The International Seminary of Saint Pius X in

Écône Écône is an area in the municipality of Riddes, district of Martigny, in the canton of Valais, Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by It ...

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

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, is the premier

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

of the Roman Catholic traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). The seminary is one of the six houses for formation for the future priests of the Society of Saint Pius X. The Seminary was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and his tomb can be found there.

History

SSPX was founded, with the canonical approval of the

Bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of Fribourg, in 1970 by French

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Marcel Lefebvre, former Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers (1962-1968), a Father of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

and one of the best-known

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...

s in

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, where he spent much of his early pastoral ministry. He retired as head of the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1968 when the order began revisions of its constitutions, which Lefebvre considered

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. Shortly after his resignation, Archbishop Lefebvre was approached by seminarians from the French Seminary in

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who, he said, were being persecuted for their adherence to traditional beliefs and doctrines. They sought advice on a conservative seminary to complete their studies. He directed them to the University of Fribourg,

. In 1970, urged by the

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of Hauterive and the Dominican theologian and priest, Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe, to teach these seminarians personally, Lefebvre approached the Bishop of Fribourg, who, three months before resigning his see, approved, with a document predated by six days to 1 November 1970, the founding of SSPX at the level of a '' pia unio'', the preliminary stage towards becoming an officially recognized

religious institute In the Catholic Church, a religious institute is "a society in which members, according to proper law, pronounce public religious vows, vows, either perpetual or temporary which are to be renewed, however, when the period of time has elapsed, a ...

Society of Apostolic Life A society of apostolic life is a group of men or women within the Catholic Church who have come together for a specific purpose and live fraternally. It is regarded as a form of consecrated (or "religious") life. This type of organization ...

. Affluent Swiss laymen offered the seminary at

in Switzerland to the newly formed group. The seminary received a reputation as a "wildcat seminary" for its teaching of centuries old practices which were being abandoned in most other parts of the church. The statements made by two apostolic visitors to the seminary in November 1974 resulted in Lefebvre's "Declaration" as a rebuttal. At the seminary, in 1988, he consecrated four bishops without papal approval, an act by which he incurred

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in Koinonia, communion with other members o ...

'' latae sententiae''. Lefebvre resided in a private apartment on the property until his death in 1991 and is buried in a tomb nearby, which was visited by Cardinal Silvio Oddi in 1992.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Seminary of Saint Pius X Buildings and structures of the Society of Saint Pius X International Seminary of Saint Pius X Educational institutions established in 1970 Seminaries and theological colleges in Switzerland