Editing Marcel Lefebvre (section)

=== The Council and the Holy Ghost Fathers ===
At one point during the Council, some 40 bishops who were members of the Holy Ghost Fathers met with him to express their disagreement with his views and the role he was playing at the Council. He heard their views but did not engage in dialogue. His closing statement, "We all have a conscience: everyone must follow his own.", left them dissatisfied. One said: "He seemed to have a blockage. He seemed incapable of reviewing his ways of thinking."<ref>{{cite web | access-date = 27 September 2021 | url = https://spiritanroma.org/1962-1980-a-new-age-of-mission/ | title = 1962–1980: A New Age of Mission | website = Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Rome}}</ref>

Lefebvre felt the Council's impact directly when the Holy Ghost Fathers held an Extraordinary General Chapter to respond to it. The order's leadership, though their terms had years remaining, tendered their resignations effective with the close of the meeting as was traditional. The membership had insisted on a larger role for elected delegates, and they constituted half of the body. Lefebvre's opponents were well organized, and when he tried to assume the chair, they insisted that the Chapter was a legislative body entitled to elect its own officers. On 11 September 1968 the Chapter supported that position on a vote of 63 to 40, and Lefebvre stopped attending. The Chapter then elected its leaders and proceeded with intense but respectful debate on the critical issue: the balance between the constraints of the order's religious life and the exercise of its missionary charge. Lefebvre returned on 28 September and addressed the issue in uncompromising language. He predicted any changes would lead to "a caricature of community life where anarchy, disorder, and individual initiative have free rein". His tone and arguments won him no support; the convention elected Fr. Joseph Lécuyer, a French theologian, his successor as superior general on 26 October.<ref name="cleary3">{{cite book | pages= | title = Spiritan Life and Mission Since Vatican II | first = William | last = Cleary | date = 2018 | publisher = Wipf & Stock | chapter= A Council Ends and a Chapter Begins, in Chapter 3: 'The General Chapter of Renewal'}}</ref>