Franz Schmidberger (born 19 October 1946) is a priest of the Society of St. Pius X, founded by Archbishop

Marcel Lefebvre Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre (; 29 November 1905 – 25 March 1991) was a French Catholic archbishop who greatly influenced modern traditional Catholicism. In 1970, he founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a community to tra ...

Biography

Graduated in 1972 in the university of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, in the same year he entered the seminary of Écône where he was ordained priest on 8 December 1975. Later he taught in the seminary of Weissbad, the first German speaking seminary of the Society. In 1978 he founded the seminary of Zaitzkofen in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where he was appointed district superior from 1979. In 1982 Schmidberger was appointed superior general of the society of St Pius X (quitting the post of district superior). In 1994, he was succeeded by Bishop

Bernard Fellay Bernard Fellay (born 12 April 1958) is a Swiss bishop and former superior general of the Traditionalist Catholic priestly fraternity Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). In 1988, Pope John Paul II announced that Fellay and three others were automati ...

. He subsequently served as 1st General Assistant (1994-2006), Austrian (1996-2000) and again German (2006-2013) district superior as well as regent of the Zaitzkofen seminary (2003-2005 and since 2013). With Fellay, he is said to be part of a faction that favours reconciliation with Rome on the basis of the Campos precedent, a program which is reportedly opposed by the other bishops of the SSPX. In a letter that he addressed to the Catholic bishops of Germany in October 2008, Schmidberger rejected the description that

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

had applied to the Jews: "our older brothers in the faith", and declared that "for as long as they do not distance themselves from their forefathers' guilt through the avowal of Christ's divinity and baptism, they are complicit in the deicide".Der Spiegel: German Far-Right Hails Holocaust Denier Williamson
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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidberger, Franz 1946 births Living people People from Riedlingen German traditionalist Catholics Traditionalist Catholic priests Members of the Society of Saint Pius X 20th-century Roman Catholics 21st-century Roman Catholics