Pardon for Lefebvre raised

by our Rome correspondent
THERE was speculation in Rome this week oI a P l h ti m °us p
Archbishop arcealuiL7feb for
e,
who died on April 2 in a Swiss clinic.
And it heightened following statements to a Rome daily by Lefebvre's "successor", the Superior General of the traditionalist St Pius X Fraternity, Franz Schmidberger.
"Mgr Lefebvre did not make
me a bishop because he did not want to give the impression that he intended creating a parallel cnehguorticahtinnsliweerer etol I stilt riltaat ii
gain after this death, my not being a Mgr chrn
bishop mightefacilitaterled. sai1 h in gs" . But in a new challenge to the Vatican, he highlighted Rome's alleged "ambiguity " %vial regard to the rebel founder of the fraternity. He was referring to the reported anointment of the archbishop's body by the Apostolic Nuncio to Berne, Archbishop Edward Rondo, together with the Bishop of Sion, the Swiss diocese where the fraternity has its headquarters.
Mgr Schmidberger also claimed that a leading cardinal had told him that Vatican II would have to be reviewed and that the Lefebvrist fraternity "would have to collaborate".
Mgr Schmidberger stressed that nothing would change and warned that in June, three years after Archbishop Lefebvre's excommunication for consecrating four bishops, the fraternity would ordain 16 priests. He said the average annual turn-out from the fraternity's estimated 70 seminaries would be 25 over the next few years.
He reiterated his proposal
launched at the archbishop's funeral that the Vatican should initiate an "information process" on the prelate's heroic virtues. He said he did not mean beatification but then compared Archbishop Lefebvre to the early church's St Athanasius, who had been excommunicated and cast out of his episcopal see in Alexandria, Egypt use times.