One day after the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope Leo XIV, the Vatican issued a decree declaring that the bishops involved in the consecrations have incurred automatic excommunication and that the group is in schism.
In a defiant move and despite repeated pleadings from Rome not to move forward, the SSPX went ahead on July 1 with the consecration of four new bishops without a pontifical mandate — an act of open disobedience to the authority of the pope that, under canon law, carries automatic excommunication for the six bishops involved.
The SSPX is a controversial fraternity of priests known for their strict traditional celebration of the Latin Mass and opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The animating principle of the group is “the priesthood and all that pertains to it and nothing but what concerns it,” SSPX says on its website. The group was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French prelate who was a sharp critic of many of the changes brought about by Vatican II.
In addition to the modern revisions of the Mass, Lefebvre also opposed “ecumenism — a viewpoint which considered all religions as beneficial and valid — and collegiality — which insisted that the Church be ruled primarily by the democratic process and bishops’ conferences,” according to the group’s website.
The group runs priories, chapels, and missions around the world as well as seminaries. It commands several hundred priests and a few hundred more seminarians.
Perhaps the group’s most controversial moment came in 1988 when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops in Écône, Switzerland, in explicit defiance of Pope John Paul II. Within hours the Vatican declared that Lefebvre and the four bishops had incurred excommunication on themselves.
In his motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, John Paul argued that it was “impossible to remain faithful to the tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.”
Pope Benedict XVI lifted this excommunication in 2009, though he explained in a letter that SSPX does not have canonical status and therefore “its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church.”
Pope Francis further expanded the group’s privileges, ordering during the 2015–2016 Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy that confessions heard by SSPX priests were valid; he subsequently extended this order indefinitely.
In 2017, meanwhile, he approved a way for the group’s priests to witness marriages validly, giving diocesan bishops or other local ordinaries the ability to authorize such decisions.
Ahead of the schismatic consecrations on July 1, Pope Leo XIV issued a final appeal to the society not to proceed with the ceremony.
The Holy Father urged the group to “consider the spiritual good of the faithful carefully,” as the schismatic act “would deprive them of the licit and, in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments, which they love and seek for their sanctification.”
The Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith, meanwhile, on July 2 released guidance to bishops around the world for welcoming back former adherents to the SSPX after the schismatic act.
A priest who leaves the fraternity must find a diocesan bishop or a major superior willing to receive him, after which he must “write by hand a letter to the Holy Father” asking for the remission of the excommunication.
The priest must also provide his certificate of ordination and make both a profession of faith and a formula of adherence.
The dicastery will move to remit the censure “as soon as it receives the documents,” after which the priest, under the bishop who received him, will be subject to a probationary period “of at least one year and no more than three.”
Penalties for the lay faithful, meanwhile, “cannot be presumed automatically but must be assessed case by case.”
Though historically the faithful have not been strictly prohibited from attending SSPX Masses, Church leaders have in several instances warned Catholics against doing so except in serious circumstances.
“The Masses they [SSPX] celebrate are also valid, but it is considered morally illicit for the faithful to participate in these Masses unless they are physically or morally impeded from participating in a Mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing,” Monsignor Camille Perl, then-secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, said in 1995.
A 1998 letter by Perl noted that the “schismatic mentality” of SSPX led the pontifical commission to “consistently [discourage] the faithful from attending Masses celebrated under the aegis of the Society of St. Pius X.”
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