Exactly 40 years ago, on April 11, 1968, a Swiss entrepreneur, Alphonse Pedroni, was visiting the hamlet of Ecône, in the Valais. In a local café, he overheard a loud customer boasting of his future job: demolishing the chapel at the large Ecône estate which belonged to one of the great religious houses in Europe, the Great Saint Bernard - whose main house is located in the nearby border with Italy.
Pedroni soon learned that the estate was up for sale - in fact, the contract which would transfer ownership to a non-religious entity was almost signed. Shocked with the possibility that the great buildings of the estate could soon lose their religious significance, Pedroni contacted his brother, Marcel, and three acquaintances: Gratien Rausis, Guy Genoud, and Roger Lovey, Attorney-General (Procureur-général) of the Bas-Valais region - and cousin of the provost of the Great Saint Bernard.
By April 19, the group of friends had convinced the Chapter of the Great Saint Bernard to sell them the Ecône estate, at the price of 410,000 Swiss Francs, with a 150,000 down payment. The ownership would be transferred on May 31, 1968 - the day after half a million violent protesters crossed Paris in one of the most disturbing days of that troublesome year.
Soon came the time to choose the religious group which should guard the religious nature of the estate. In the following year, after nearly granting the use of the property to a group of women religious, the Pedroni brothers, Rausis, Lovey, and Genoud had a meeting with the former Archbishop of Dakar, a Frenchman called Marcel Lefebvre, who had resigned from his position as Superior-General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in October 1968. They would soon choose to grant him the use of their property, with the agreement of Bishop Nestor Adam, of the local Diocese of Sion...
Pedroni soon learned that the estate was up for sale - in fact, the contract which would transfer ownership to a non-religious entity was almost signed. Shocked with the possibility that the great buildings of the estate could soon lose their religious significance, Pedroni contacted his brother, Marcel, and three acquaintances: Gratien Rausis, Guy Genoud, and Roger Lovey, Attorney-General (Procureur-général) of the Bas-Valais region - and cousin of the provost of the Great Saint Bernard.
By April 19, the group of friends had convinced the Chapter of the Great Saint Bernard to sell them the Ecône estate, at the price of 410,000 Swiss Francs, with a 150,000 down payment. The ownership would be transferred on May 31, 1968 - the day after half a million violent protesters crossed Paris in one of the most disturbing days of that troublesome year.
Soon came the time to choose the religious group which should guard the religious nature of the estate. In the following year, after nearly granting the use of the property to a group of women religious, the Pedroni brothers, Rausis, Lovey, and Genoud had a meeting with the former Archbishop of Dakar, a Frenchman called Marcel Lefebvre, who had resigned from his position as Superior-General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in October 1968. They would soon choose to grant him the use of their property, with the agreement of Bishop Nestor Adam, of the local Diocese of Sion...
