Taking as her point of departure the reissue of Yves Congar’s La crise dans l’Église et Mgr Lefebvre, Noëlle Hausman recalls that the rupture involving the Society of Saint Pius X last July cannot be reduced primarily to liturgical, pastoral, or disciplinary questions. As early as 1976, Congar located the disagreement at the theological level, particularly in the understanding of the Church and of her living Tradition (Dei Verbum). The episcopal consecrations of July 2026 reveal the continuing persistence of this doctrinal conflict, already discernible in Archbishop Lefebvre’s positions at the Council. A rereading of Congar thus makes it possible to see that the crisis concerns above all the manner in which Catholic Tradition is to be received today in the light of Vatican II.
Yves Congar, La crise dans l’Église et Mgr Lefebvre, new ed., pref. by Bishop J.-P. Batut, Paris, Cerf, 2026, 142 pp., €12.00. ISBN 9782204181037.
This work, very much a document of its time (it was signed in December 1976), certainly deserved to be reissued. In it, the great Dominican ecclesiologist Yves Congar, writing in the manner of a fraternal conversation, sets out for Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre the theological and pastoral reasons for his disagreement with the prelate’s positions, following the priestly ordinations that resulted in Lefebvre’s suspension a divinis, after the Bishop of Fribourg had withdrawn the decree of canonical erection of the seminary at Écône.
I ‘The crux of the problem is theological’ (Saint Paul vi)
We are therefore still at the beginnings of the schism of 1988 (brought about by the episcopal consecrations of 30 June that year) and of the subsequent excommunications, renewed by the most recent episcopal consecrations of July 2026. The preface by Bishop Jean-Pierre Batut, Auxiliary Bishop of Toulouse, underscores the continuing relevance of Congar’s analysis: what is at issue is the conciliar Constitution Dei Verbum, with its renewed understanding of Tradition, to which, as is well known, Congar himself made a major contribution as a conciliar expert.
Dei Verbum recalled that the Tradition constituted by the apostolic preaching precedes Scripture, gives rise to it, and accompanies it. Thus, no. 8 presents a dynamic understanding of Tradition: it develops within the Church, since the understanding of the realities and the words handed down grows and deepens under the action of the Holy Spirit, whether through the contemplation and study undertaken by believers (that is, one might say, the role of theologians), through the intimate understanding of spiritual realities which they experience (that is, the saints), or through the proclamation of the Magisterium.
In the present booklet, unchanged from the 1976 edition, the author was once again attempting to enter into dialogue, while conceding all that the post-conciliar reform might have displayed by way of ‘regrettable defects’ and ‘unacceptable anarchy’, particularly in the liturgical sphere. Congar was also able to pay tribute to the work of the ‘tenacious minority’ (of which Archbishop Lefebvre was an early member), which compelled the Council to attain greater doctrinal precision (p. 104). Yet the Dominican theologian also made clear the depth of his own personal commitment:
Archbishop Lefebvre professes to act out of love for truth and for the Church. So do I. (p. 14)
I wish to gather up every particle of truth, wherever it may be found, with a care analogous to that with which I would gather up a particle of a consecrated Host. This is the theological or doctrinal dimension of ecumenism. (p. 62)
Many of today’s more or less troubling movements were already foreshadowed in the 1950s. (p. 79)
With even a little historical knowledge, the incomprehensible quarrel over the Mass could never have arisen. (p. 101)
The exchange of letters between Saint Paul vi and Marcel Lefebvre, reproduced at the end of the volume, is equally illuminating. For the Roman Pontiff, ‘the crux of the problem is theological’, and the ecclesiology involved is distorted on essential points (p. 126), since ‘the Church of all time is the Church of today’ (p. 131), whereas the prelate wishes to adhere to ‘everything that was believed and practised … before the (supposed) modernist influence of the Council (Vatican ii)’ (p. 115).
It should be recalled that, much earlier still, Congar had already provided the substance of his analysis under the title ‘Mentalité de droite et intégrisme’, as an appendix to the first edition of Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église (1950)1; the appendix was omitted from the revised edition of 1969, ‘as a gesture of peace towards the integralists’, as he wrote in 19762. Congar then added the following words, which are reproduced in the present edition:
What we are told about Archbishop Lefebvre’s formation [...], what we have learned about his activity in Dakar [...], what we heard and learned about him at the Council [...]3, the statements he has made since then, and the consistency of his writings and actions—all reveal in him a man of the Right whose outlook accorded with the positions of the former Action française4.
This fact is all the better documented today, since the young Lefebvre was a disciple and faithful admirer of his teacher, Fr Henri Le Floch, who was forced to relinquish his post as rector of the French Seminary in Rome because of his Maurrassian sympathies, at the time when Action française had just been condemned by Pius xi in 1926. Such were the antecedents.
II From specific opposition to definitive rejection
Archbishop Lefebvre, however, Archbishop of Synnada in Phrygia and at the same time Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, was not always an implacable opponent of the Council5; indeed, John xxiii appointed him to the Central Preparatory Commission responsible for coordinating preparations for the conciliar sessions. It was chiefly from the second session onwards that his positions became increasingly radical: opposition to episcopal collegiality, rejection of the right to religious freedom, and criticism of ecumenism. There was therefore nothing concerning the Mass: at the Council Archbishop Lefebvre never challenged the legitimacy of liturgical reform; indeed, he supported the wider use of the vernacular.
By 1964 and the third session, he had emerged as one of the leaders of the minority, and in particular, as noted above, of the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, which constituted the most conservative group at the Council (with Browne, Siri, Santos and Ruffini, and on very good terms with Ottaviani and Larraona). Archbishop Lefebvre therefore signed Sacrosanctum Concilium; and the minority tendency to which he belonged had received many assurances from Paul vi. Yet specific opposition was gradually to become definitive rejection. It bears repeating: what is at issue is the question of Tradition, rather more than that of liturgical reform, even though the latter eventually came to encapsulate all the grievances.
Where Lefebvre sees sacrilege (the Mass, it is claimed, has been denied as sacrifice, the Real Presence in the consecrated Host has been denied, the use of Latin as the sole and immutable language has been abandoned, and so forth)6, others respond in terms of fidelity to the Gospel. Ultimately, ‘what is this tradition to which all appeal in order to condemn one another?7’ One replies, ‘immutable truth8’; the other, ‘living Tradition’.
And this is precisely the position that Pope Leo xiv has recently developed in his important catecheses on Sacrosanctum Concilium:
The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium calls for the preservation of sound tradition while opening the way to legitimate progress. The Council affirms the legitimacy of such progress when rooted in authentic Tradition, distinguishing within the liturgy between what belongs to divine institution—and is therefore immutable—and what is capable of being changed9.
We may therefore maintain that the Council, before being an act of the Magisterium, is also and above all (as Fr Joseph Thomas has shown) ‘an act of Catholic tradition10’; which means that today the tradition preceding Vatican ii must be received in the light of Vatican ii, and not the other way round11. But do we know Vatican ii?
1. Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’Église, Unam Sanctam 20, Paris, Cerf, 1950, pp. 604–622; 2nd ed., 1969 (Unam Sanctam 72).
2. La Crise dans l’Église et Mgr Lefebvre, Paris, Cerf, 1976, p. 12. 2nd enlarged ed., 1977.
3. Marcel Lefebvre (who signed all the documents of the Council, despite his denials, and although Congar wrongly excepts the Declaration on Religious Freedom, p. 27) was one of the most active members of the Coetus Internationalis Patrum, the most important group within Vatican ii’s ‘conservative’ minority, numbering, according to the sources, between 100 and 250 members out of an average of 2,400 bishops in attendance.
4. La Crise dans l’Église et Mgr Lefebvre, 1976 ed. (cited n. 2), p. 15; here, pp. 22–23.
5. See L. Perrin, L’affaire Lefebvre. Histoire et analyse du schisme de 1988. Les enjeux d’une rébellion, Bref, Cerf, 1988, p. 60 ff.
6. See his vehement J’accuse le Concile, Éd. Saint-Gabriel, Martigny, 1976.
7. L. Perrin, L’affaire Lefebvre (cited n. 5), p. 82.
8. ‘It is because it belongs to the nature of the Church to be a tradition that she has always instinctively abhorred novelty, change and mutation, under whatever pretext they may be proposed’ (M. Lefebvre, J’accuse le Concile, cited n. 6, p. 112).
9. Leo xiv, Catecheses on Sacrosanctum Concilium, General Audiences beginning 20 May 2026; here, 27 May: ‘La réforme de la liturgie : tradition et évolution’.
10. J. Thomas, ‘Le schisme de Marcel Lefebvre’, Hors-Série Études, 2010, pp. 221–226 (reproducing his article in Études, September 1988).
11. G. Routhier, ‘Un concile à interpréter. Les enjeux d’un style nouveau’, Hors-Série Études, 2010, pp. 251–261, at p. 259.