Marcel Lefebvre

Who was Marcel Lefebvre?

Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.

In 1970, Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X. In 1988, against the expressed 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. In 2009, 18 years after Lefebvre's death, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the four surviving bishops at their request.