In June 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who sensed that he was approaching his death, consecrated de Mallerais and three other priests (
Bernard Fellay,
Richard Williamson, and
Alfonso de Galarreta) as
bishops. Lefebvre did not have a pontifical mandate for these consecrations, which was promised in exhausting negotiations, but always postponed or subjected to destabilizing conditions. On 1 July 1988 Cardinal Gantin issued a declaration stating that Lefebvre, bishop
Antônio de Castro Mayer, de Mallerais, and the three other newly ordained bishops "have incurred
ipso facto the
excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the
Apostolic See." Bishop de Mallerais argues for the validity and necessity of these consecrations in his article "Supplied Jurisdiction & Traditional Priests," stating: "in an exceptional situation the Church supplies for this absence of jurisdiction on the part of the priest or even the bishop," and "it is the case of necessity amongst the faithful which is responsible for the fact that traditional priests and bishops have a supplied jurisdiction with respect to your needs." By a decree of 21 January 2009 (Protocol Number 126/2009), issued in response to a request which Bishop Fellay made on behalf of all four bishops whom Lefebvre had consecrated on 30 June 1988, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal
Giovanni Battista Re, by the power expressly granted to him by Pope Benedict XVI, remitted the automatic excommunication which they had thereby incurred, and expressed the wish that this would be followed speedily by full communion of the whole of the Society of Saint Pius X with the Church, thus bearing witness, by the proof of visible unity, to true loyalty and true recognition of the Pope's Magisterium and authority. ==SSPX bishop==