with a view to understanding dogmas and the Summa “to avoid the dichotomy between faith and reason.”

Archbishop Lefebvre also proposed that Sacred Scripture be taught more “pastorally,” meaning with a view to preaching and for “a truly Christian interior life.”

All of this had to be accompanied by the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline in the seminaries and the renewal of discipline among the clergy.^[21]

f. Miscellaneous Issues

Here are the other issues that Archbishop Lefebvre thought the Council should tackle:

• The Breviary: while it “ought to retain its importance as public prayer, as well as its structure of Psalms and Lessons,” he proposed the shortening of some historical lessons and that some doubles be reduced to simples.
• Clerical celibacy: it is “indispensable for the holiness and selflessness of the priesthood and its efficacy”; it was not to be questioned despite “the increase in distressing situations.”
• The cassock: it ought to be recommended, if not obligatory, “where the custom is to wear it.” On the other hand, the African archbishop indicated that wearing a simple outward sign of the priesthood, for example a cross worn on their clothes, might be “a convenient solution” for priests. He went so far as to say: “[i]f such a sign were universally accepted as specifying the Catholic priest, it would, in my opinion, be of appreciable advantage and would render the costume quite indifferent.”^[22] Such a statement surprises us today from the stalwart that was Archbishop Lefebvre in essentials, and indeed he knew that his Roman readers might balk at this avant-garde suggestion; he added: “but it is probably still too early to adopt such a solution.” Yet this solution would, in fact, be that which the French bishops adopted, by first permitting the “clergyman suit” in 1962 and later the grey suit with crucifix on the lapel.^[23] By then, Archbishop Lefebvre, having better gauged the conditions on the ground in France as Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, changed his mind and wrote a circular letter to the members of his congregation on wearing the cassock that earned him the congratulations of Cardinal Ottaviani.^[24]
• The Church: for Archbishop Lefebvre, a bishop ought to know his flock. He recommended that there should be a bishop for every 400 to 500 priests and for no more than 200,000 Catholics.
• Lastly, he favored a formalization of the instruction of catechumens and their progress towards baptism. He saw such progression of ceremonies along with instruction and initiation as “favoring the perseverance of catechumens and their formation.”^[25]

Assessment

With few exceptions, these vota conform to the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who would rise against the increasingly progressive orientation of the Council proceedings and go on to resist unofficial and official post-Conciliar abuses. His request for the definition of Our Lady as Mediatrix and of the axiom extra Ecclesiam nulla salus as well as his specific call for the condemnation of some of Yves Congar’s views ring true to the founder of the SSPX and author of Religious Liberty Questioned (Angelus, 2002), I Accuse the Council (Angelus 1982), and Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Angelus, 1986) among other works.

The vota also reflect the pastoral zeal of an experienced missionary who had overseen the conversion of a continent. The relevant Roman congregation could not keep up with his remarkable success,^[26] and Archbishop Lefebvre’s proposals were for an efficient administration: faster annulment procedures, simplified assignment of benefices, a lower ratio of faithful and priests to bishops. Likewise, he proposed solutions to what he perceived to have retarded the work of his missionaries in Africa: broader faculties to hear confessions; more evening Masses; a shorter Office;  simplified clerical costume. While he did evolve with respect to the last item once he had taken the full measure of where conciliar reforms were leading, he maintained his practical spirit throughout his life and it abides yet among his sons in the simplicity of their approach to clerical dress (no fringe on the fascia, reluctance to wear the biretta) and to the liturgy (1962 Missal).

In this last respect, Archbishop Lefebvre’s palpable impatience with ecclesiastical red tape as an impediment to the work that must be done came out after the Council in his cavalier attitude towards protocol and procedure when he perceived that the good of souls was at stake. Fr. Bryan Houghton, a principled English priest who retired to Southern France to avoid having to say the order of Mass promulgated by Paul VI, relates the following encounter. It took place within the diocese of Marseilles in July 1973 right after minor orders and confirmations, the latter allegedly sprung on Lefebvre at the last minute:

I asked him [viz. Lefebvre] if he had got permission from the bishop of Marseilles “for all those confirmations you have done?”

“Of course not! I did not even know that I should be expected to confirm. But, when all these good parents turned up, what can one do but confirm their children?”

But I suspect that he must have had a very shrewd idea that he was going to be asked to confirm. . . .

“Do you require that your secretary notify the place of baptism of the children whom you have confirmed?”

“Of course not. Dom Gérard keeps a register and issues certificates to the parents. That is quite enough!”^[27]

From the point of view of both doctrine and organization, Lefebvre’s perspicacity allowed him to glimpse problems that would beset the Church if the wrong decisions were made. He saw Congar coming, of course, but also perceived the oppressive role the national Conferences of Bishops would assume in enforcing conciliar consensus upon gelded bishops.

Likewise, his assessment of doctrinal deviations in seminaries—few bishops seem to have gauged the gravity of the situation at the time—give Lefebvre a prophetic cast, as the briefest survey of their post-conciliar outgrowths and fruits illustrates.

Lastly, Lefebvre understood that personnel is policy: he perceived what ruin a poor choice of bishops could provoke. A look at the disastrous roster of bishops appointed in the USA under the nunciature of Archbishop Jean Jadot (Nuncio 1973–1980) or in France under that of Archbishop Egano Righi-Lambertini (1969–1979)^[28] and the leaden years (the French call them “les années de plomb”) these bishops imposed on their jurisdictions again confirm Lefebvre’s sound judgement.

The same can be said of the failure to form African Catholic elites. It is commonplace to bemoan the premature withdrawal of the European empires from their African colonies; it left the newly independent nations without the proper administrative personnel, and they spiraled into mismanagement and corruption. Those elites that did rise after independence have tended to join the Freemasons.^[29] Lefebvre had foreseen this, too.

In the words of Philippe Roy-Lysencourt, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre showed himself to be “a missionary prelate, a man of doctrine, but also a pragmatic man concerned with practical adaptations and updates.”^[30]

^[1] Once again, we are nearly entirely indebted to the work of French-Canadian historian Philippe Roy-Lysencourt, in this instance to his Les Vota préconciliaires des dirigeants du Cœtus Internationalis Patrum, Collection “Concile Vatican II,” 1 (Institut d’Étude du Christianisme, 2015).

^[2] John XXIII, Sollemnis Allocutio ad Em̃os Patres Cardinales in Urbe Praesentes Habita (January 25, 1959), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 51.2 (February 1959): 65–69. “As soon as John XXIII was elected on October 28, 1958, as the conclave was about the end, Cardinals Ruffini and Ottaviani, who instigated the project for a council that was discussed under Pius XII’s pontificate, suggested it to the new Pope,” Yves Chiron, Between Rome and Rebellion: A History of Catholic Traditionalism With Special Attention to France (Amgelico, 2024), 109. Ruffini and Ottaviani would be CIP sympathizers during the Council.

^[3] “Pope Picks Group to Plan Council,” The New York Times (May 17, 1959): 2.

^[4] Acta et Documenta Concilio Œcumenico Vaticano apparando (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1960) 1.1.22–23. Henceforth AD.

^[5] The French version of this letter as received by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is preserved at the SSPX seminary he founded at Écône.

^[6] Archives du Séminaire d’Écône (ASE), Marcel Lefebvre collection, E02-01, quoted in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 11.

^[7] Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 11.

^[8] B. Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, trans. Brian Sudlow (Angelus Press, 2004), 232–35.

^[9] “Je répugnais à envoyer quelques lignes hâtivement rédigées, persuadé de l’importance de ce que Votre Éminence nous demandait.” AD 1.2.5, 47–48 in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 14.

^[10] AD 1.2.5, 48, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 15. Vatican II, Dogmatic Consitution on the Church “Lumen gentium” no. 62 lists Our Lady’s titles: “Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix.”

^[11] Ibid. Dakar, Senegal, was a majority Muslim region.

^[12] Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church: a Study for a Theology of Laity  (G. Chapman, 1957), originally Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Cerf, 1953).

^[13] AD 1.2.5, 48, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 15. Lefebvre and Congar were engaged in a dance for the rest of their lives: Lefebvre would complain about Congar’s activity at the Council (Tissier, 296) and Congar would write a book about Lefebvre: Challenge to the Church: the Case of Archbishop Lefebvre (Collins, 1977), originally La crise dans l’Église et Mgr. Lefebvre (Cerf, 1976).

^[14] AD 1.2.5, 48–50, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 16.

^[15] AD 1.2.5, 50, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 17.

^[16] “Elle me paraît bien inadaptée à l’immense tâche qui lui incombe,” AD 1.2.5, 50–51, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 17.

^[17] “Les Délégués Apostoliques devraient être entendus longuement et méthodiquement, comme en commission d’études. Or il [sic] est entendu comme un séminariste de n’importe quelle provenance. . . . Les question graves ne sont pas vraiment étudiées,” ibid.

^[18] “L’Afrique par exemple se trouve maintenant démunie d’élites intellectuelles catholiques vraiment formées et convaincues, sauf quelques exceptions dues à la ténacité d’une lutte pour avoir quelques fonds destinés à ces œuvres,” ibid., 18.

^[19] “[D]es considérations étrangères à l’Église,” AD 1.2.5, 51, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 18.

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] “Si cet insigne était admis universellement comme spécifiant le prêtre catholique, ce serait à mon sens, d’un avantage appréciable et rendrait assez indifférent le costume,” AD 1.2.5, 53, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 19.

^[23] In March of that year the Assembly of the Cardinals and Archbishops of France could not reach an agreement, but on June 29 Cardinal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, gave the go ahead for his priests while maintaining that “Clerics are absolutely forbidden to wear civilian clothes.” Jean Mercier, “L’Habit de lumière,” La Vie (June 29, 2012). After that, there was no question of maintaining the cassock anywhere in France.

^[24] Tissier, 360–61.

^[25] AD 1.2.5, 53–53, in Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 19.

^[26] The statistical charts tracking the growth in the numbers of the baptized (2,513,073 to 3,956,298: +157.4%) and of missionary clergy and religious (European: 3,168 to 6,198: +195.6%; indigenous: 1,264 to 2,025: +160.2%) in the Apostlic Delegation of Dakar under Marcel Lefebvre’s (1948–1958) are edifying. See Tissier, 220, 223.

^[27] Bryan Houghton, Unwanted Priest. The Autobiography of a Latin Mass Exile (Angelico, 2022), 140–141.

^[28] French theologian Louis Bouyer, C.O., declined an invitation to meet Paul VI, who admired him, in the summer of 1978 for that reason: “I declined the honor and the pleasure he wished to give me: . . .  I confess especially, some of the recent episcopal nominations in France seemed deplorable to me. I feared that a conversation between us on that theme, which would be difficult to avoid, might become rather unpleasant to say the least.” The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer: From Youth and Conversion to Vatican II, the Liturgical Reform, and After (Angelico, 2015), 251.

^[29] See Claude Wauthier, “L’Étrange influence des francs-maçons en Afrique francophone,” Le Monde diplomatique (September 1997): 6–7: “Freemasonry is singularly present in French-speaking Africa. . . . In Senegal, Freemasons can be found in all spheres of power,” (“[L]a franc-maçonnerie est singulièrement présente en Afrique francophone. . . . Au Sénégal, on trouve des francs-maçons dans les sphères du pouvoir. . . .”).

^[30] Roy-Lysencourt, Les Vota, 20.@media (max-width: 1200px) {

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Next, he (Archbishop Lefebvre+) also requested greater precision in the doctrine extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. He had read of theological writers proposing errors that would ruin the Church’s missionary zeal. Likewise he sought clarity for the proposition that “infidels, under certain conditions of faith and morals, can be saved through their ‘implicit desire for baptism’.” Lastly, he desired a determination on whether one may claim that Muslims worship the same God as Catholics do.^[11]

1 posted on 01/24/2025 4:14:52 PM PST by ebb tide

To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

2 posted on 01/24/2025 4:15:30 PM PST by ebb tide (The Synodal "church" is not the Catholic Church.)

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