Bernard Tissier de Mallerais - SSPX Bishop

SSPX Bishop

After his episcopal consecration, Tissier de Mallerais continued in his position of Secretary General of the SSPX until 1996. In 1991, he consecrated Licínio Rangel as bishop for the Priestly Society of St. John Mary Vianney after the death of its founder, bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer.

In 1996, he was charged with writing a biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre; the work was published in 2002.

In that same year, the history professor Luc Perrin claimed that he "went as far as to consider the present Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church, casting serious doubts on the validity of the 'conciliar' priesthood, calling it a 'gnostic priesthood' (Homily of June 27, 2002)."

By a decree of 21 January 2009 (Protocol Number 126/2009), which was issued in response to a renewed request that Bishop Fellay made on behalf of all four bishops whom Lefebvre had consecrated on 30 June 1988, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, by the power expressly granted to him by Pope Benedict XVI, remitted the alleged automatic excommunication that they had thereby incurred, and expressed the wish that this would be followed speedily by full communion of the whole of the Society of Saint Pius X with the Church, thus bearing witness, by the proof of visible unity, to true loyalty and true recognition of the Pope's Magisterium and authority.

The canonical situation of three of the four bishops thus became the same as that of the other clergy of the Society, who are suspended a divinis. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais was never suspended a divinis, because he was ordained priest on June 29, 1975. The punishment of the Holy See hits priests ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre since July 1976 and a a divinis can never be retroactive.