His Excellency Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers | |
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| Orders | |
| Ordination | 29 July 1931 |
| Consecration | 7 May 1981 by Ngô Đình Thục |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 October 1898 France |
| Died | 27 February 1988 (aged 89) Cosne-sur-Loire, France |
| Buried | Raveau, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Profession | Clergyman, theologian, lecturer |
Ordination history of Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers | |||||||||||||||
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Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers (25 October 1898 – 27 February 1988) was aFrenchCatholic clergyman and theologian who was a member of theDominican Order but was eventually excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He was involved in contemporarytraditionalist Catholicism, both inFrance and the wider world, especially in support of theTraditional Latin Mass. An early adopter ofsedevacantism, a theory claiming thatPope Paul VI was not a legitimate Pope, he changed his position by 1979, creating a new theory known assedeprivationism.[1]
Ordained to the priesthood in 1931, he was aThomist theologian in France and was noted for his involvement in preperatory work for the dogmatic definition of theAssumption of Mary, officially defined and proclaimed as infallible doctrine byPope Pius XII in 1950.[2][3] He was involved in the theological controversies of the time and was an opponent of the emergingNouvelle théologie, particulary againstPierre Teilhard de Chardin andHenri de Lubac.[3] During the early 1960s, he was a lecturer at thePontifical Lateran University in Rome and a member of thePontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas.[3]
Concerned with the changes associated with theSecond Vatican Council and the introduction of theNew Order of Mass, he was one of the writers of theShort Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969 (also known as theOttaviani Intervention), which the CardinalsAlfredo Ottaviani andAntonio Bacci sent to Paul VI, requesting clarification.[2][4] This became a rallying point for those who opposed these changes.
In 1971, he became a professor of theology at theSociety of St. Pius X'sInternational Seminary atÉcône.[2][5] In 1981, he was consecrated a bishop byNgô Đình Thục,Titular Archbishop of Bulla Regia, a Vietnamese clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican'sSacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith judged in 1983 that he had incurred "ipso facto excommunication" as a consequence.[6] Regardless, Guérard des Lauriers himself later consecrated as bishops two priest who also endorsed sedeprivationism;Günther Storck andRobert McKenna.
Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers was born nearParis,France, on 25 October 1898.[7]
In 1921, he entered theScuola Normale Superiore. He studied for two years in Rome, with ProfessorTullio Levi-Civita.[7] He was anormalien andagrégé in mathematics.[8]
In 1925, he entered theOrder of Preachers.[7] He entered the Dominicannovitiate ofAmiens in 1927. He made hisprofession in 1930.[7]
In 1933, he became a professor of philosophy at the Dominican school of theologyLe Saulchoir, in Belgium. In 1940, he received a doctorate in mathematics with thesisSur les systèmes différentiels du second ordre qui admettent un groupe continu fini de transformations.[9]
He served as a professor at thePontifical Lateran University in Rome.[10] Following the introduction of theNew Order of Mass to replace theTraditional Latin Mass in 1969, Guérard des Lauriers was involved in writing theShort Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae, also known as theOttaviani Intervention, named for CardinalAlfredo Ottaviani.[1]
Des Lauriers supported the belief that the current state of the papacy, based onPaul VI allegedly teachingheresy in the context of theMagisterium, was that Paul VI could not be a true pope, being only popematerially and not formally. This position is known assedeprivationism, or the "Thesis of Cassiciacum," which he first articulated in 1979 in an article entitledLe Séige apostolique est-il vacant? ("The Apostolic See: is it Vacant?").[1] This addressed the question ofsedevacantism which had been raised by the Mexican priest Fr.Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga and his supporters some years earlier.[1]
On 7 May 1981, Guérard des Lauriers was privately consecrated a bishop inToulon, France byNgô Đình Thục,Titular Archbishop of Bulla Regia, a Vietnamese clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church who had begun to associate withsedevacantism. This was done without the permission ofPope John Paul II, who Guérard des Lauriers did not recognize as a true pope. On 12 March 1983, the Vatican, through its representativeJoseph Ratzinger, prefect of theSacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a notification that the bishops consecrated by Archbishop Thục without John Paul II's permission had incurred "ipso facto, excommunication most specially reserved to the Apostolic See".[6]
Guérard des Lauriers nonetheless purported to consecrate at least two bishops:Günther Storck (a German) on 30 April 1984, andRobert McKenna (an American) on 22 August 1986.[11]
Some leaders of anti-Modernist Catholic movements adhere to his theory ofsedeprivationism[citation needed], including Bishop Geert Stuyver (a Belgian) of theIstituto Mater Boni Consilii (IMBC)[citation needed], BishopsDonald Sanborn, Joseph Selway, and Germán Fliess of the Roman Catholic Institute (RCI)[citation needed], and Bishop Robert Neville, potentially among others.[citation needed]
