Marcel Lefebvre - Early Life and Ministry

Early Life and Ministry

Marcel Lefebvre was born in Tourcoing, Nord. He was the second son and third child of eight children of textile factory-owner René Lefebvre and Gabrielle, born Watine, who died in 1938. Marcel's father René died at age 62 in 1944 in the German concentration camp at Sonnenburg (in East Brandenburg, Germany), where he had been imprisoned by the Gestapo because of his work for the French Resistance and British Intelligence.

His parents were devout Catholics who brought their children to daily Mass. His father was an outspoken monarchist who ran a spy-ring for British Intelligence when Tourcoing was occupied by the Germans during World War I.

In 1923 Lefebvre began studies for the priesthood; at the insistence of his father he went to the French Seminary in Rome. He would later credit his conservative views to the rector, a Breton priest named Father Henri Le Floch. His studies were interrupted in 1926 and 1927 when he did his military service. On 25 May 1929 he was ordained deacon by Cardinal Basilio Pompilj in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. On 21 September 1929 he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop (soon to be Cardinal) Achille Liénart in Lille, the diocese in which he was incardinated. After ordination, he continued his studies in Rome, completing a doctorate in theology in July 1930.

In August 1930 Cardinal Liénart assigned Lefebvre to be assistant curate in a parish in Lomme, a suburb of Lille. Even before this, Lefebvre had already asked to be released for missionary duties as a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the cardinal insisted that he consider this for a year while he engaged in parish work in the Diocese of Lille. In July 1931 Liénart released Lefebvre from the diocese. In September Lefebvre entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly. A year later, on 8 September 1932, he took simple vows for a period of three years.

Lefebvre's first assignment as a Holy Ghost Father was as a professor at St. John's Seminary in Libreville, Gabon. In 1934 he was made rector of the seminary. On 28 September 1935 he made his perpetual vows. He served as superior of a number of missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Gabon. In October 1945 Lefebvre was ordered by the superior general to return to France and take up new duties as rector of the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary in Mortain.