ECONE, SWITZERLAND -- More than 6,000 people gathered beneath a tent Tuesday for the funeral of Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, the dissident archbishop excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1988, who died of a heart attack during Holy Week.
Neither representatives of the Vatican nor the Swiss Catholic hierarchy were present at the four-hour funeral service. But sources at Lefebvre's St. Pius Xseminary said the Papal Nuncio in Switzerland, Monsignor Edoardo Rovida, and Monsignor Henry Schwery, the bishop of Sion, had 'discreetly' visited Lefebvre's body as it lay in state at the seminary last week.
Lefebvre's funeral, which had been delayed by one week because the dissident archbishop died during Holy Week, was conducted in Latin by Monsignor Bernard Tissier, one of four bishops the Vatican considered illegally consecrated in 1988.
The Vatican condemned the 1988 consecration performed by the French- born Lefebvre and subsequently excommunicated the dissident archbishop, who refused to abandon the Latin rite and accept reforms in the church adopted by the Vatican II Council.
Tissier and the three other Bishops consecrated during the 1988 ceremony have not been excommunicated but have been officially suspended from their functions by Rome.
Monsignor Franz Schmidberger, the German cleric named by Lefebvre as his designated successor, gave the funeral oration Tuesday. In his speech,Schmidberger vowed to continue the work of the seminary as Lefebvre would have wished.
Swiss newspapers have suggested that the future of the breakaway movement was in question after the March 25 death of its founder, with its remaining members being absorbed back into the main Catholic Church.
A Vatican statement shortly after Lefebvre's death said Pope John Paul II had been ready up until the last moment to consider reversing the archbishop'sexcommunication if the dissident cleric indicated a shift in his position.
It also said the pope had prayed for Lefebvre's soul.
