Editing Marcel Lefebvre (section)

== Bishop in Africa ==
On 12 June 1947, [[Pope Pius XII]] appointed him [[Apostolic vicariate|Vicar Apostolic]] of [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dakar|Dakar]] in [[Senegal]] and [[titular bishop]] of [[Anthedon (Palestine)|Anthedon]].<ref>{{cite book |title= Acta Apostolicae Sedis |page= 639 |year= 1947 |volume= XXXIX |url= https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-39-1947-ocr.pdf |access-date= 10 January 2024}}</ref> On 18 September 1947 he was [[consecration|consecrated]] a bishop in his family's [[parish church]] in [[Tourcoing]] by Liénart, now a cardinal, with Bishops [[Jean-Baptiste Fauret]] and [[Alfred-Jean-Félix Ancel]] as co-consecrators.<ref name=mallerais_vie170>{{harvnb|Tissier de Mallerais|2004|pp=170–172}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Anglés|1991|loc="on 18 September 1947, he was consecrated bishop in his hometown by Cardinal Liénart, Bishop Fauret&nbsp;– his former superior at [[Libreville]] – and Bishop Ancel."}}</ref> In his new position Lefebvre was responsible for an area with a population of three and a half million people, of whom only 50,000 were Catholics.<ref name="own2002-09">{{cite web|url=http://www.sspxafrica.com/documents/2002_September/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |title=Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words |access-date=7 November 2003 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031107235703/http://www.sspxafrica.com/documents/2002_September/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |archive-date=7 November 2003 | website = Society of St. Pius X – South Africa | date= September 2002}}</ref>

On 22 September 1948, Lefebvre, while continuing as [[Vicar Apostolic|Vicar Apostolic of Dakar]], received the additional responsibilities of [[Apostolic Delegate]] to [[French colonial empires|French Africa]], with his title changed to titular archbishop of [[Arcadiopolis in Europa]].<ref>{{cite book | title = Acta Apostolicae Sedis | url = https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-40-1948-ocr.pdf | page = 560 | date = 1948 | volume = XL }}</ref> He became responsible for representing the interests of the Holy See to Church authorities in 46 dioceses<ref name="own2002-11" /> in "continental and insular Africa subject to the French Government, with the addition of the [[Diocese of Reunion]], the whole of the island of [[Madagascar]] and the other neighbouring islands under French rule, but excluding the dioceses of North Africa, namely those of [[Carthage]], [[Constantine, Algeria|Constantine]], [[Algiers]] and [[Oran]]."<ref>{{harvnb|Filipazzi|2006|p=X}}</ref>{{efn|That is, all [[French Africa]] – including two départments of today's France proper, Réunion and Mayotte – with the exception of [[Tunisia]] and mainland [[Algeria]] (the latter then considered part of France proper), but not excluding the Algerian southern territories.}}

In the late 1940s, Lefebvre established a ministry in Paris to care for Catholic students from the French colonies in Africa. He and other missionaries in Africa thought young Africans would otherwise be attracted to radical ideologies, including anti-colonialism and atheism. This idea of "safeguarding the Catholicism of the emerging African elite" was later adopted by Pope Pius in his encyclical on the missions, ''[[Fidei donum]]'' (1957).<ref>{{cite book | access-date = 19 September 2021 | pages = 129–30 | publisher = Harvard University Press | date= 2019 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jJWEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA130 | title = African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church | first = Elizabeth A. | last = Foster| isbn = 9780674239449 }}</ref>

Lefebvre's chief duty was the building up of the ecclesiastical structure in [[French Africa]].<ref name="Short">{{harvnb|Anglés|1991}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}}</ref> Pope Pius XII wanted to move quickly towards an ecclesiastical structure with dioceses instead of vicariates and apostolic prefectures. Lefebvre was responsible for selecting these new bishops,<ref name="own2002-11">{{cite web|url=http://sspxafrica.com/documents/2002_November/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |title=Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words |access-date=23 September 2003 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030923041743/http://sspxafrica.com/documents/2002_November/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |archive-date=23 September 2003 | website =Society of St. Pius X – South Africa | date= November 2002}}</ref> increasing the number of priests and religious sisters,<ref name="own2003-01">{{cite web|url=http://www.sspxafrica.com/documents/2003_January/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |title=Monsignor Lefebvre in his own words |access-date=18 August 2003 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030818082827/http://www.sspxafrica.com/documents/2003_January/Monsignor_Lefebvre_in_his_own_words.htm |archive-date=18 August 2003 | website =Society of St. Pius X – South Africa | date=January 2003}}</ref> as well as the number of churches in the various dioceses.<ref name="Apologia1" /> On 14 September 1955, Pope Pius decreed a complete reorganization of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions in French Africa. The Apostolic Vicariate of Dakar was made an archdiocese and Lefebvre became its first archbishop.<ref name="Short" /><ref>{{cite book | access-date = 19 September 2021 | title = Acta Apostolicae Sedis | url = https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-48-1956-ocr.pdf | pages= 113ff | date = 1956 | volume = XLVIII }}</ref>