On reflection, this is not an exaggeration. I’m trying to come up with another. Maybe not even Fulton Sheen.
From 2021, but who cares?
The whole thing is at LifeSite:
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.’
[…]
There’s more.
Loading ...
This is dated 3rd December 2021… I don’t recall hearing about back then…. why now…???
Call to action Ecclesia Dei communities..???
I suppose this refers to a bishop who didn’t become pope and is important as a positive influence on the Catholic Church as a whole.
Negatively important bishops of the 20th century who didn’t become pope is another interesting question, at least historically.
Along with several other bishops who did not waiver after the new mass was imposed (and even before), I think Archbishop Lefebrve saved the Church.
Because of what I saw the prayer book did to the Episcopal Church, I would have not become a Catholic if I had never found a Latin Mass. After our first Latin Mass my oldest daughter said, “Wow, these people take Church seriously!”
Thanks for this!
I do not remember seeing it in December 2021. I wonder what the most efficient way would be to discover ‘the rest of the story’ (including the identities of the two priests and the language(s) in which they were conversing). If one could easily survey all of Dr. Hickson’s LifeSiteNews contributions between then and now, that would still be quite an undertaking. That leaves me wondering how easy it might be to contact her and ask?
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 retrospect, considering how ready Pope Francis was to remove bishops for little things that weren’t really wrong nor contrary to Vatican orders, thus demonstrating the power of the pope to act on bishops, it is clear that both Pope Paul and Pope JPII dismally failed to remove bishops who were failing their obligations in massive and obvious ways. For Paul VI, he obviously refused to rein in bishops who were flouting all sorts of rules on the mass (for one simple example, communion in the hand: those who started it were OBVIOUSLY in grave violation of law, custom, and sense), refusing to use the power of the papacy to correct erring bishops and to depose those who would not change. Paul SHOULD have taken names of bishops) who were asking for the Church to change the rule, and used that list to start the chopping block (also to never allow any of those bishops’ priests to reach the bishopric.) JPII followed the same track on the same abuses. (And he should have done the same name-taking about the bishops who wanted girl altar boys.) Then JPII, even after Eccelesia Dei was issued, refused to use the power of the papacy to correct the (hundreds!) of bishops who outright rejected his directive to be GENEROUS in granting indults for trad masses, so that a mere pittance were granted, and so that under his “care” the Ecclesia Dei Commission was limited to only addressing a tiny fraction of the worst cases of abusive bishops. Not to mention, JPII had all the authority needed to have issued Summorum Pontificum himself.
While I agree with Benedict’s wretched assessment of the bishops’ responses to Ecclesia Dei, some of the blame must also run to the top leadership as well: they were appointing and promoting the very men who were leaders in this revolt against tradition.
Important as in “positively important”?
So, Popes don’t count?
If not, yes, I too cannot think of one more important.
If Popes do count being after all bishops, well, Popes St. Pius X (after whom he named his Fraternity), St. Paul VI (see specifically next sections) and, at least if you count not only “interior Church business” as it were, but also impact on the world, Pope St. John Paul II were more important. (Possibly also the other Popes.)
As the dear Fr Reader observed, important does not necessarily mean “positively important”. We can find things to find fault with in Archbishop Lefebvre, such as his rashness in using the expression “eternal Rome, etc.” which he found fault with himself. – What was Pope St. Pius X important for? The combat against Modernism; to make receiving Holy Communion the normal thing to do for a Catholic not in mortal sin when attending Mass; starting to codify Canon Law; starting a major revision, after more than 400 years of really just growing with the times, to the Roman Liturgy. We might even here think some of them as something of a mixed bag. But whatever any dispute about that might be, there is no dispute that they are important. (Nor, here, that he was a saintly man.) (To clarify, I personally would take his side in the second of these issues and subscribe at lease to a “something probably had better be done” for the latter – but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the issue.)
We might disagree even more with Pope St. Paul VI, but the post-Conciliar upheaval really was important
I meant more than 300 years, not 400 (or more specifically, since 1570).
Oh, I might add Pope Ven. Pius XII: a bit for the dogma of the Assumption and for getting the terrible job of steering the Church through World War II, with all it implied, done without major flaw; but perhaps even more so because under his Papacy the Church came to terms with both Biblical-Criticism, and Science. The encyclical Humani generis is a masterpiece, and perhaps the most important of the century. (Well, Pascendi, Veritatis Splendor and Quas primas might compete, but still.)