by Côme de Prévigny
Archbishop Lefebvre used to tell his seminarians that he had two guardian angels: Fathers Aulagnier and Tissier de Mallerais.
These two valiant priests were among the nine young men who knocked on the door of the famous archbishop on October 13, 1969 in Fribourg, Switzerland, even though the Society of St. Pius X had not yet even been created.
Of these first candidates, two followed the famous prelate from Ecône to the end. While the first was easy to talk to, the young Bernard Tissier de Mallerais was quite different. Reserved and discreet, with sound judgement and profound thoughts, he was nevertheless enthusiastic when it came to encouraging his famous master to maintain the priestly work he had imagined, and then to create Ecône.
In 1977, Archbishop Lefebvre turned to this eldest of his priests to replace Canon Berthod, who had stepped down as head of the seminary following a crisis that had shaken the young institution. Conscientiously listening to the aspirations of future priests more than he listened to himself, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais was then chosen, at the age of 43, to be consecrated on June 30, 1988.
The archbishop was not looking for bishops to govern dioceses, but he was equipping his fraternity with upright, faithful men, eager to pass on with determination and faithfulness the sacraments that families were asking for.
Bernard Tissier de Mallerais travelled the world for 35 years, giving sermons in various languages - French, German, English and Spanish - and also helped to raise the profile of Archbishop Lefebvre by devoting a major biography to him in 2002. It was in the heart of the seminary that was so dear to them, and in which he himself was keen to continue giving lectures, that death took him in a fatal fall.
It is with the man he so admired in his fight for the reign of Christ the King and for the Holy Mass that he will now rest at the end of a life marked by uprightness and fidelity.
