Archbishop Lefebvre. Saint or heretic?

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In your view is Lefebvre a heretic or is he a defender of the faith?
 
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Right, because he’s either pure evil or the holiest person to walk this Earth since Christ. :roll_eyes:
 
He had good intentions, but he should not have ordained the bishops without permission.
 
This question more than likely will not lead anywhere good. As others have said, there’s a lot in between heretic and saint.
 
I think he had good intentions but a lot of pride. So I think of him as a priest that ended up being heretic while thinking he was being a Saint.
 
He’s a schismatic, but not a heretic since he professed all that the Church professed.
 
The OP’s terminology is faulty and proposes a false dichotomy. There’s so much in between. He doesn’t have to be one or the other.
 
I see him as a defender of the Faith. He witnessed the rise of modernism in the seminaries and fought for tradition. Did he make mistakes? Sure. But I think his heart was in the right place. He would be aghast at the Church’s situation today. What with the McCarrick horror story and the bishops still serving who covered for him, and the general confusion in the Church today.
 
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Why exactly would Pope John Paul ll not let him consecrate bishops when he had a valid reason to since his health was declining? It seems the Church wanted the Society to die along with him.
Was he disobedient before the consecrations in 1988?
 
Prodigal1984 said:
Why exactly would Pope John Paul ll not let him consecrate bishops when he had a valid reason to since his health was declining? It seems the Church wanted the Society to die along with him.
Was he disobedient before the consecrations in 1988?
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Because the Vatican was still vetting his recommendations and determining whether they had other options.

But Archbishop Lefebvre didn’t trust Pope John Paul II and/or didn’t trust members of the Roman Curia to insure SSPX seminarians would be ordained as priests after his death.

Archbishop Lefebvre feared that without a few SSPX bishops, Diocesan bishops and bishops in the Roman Curia would not ordained the men from the SSPX seminaries.

He viewed (rightly or wrongly) the delay on the part of the Vatican as a sign they were not willing to ordain an SSPX Bishop.
 
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Without going into his theology, Lefebvre showed the kind of obstinacy often related to heresy. That can be good in defense of the faith, not so good otherwise.

Whether “he professed all that the Church professed” is still a point of contention, and it is hard to see through all the bias in things about him. Only God knows what he was.
 
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