Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers (25 October 1898 – 27 February 1988) was a French Dominican theologian and, later in life, a Traditionalist Catholic bishop who supported sedevacantism and sedeprivationism and was excommunicated by the Holy See.

Biography

Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers was born near Paris, France, on 25 October 1898. In 1921, he entered the Scuola Normale Superiore. He studied for two years in Rome, with Professor Tullio Levi-Civita. In 1925, he entered the Order of Preachers. He entered the Dominican novitiate of Amiens in 1927. He made his profession in 1930. He was a normalien and agrégé in mathematics.

Priesthood

On 29 July 1931, des Lauriers was ordained a priest. In 1933, he became a professor of philosophy at the Dominican school of theology Le Saulchoir, in Belgium. In 1940, he received a doctorate in mathematics with thesis Sur les systèmes différentiels du second ordre qui admettent un groupe continu fini de transformations. Under Pope Pius XII, he served as a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. In 1979, worried about Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and a possible deal with the Vatican among other things, des Lauriers wrote to Lefebvre warning him.

Sedeprivationism

Des Lauriers supported the belief that the current state of the papacy, based on Paul VI allegedly teaching heresy in the context of the Magisterium, was that Paul VI could not be a true pope, being only pope materially and not formally. This position known as the Thesis of Cassiciacum.

Episcopacy

On 7 May 1981, after long consideration, des Lauriers was consecrated a bishop by the sedevacantist bishop Thuc in Toulon, France. He was thus excommunicated from the Catholic Church in March 1983 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Des Lauriers consecrated two bishops: Günther Storck (a German) on 30 April 1984, and Robert McKenna (an American) on 22 August 1986.

Death and legacy

Des Lauriers died in Cosne-sur-Loire, France, on 27 February 1988, at the age of 89. He is buried in Raveau, France. There are some bishops who adhere to his Thesis of Cassiciacum: Bishop Geert Stuyver (a Belgian) of the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii (IMBC), and Bishop Donald Sanborn of the Roman Catholic Institute (RCI).

Writings

By des Lauriers