Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers

His Excellency Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers
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
History Priestly ordination Date 29 July 1931 Episcopal consecration Consecrated by Ngô Đình Thục Date 7 May 1981 Place Toulon, France
Episcopal succession Bishops consecrated by Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as principal consecrator Günther Storck 30 April 1984 Robert McKenna 22 August 1986

Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers (25 October 1898 – 27 February 1988) was a French Catholic clergyman and theologian who was a member of the Dominican Order. He played a significant role in contemporary traditionalist Catholicism, both in his native France and in the wider Catholic world, especially in support of the Traditional Latin Mass. Having being an early adopter of sedevacantism, a theory claiming that Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) was not a legitimate Pope of the Catholic Church, he refined his position by 1979, creating the adjacent theory known as sedeprivationism, or the "Thesis of Cassiciacum", named after the journal from which it was first proposed.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1931, he was a Thomist theologian in France and was noted for his involvement in preperatory work for the dogmatic definition of the Assumption of Mary, officially defined and proclaimed as infallible doctrine by Pope Pius XII in 1950. He was involved in the theological controversies of the time and was an opponent of the emerging Nouvelle théologie, particulary against Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Henri de Lubac. During the early 1960s, he was a lecturer at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome and was also a member of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Concerned with the changes associated with the Second Vatican Council and the introduction of the New Order of Mass, he was one of the writers of the Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969 (also known as the Ottaviani Intervention), which the Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci sent to Paul VI, requesting clarification. This became a rallying point for those who favoured the Traditional Latin Mass against the changes. In 1971, supporting the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre he was the professor of theology at the Society of St. Pius X's International Seminary at Écône.

In 1981, he was consecrated a bishop by Ngô Đình Thục, Titular Archbishop of Bulla Regia, a Vietnamese clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. As the Vatican did not approve of this, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith claimed in 1983 that he had incurred "ipso facto, excommunication" as a consequence. Regardless, Guérard des Lauriers himself later consecrated as bishops two priest who also endorsed sedeprivationism; Günther Storck and Robert McKenna.

Biography

Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers was born near Paris, France, on 25 October 1898.

In 1921, he entered the Scuola Normale Superiore. He studied for two years in Rome, with Professor Tullio Levi-Civita.

In 1925, he entered the Order of Preachers. He entered the Dominican novitiate of Amiens in 1927. He made his profession in 1930.

He was a normalien and agrégé in mathematics.

Priesthood

In 1933, he became a professor of philosophy at the Dominican school of theology Le Saulchoir, in Belgium. In 1940, he received a doctorate in mathematics with thesis Sur les systèmes différentiels du second ordre qui admettent un groupe continu fini de transformations.

Under Pope Pius XII, he served as a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. Following the introduction of the New Order of Mass to replace the Traditional Latin Mass in 1969, Guérard des Lauriers was involved in writing the Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae, also known as the Ottaviani Intervention, named for Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.

Sedeprivationism

Des Lauriers supported the belief that the current state of the papacy, based on Paul VI allegedly teaching heresy in the context of the Magisterium, was that Paul VI could not be a true pope, being only pope materially and not formally. This position is known as the Thesis of Cassiciacum, which he first articulated in 1979 in an article entitled Le Séige apostolique est-il vacant? ("The Apostolic See: is it Vacant?"). This addressed the question of sedevacantism which had been raised by the Mexican priest Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga and his supporters some years earlier.

Episcopacy

On 7 May 1981, Guérard des Lauriers was privately consecrated a bishop in Toulon, France by Ngô Đình Thục, Titular Archbishop of Bulla Regia, a Vietnamese clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church who had begun to associate with sedevacantism. This was done without the permission of the local Vatican-alligned ordinary or the permission of John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła), who Guérard des Lauriers did not recognise as fully Pope. As a consequence of this, on 12 March 1983, the Vatican, through its representative Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a notification in which it announced that the Bishops which Archbishop Thục had consecrated had incurred "ipso facto, excommunication most specially reserved to the Apostolic See".

Guérard des Lauriers nonetheless purported to consecrate two bishops: Günther Storck (a German) on 30 April 1984, and Robert McKenna (an American) on 22 August 1986.

Death and legacy

Some leaders of anti-Modernist Catholic movements adhere to his Thesis of Cassiciacum: Bishop Geert Stuyver (a Belgian) of the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii (IMBC), and Bishop Donald Sanborn of the Roman Catholic Institute (RCI), among others.

Writings

By des Lauriers

• Le Saint-Esprit, âme de l'Eglise, Étiolles, Seine et Oise : Monastère de la Croix, 1948.
• Garabandal, S.l., 1965.
• Lettera ad un religioso di Simone Weil ; trad. di Mariella Bettarini. Risposta alla Lettera ad un religioso di Guérard des Lauriers ; trad. di Carmen Montesano (Lettre à un religieux), Torino : Borla, 1970.
• La Mathématique, les mathématiques, la mathématique moderne, Paris : Doin, 1972.
• Homélie (prononcée le 15 mai 1971 pour l'anniversaire de la mort de l'amiral de Penfentenyo de Kervéréguin), Versailles : R.O.C., 1973.
• La Charité de la vérité, Villegenon : Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, 1985.
• La Présence réelle du Verbe incarné dans les espèces consacrées, Villegenon : Sainte Jeanne d'Arc, 1987.

References

Bibliography

• de Blignières, Louis-Marie (2007). Le mystère de l'être: l'approche thomiste de Guérard des Lauriers : avec la traduction de tous les textes où saint Thomas traite de la "nature de l'être" (in French). Vrin. ISBN 2711619656.
• Chantin, Jean-Pierre (2001). Les Marges du christianisme (in French). Éditions Beauchesne. ISBN 2-7010-1418-2.
• Chiron, Yves (2022). Histoire des traditionalistes (in French). Tallandier. ISBN 9791021039407.
• Clifford, Catherine (2023). The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198813903.
• Luz, Frédéric (1995). Le soufre et l'encens : enquête sur les Églises parallèles et les évêques dissidents (in French). Claire Vigne. ISBN 2-84193-021-1.
• de Massia, Jean (2022). Théologie du sacrifice : la doctrine de saint Thomas d'Aquin et ses prolongements dans l'œuvre du père Guérard des Lauriers (in French). Pierre Téqui Edition. ISBN 978-2740324790.

Further reading

• Interview with Bp. Guerard des Lauriers about the Cassiciacum Thesis (Italian)
• Louis-Marie de Blignières, Le mystère de l'être. L'approche thomiste de Guérard des Lauriers, Paris, J. Vrin, 2008.