Guerard des Lauriers

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Michel Louis Guérard des Lauriers, O.P. (1898 - February 27, 1988) was a Dominican theologian and traditionalist Catholic bishop.

He entered the Dominican novitiate in 1926 and was ordained a priest in 1931. He became a professor of philosophy at the famous, clerical Dominican university of Le Saulchoir in Belgium in 1933. Under Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) Fr. Guérard des Lauriers served as a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

With the advent of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s, Guérard des Lauriers became concerned with the events taking place in the Church. In 1969 he co-authored the Ottaviani Intervention which was a critical study of the new Mass. In 1970 Pope Paul VI made public a document demanding the resignation of certain conservative professors at the pontifical universities of Rome, among them Guérard des Lauriers.

He then became a lecturer and professor at Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s St. Pius X seminary in Ecône, Switzerland. He then presented his thesis that the Chair of Peter might be vacant because Pope Paul VI was guilty of heresy (see sedevacantism). Because of this view, Lefebvre removed Guérard des Lauriers from his seminary teaching post in 1977.

He further developed his beliefs on the current state of the papacy, relying on St. Cajetan and St. Robert Bellarmine, arguing that Pope Paul VI, as a result of his heresy, was not a true pope, being only pope materially (papa materialiter) and not formally, known as the Cassiciacum Thesis.

Guérard des Lauriers further believed that the new rites of ordination promulgated by Pope Paul VI were doubtfully valid and therefore it was necessary to take action to secure a valid succession of bishops for the preservation of the (Latin rite) Roman Catholic Church. He began discussions with Dr. Eberhard Heller and Dr. Hiller, German sedevacantist activists who were harboring Most. Rev. Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin (1897-1985), the former archbishop of Hue, Vietnam, and after he agreed to abate his Sedeprivationism and adhere to Sedevacantism, it was agreed that Ngo Dinh Thuc would consecrate him as a bishop.

Accordingly, after long consideration, on May 7, 1981, Guérard des Lauriers was consecrated bishop by Ngo Dinh Thuc in Toulon, France. Shortly after however, Guérard des Lauriers reiterated his Sedeprivationism and commenced a polemical war with the Sedevacantists, including Ngo Dinh Thuc and the Drs. Heller and Hiller.

Guérard des Lauriers went on to ordain and consecrate Sedeprivationist priests and bishops, none of whom, however, possessed the same intellectual stature or energy in propagating the thesis of Sedeprivationism that he did.

Guérard des Lauriers died in Etoilles, France, in 1988 at the age of 90.

Episcopal Lineage
Consecrated by:	Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin
Date of consecration:	May 7, 1981
Consecrator of
Bishop	Date of consecration
Gunther Storck	April 30. 1984
Robert McKenna	August 22, 1986
Franco Munari	November 25, 1987