VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In the summer of 2003, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, reportedly told two priests in a private audience that he considered Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the priestly Society of St. Pius X, to be “the most important bishop of the 20th century with regard to the universal Church.”
LifeSiteNews was able to obtain a written recollection of these words by the German cardinal from one of the two priests present at that 30 minute long meeting in the Palazzo di San Uffizio.
In this conversation, Cardinal Ratzinger apparently honored Archbishop Lefebvre for his work for the Church and admitted that “from my current point of view, I have to agree with Archbishop Lefebvre in retrospect about having his own bishops.”
The entire recollection of Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks reads, as follows:
1) “It is hard to see what the Church owes to Archbishop Lefebvre, not just for his
‘African period,’ but also later for the Church as a whole. … I consider him to be the most important bishop of the 20th century with regard to the universal Church.”2. “Had the French episcopate at that time shown even a little more
Christian charity and fraternity towards Archbishop Lefebvre, things might have taken a different course…”3) “From my current point of view, I have to agree with Archbishop Lefebvre in retrospect about having his own bishops. Today after the experience of ’15 years of Ecclesia Dei’, it is clear that such a work as that of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X cannot simply be handed over to the diocesan bishops.”
In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre had consecrated four bishops without the approval of Rome. He had tried to work with the Vatican and receive their approval, but the obstacles seemed so high, he decided to go the way of disobedience. Among the grave reasons why Archbishop Lefebvre saw the need to consecrate his own bishops to continue his work for Tradition in the Church was his own growing age and, at the same time, the ecumenical 1986 Prayer Meeting in Assisi, at which a Buddha statue was placed on an altar in the presence of Pope John Paul II.
That Ratzinger said Lefebvre was the “most important bishop of the 20th century” is corroborated to some extent by what Bishop Schneider once told Edward Pentin: “Pope Benedict XVI once said about Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: ‘He was a great bishop of the Catholic Church.’
Bishop Athanasius Schneider spoke about the history of the SSPX in a July 2021 interview. He said that the Society was originally founded 50 years ago in Switzerland with the approval of the local bishop and of the Vatican, but later came “into conflict with the Vatican” for criticizing statements of the Second Vatican Council. They also wanted to celebrate only the Traditional Latin Mass, Schneider explained. The “mistrust” grew between the SSPX and the Vatican when the Pope would not approve their proposed four candidates for episcopal consecration. It was then clear to Lefebvre, Schneider continued, that the Holy See would not “approve” a future SSPX, with its “constructive” criticisms of some “expressions of Vatican II.”
