 The seminary received a reputation as a "wildcat seminary" for its teaching of traditional practices which were being abandoned in most other parts of the church.The statements made by two apostolic visitors to the seminary in November 1974 resulted in Lefebvre's "Declaration" as a rebuttal.At the seminary, in 1988, he consecrated four bishops without papal approval, an act which was met with his excommunication "latae sententiae".