Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 26, 1991 TAG: 9103260085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GENEVA LENGTH: Medium
The French-born leader of a traditionalist movement active in more than 20 countries throughout the world died of cancer at a hospital in Martigny, in western Switzerland. He had undergone surgery a week ago for a cancerous growth in the abdomen.
Martigny is near Lefebvre's seminary in the western Swiss city of Econe, where his movement was born more than two decades ago.
Lefebvre's followers reject most reforms decreed by the Second Vatican Council of 1963-65, and he contended that the "satanic influence" of modern trends were destroying the church.
Dismissing the Mass in local languages as "bastard rites," Lefebvre defiantly continued to celebrate Mass in the 16th-century Latin liturgy. His struggle with the Vatican culminated in 1988, when he consecrated four traditionalist bishops.
The Vatican condemned the ceremony as an act of schism, a formal break with the Holy See, leading to the automatic excommunication of Lefebvre and the four new bishops.
It was the first major split in the Roman Catholic church since the Old Catholics broke with Rome in 1870 because they opposed the doctrine of papal infallibility.
The consecration of the four bishops - British, French, Spanish and Swiss clergymen - was designed to ensure continuity of his movement, the St. Pius X Fraternity of Priests, named for the pope who condemned modernism in a 1907 encyclical.
Lefebvre resigned as titular head of his fraternity 1984, naming a German priest, the Rev. Franz Schmidberger, as new superior general.
A Vatican statement expressed sorrow about the death and said Pope John Paul II had been hoping "until the last moment" for a sign of repentance from Lefebvre that could heal the split.
The death seemed certain to stir new speculation that the Vatican and the traditionalists may reconcile their differences, especially since Schmidberger was not ejected from the church.
According to Schmidberger, the fraternity includes more than 200 priests, many ordained by Lefebvre. The fraternity's seminaries or theological schools in Switzerland, the United States, Australia and France report an enrollment of almost 300 students.
One year after the excommunications, a Vatican official said the movement was growing fast in the United States and expanding as well in France, Australia and South America.
Four days before his death, a Paris court convicted Lefebvre of defamation and incitement to racial hatred and fined him $1,500.
The conviction was in connection with remarks he made about Muslims at a 1989 news conference.
by CNB