In 1986, Fernando Rielo, founder of the Idente Missionaries, was deeply distressed by the serious turn events were taking regarding Marcel-François Lefebvre, CSSp., a Spiritan missionary in Francophone Africa who had not accepted the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This prelate had been demonstrating more than just his disagreements during the pontificate of Paul VI. Rielo had been following this process with the understandable concern of someone who felt himself to be a son of the Church and utterly faithful to the Vicar of Christ, as he was. Therefore, in November of that year, 1986, he intervened directly to try to dissuade Lefebvre from the schism he was about to carry out.

As is well known, in 1970 the prelate had founded the Society of Saint Pius X and its seminary in Ecône with the consent of the Bishop of Fribourg (Switzerland). Numerous seminarians who wished to be formed in the traditional pre-conciliar manner entered the seminary, which became a breeding ground for vocations. The problem was that they were being instructed outside the framework of the Second Vatican Council. And during the years 1974-1976, the events that were unfolding foreshadowed the worst. On November 21, 1974, Archbishop Lefebvre accused Rome and the Council, labeling them as having neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies. He was summoned to appear before Cardinals Garrone, Wright, and Tabera, but from that initial moment, the painful web of events continued to grow. On June 29, 1976, he was suspended from priestly duties after having ordained a group of seminarians in Ecône. But he did not back down. Ignoring the voices that were being raised advising a way to resolve the dispute, in 1986 and after several debates and open confrontations, Lefebvre had continued, taking his intransigence with the Holy See and the Supreme Pontiff too far.

In October 1986, he harshly criticized the ecumenical meeting that John Paul II promoted in Assisi, disregarding the importance of this historic event, which was full of hope and which he labeled syncretistic, predicting grave dangers. Since the dialogue proposed to this dissenting bishop was impossible, the Pope turned to Cardinal Ratzinger, who urged the prelate to ask forgiveness from the Holy Father, which he refused to do. On October 24, on Spanish television, he had described the ecumenical meeting as something inspired “by the infernal Protestant idea of ​​reforming Church doctrine, later inherited by Jansenists, modernists, and liberal Catholics.”

In this context, in November 1986, Fernando Rielo sent the Superior General, Father Jesús Fernández, to Ecône, Switzerland, to deliver a message and a letter from him to Archbishop Lefebvre. This and other lengthy letters, dated December 8, 1986, January 6, and February 22, 1987, respectively, which he also sent during a second visit by his legate that same year, were certainly moving and of uncommon depth. They revealed, along with his sorrow, his mercy and his hope for the prelate’s reconciliation with the Holy Father, as well as his tenderness without concealing his firmness.

I beg you to place the conscience of your righteousness in the hands of the Successor of Peter, John Paul II, with magnanimous renunciation of any agreement with him. Surrender to him, with complete resignation, only your strictest obedience to whatever he reveals to you: this is a devout eschatological sign of a mystical dying which, finding its richness in Jesus Christ, elevates one’s own human dignity. My plea is in the name of a divine love which, being Trinitarian, makes heaven a living reality. […] Do not aspire to be judged by an ecclesiastical tribunal either: only divine judgment can be worthy of your human dignity. Nothing but this judgment is worthwhile: what matters in this hour of your life is that your suffering heart not prevent you from offering your magnanimous sacrifice to the Holy Father. Run, mighty athlete, to Rome: with your angelic courage, sacrificially embracing the Vicar of Christ, you will have written one of the most glorious chapters in the history of the Church in France. Your own priests will be contemplatives of this sublime mystery of His Sacred Heart. The tradition of the saints will also be grateful to you. If this comes to pass, I will have a single purpose: to obtain your feet and kiss them with the same passion as Christ’s.

Of course, he had previously communicated this initiative by letter and through his legate to Archbishop Lustiger of Paris, who was assisted by Idente Missionaries, as he did later, informing him of the results. The cardinal, in turn, passed this information on to Saint John Paul II. But, in the end, despite the insistent prayer and supplication of the Founder of the Idente Missionaries, and even having sent him the formula for asking forgiveness from the Holy Father, his hopes for reconciliation were unsuccessful, and, as is well known, Archbishop Lefebvre was ultimately excommunicated.

Did the prelate reflect, as he told the Founder’s legate he would, on what the Founder expressed to him in his letters? The answer is clear: no. Had he done so, the history of the SSPX would have been different.

The rest is well known. Benedict XVI, seeking reconciliation, lifted the excommunication of the bishops ordained by Lefebvre in 1988 without the approval of John Paul II in 2009. And on July 1, 2026, a recurring schism culminated in this grave and painful, but necessary, sanction: the excommunication of six bishops ordained without the authorization of Pope Leo XIV.