Jansenism and Lefebvrism arose in profoundly different worlds. Yet there are striking similarities between them in beliefs and practices—common tendencies, attitudes and assumptions.
Important similarities in the circumstances of their origins and development help to explain these. Not, of course, that the same weight can be given to all these similarities.
For example, both movements have been led by people with charismatic personalities. Central to the development of Jansenism was a series of individuals with powerful personalities such as Saint-Cyran, the Arnaulds, Nichole and Pascal. Their biographies are well recorded—all too well, for the Jansenists loved writing hagiographies of each other—and need not be retold here. Suffice it to say that ‘the personal factor’ was pre-eminent in the direction of the coterie.
Though vacillating and, by his own admission, inclined toward inordinate indignation, the personality and strong personal authority of Marcel Lefebvre, leader of the so-called ‘Tridentine movement’, has been central throughout the events linked with his name: his leadership at the Second Vatican Council of the conservative faction known as the Coetus Internationalis Patrum and his attack there against collegiality, against the declarations on religious liberty and against relations with non-Christians; his founding after the Council of the diocesan society ‘The Priestly Fraternity of S. Pius X’ in Fribourg; his setting-up of the seminary boasting preconciliar discipline, training and rites which was soon moved to Ecône; his illicit celebration of ‘Tridentine’ Masses and ordination of deacons, priests and finally bishops.