Lefebvre abandons ship:

...In both respects, there is ample professional literature intimating how the exercise of authority facilitates secession, especially when authorities fail to exercise their power with conviction and consistency...

...Pius X priest...

...Archbishop Lefebvre's brand of integralist traditionalism- Catholicism's contemporary analogue to Protestant fundamentalism-provides yet another moment for reflection on the state of the church in the wake of a tumultuous quarter century of aggiornamento...

...According to media reports, Lefebvre's subsequent withdrawal from the May 5 agreement rose out of his suspicion that the Vatican was stalling (no date had been set for consecration...

...This initiative should be viewed, instead, as an olive branch geared to keeping Catholics out of the movement by accommodating disaffected conservatives who in the past have made up much of Lefebvre's rank and file...

...In fact, Lefebvre had made public his plan to consecrate successors as early as June 1987...

...Ultimately the collapse of the May negotiation revolved around the issues of power and authority, symbolized in Lefebvre's absolute unwillingness to relinquish control over his priestly fraternity to "modernist Rome...

...In his book, American Catholicism: And Now Where...

...On this latter point, the Econe affair illustrates that serious conflict among Catholics is not confined to the rank and file or to' 'dissenting" theologians, but exists also among those who are in positions to lead and define the role of the church...

...The archbishop, for his part, would recognize the legitimacy of the council and the authority of the pope-both of which he had spent nearly two decades publicly repudiating...

...The die had been cast...

...On the critical issue of a successor, Lefebvre was given permission to consecrate one traditionalist prelate...

...In a letter written ten months before the consecrations, Lefebvre had assured his four bishops-to-be that "Divine Providence" had mandated that he act to ensure successors- in light of the church's current bout of' 'universal decadence,'' the See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome now being "occupied by anti-Christs...

...The traditionalist movement is unlikely to grow dramatically...

...There is, after all, more than a modicum of truth to Lefebvre's assertion that he is different because he remained the same...

...In the context of a new ecumenical atmosphere in the church, Rome has had to disown one of its own-and one who, on many points of ecclesiology, liturgy, and in his analysis of the malaise in the church and contemporary culture, shares views compatible with some Vatican thinking...

...Claiming that he sensed that his own "end was near," Lefebvre insisted on the June 30 date...

...He also objected to the head count on the panel...

...He remained unyielding in his insistence on more than one episcopal successor, lest the society find itself vulnerable again with only a single bishop to insure its perpetuation...

...Another flurry of shuttle diplomacy commenced, including Cardinal Gagnon's four-week "visitation" (thirteen years after the Vatican's initial investigation) to Econe and, according to reports, the submission directly to the pope of a "favorable" assessment of the Society's work...

...Sect and/or cult-like religious movements are never as interesting in themselves as they are for the light they shed on the complex dialectics of religion, culture, and social change...

...In so doing, the French archbishop and his prelates incurred automatic excommunication, thereby creating the first official schism in the church since the separation of the Polish National Catholic Church of America at the turn of the century...

...A last minute appeal by Pope John Paul II "to renounce" his project, and a consecration-eve demand (comically derided by Lefebvre) that he' 'drive to Rome immediately" proved futile-like all previous attempts to placate Lefebvre...

...He had privately broached the subject with Cardinal Ratzinger several years earlier...

...Comparisons will no doubt be made between the Vatican's extraordinary efforts to reach rapprochement with Lefebvre and his supporters, and its shorter-fused, punitive response to the Catholic left...

...Furthermore, a movement claiming legitimacy as the Roman Catholic church based on the perception that the See of Peter is occupied by the "anti-Christ" is inherently self-limited...

...triumphalism, and other ecclesial and world-view orientations that long made Catholics aliens in the modern world...

...In taking the scalpel to himself and his supporters, Lefeb-vre's motives were both grandiose-he alone, through the instrumentality of his priestly fraternity, had acted to save the "true church" from apostasy...

...The Vatican position vis-a-vis Lefebvre and his traditionalist crusade has not been an enviable one...

...Speculation will also focus on whether Lefebvre's schismatic initiatives would have matured as they did had the response to the archbishop and his priestly fraternity been either more severe, or more lenient, from the beginning-depending on one's view of the matter...

...Differences over Vatican II-related documents were to be thrashed out by a panel of two Lefebvre followers and seven Vatican delegates...

...Sectarian movements of this nature have a well-established track record for further division and organizational dissipation...

...The two noteworthy aspects of the negotiations between Lefebvre and the Vatican this past year were the extraordinary lengths to which the Vatican went to accommodate a prelate who had threaded his dissent with "anti-Christ" rhetoric, and the archbishop's own brand of sectarian intransigence- highlighted by his repeated assertion that, regardless of what the Vatican did, his consecration of traditionalist prelates was "imminent...

...Lefebvre's last round of Vatican arm-twisting led to the signing of a protocol on May 5 granting official recognition to the society, semi-independence from diocesan bishops, and permission to continue use of the Tridentine liturgy...

...The effect of the off- again/on-again policy regarding the Tridentine liturgy in encouraging traditionalist recalcitrance will also be discussed...

...From remarks included in his June 30 consecration sermon, it can also be inferred that his French pride did not take kindly to Cardinal Ratzinger's purported demand that he repent "for his errors" before the ink had dried on the compromise...

...Nor is the trauma of change that initially galvanized the traditionalist movement as acute now as it was in the first decade following the council...

...Caution should be exercised here in distinguishing between individual dissent and that expressed in an organized juridical manner...

...Vatican efforts to accommodate traditionalist Catholics by relaxing the rules regarding use of the Tridentine Mass are obviously too late to dissuade Lefebvre and his hard-core constituents...

...In light of the archbishop's age, eighty-two, and declining health, the Vatican clearly viewed the 1987 warning with alarm...

...and pragmatic-he would not wish to leave his 300 plus seminarians ' 'orphans,'' nor would the other organizational initiatives of his petite eglise be brought to an end with the demise of the last Society of St...

...On June 30, defiant, self-assured, and pontificating against the influence of "modernism, socialism, and Zionism'' in the church, Lefebvre consecrated four of his own priests under a tent-church constructed in the shadow of his flagship seminary at Econe, Switzerland...

...The next issue published will be dated September 9, after which biweekly publication will be resumed...

...On the other hand, as I have suggested elsewhere (America, June 18,1988) rapprochement with Lefebvre would have implicitly legitimated repudiation of Vatican II, rewarded the rejection of aggiornamento, and discredited the church's own discipline and law by tolerating within it one who had flagrantly violated them...

...Plenum, 1987), John Deedy observed that in the Catholic experience, the word "traditional" was nearly synonymous with ' 'conservative.'' The events of the past month have helped to differentiate decisively these two terms...

...In a head-scratching twist of logic, Lefebvre ended his letter by admonishing his future bishops to "remain attached to the See of Peter...

...The more immediate issues raised by Lefebvre's schism are now somewhat prosaic: the enduring problems of unity and diversity, of doctrine and discipline, of Catholic identity, and the continuing crisis of authority in the church...

...Lefebvre's movement, as well as the Vatican's willingness to reach rapprochement with it, also points to the staying power of clericalism, In keeping with Commonweal's usual summer schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...

...William d. dinges William D. Dinges teaches in the religious education department at Catholic University in Washington, D.C...