Letter of Mgr. Lefebvre to the Sovereign Pontiff
12 January 1979
Holy Father,
Acting on the desire expressed during the audience that Your Holiness kindly granted me, I responded to Cardinal Seper’s invitation after asking him for information about the way the interviews would be conducted.
I was hoping that there would be private interviews, and not a procedure like a regular trial. But, to my surprise, I was not allowed to have a witness, though I was faced with six persons, five of them interrogators. I was told it was just a question of finding facts, but I learned from the statements of the Director of the Vatican Press Office that the facts were be submitted to Cardinals who would pass judgment and come to a decision which would be submitted to you for approval.
All that seems to me to be on the lines of what was done to me before, all the more as the Cardinals who condemned me are once more to be the judges.
For that reason I appeal to You, Holy Father, to study the procés-verbal signed by His Eminence Cardinal Seper and myself and make your own judgment on it.
I cannot doubt that a solution is possible, with the grace of God; but I am afraid that the decision of the Cardinals who have already condemned me would make any solution impossible.
I do not know if the letter I sent Your Holiness on Christmas Eve reached you, so I enclose a copy of it, and also a copy of the letter I sent to His Eminence Cardinal Seper.
I beg Your Holiness to accept the homage of my filial devotion in Christ and Mary.
Marcel Lefebvre
formerly Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle
Holy Father,
Acting on the desire expressed during the audience that Your Holiness kindly granted me, I responded to Cardinal Seper’s invitation after asking him for information about the way the interviews would be conducted.
I was hoping that there would be private interviews, and not a procedure like a regular trial. But, to my surprise, I was not allowed to have a witness, though I was faced with six persons, five of them interrogators. I was told it was just a question of finding facts, but I learned from the statements of the Director of the Vatican Press Office that the facts were be submitted to Cardinals who would pass judgment and come to a decision which would be submitted to you for approval.
All that seems to me to be on the lines of what was done to me before, all the more as the Cardinals who condemned me are once more to be the judges.
For that reason I appeal to You, Holy Father, to study the procés-verbal signed by His Eminence Cardinal Seper and myself and make your own judgment on it.
I cannot doubt that a solution is possible, with the grace of God; but I am afraid that the decision of the Cardinals who have already condemned me would make any solution impossible.
I do not know if the letter I sent Your Holiness on Christmas Eve reached you, so I enclose a copy of it, and also a copy of the letter I sent to His Eminence Cardinal Seper.
I beg Your Holiness to accept the homage of my filial devotion in Christ and Mary.
Marcel Lefebvre
formerly Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle
