Vatican declares traditionalist SSPX in schism after bishop consecrations
The Vatican imposed excommunications after the Society of St. Pius X consecrated four bishops in Switzerland without Pope Leo XIV’s approval.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
The Vatican on Thursday declared the Society of St. Pius X to be in schism and imposed excommunications after the traditionalist Catholic group consecrated four bishops without papal approval. The move matters because it hardens Rome’s break with a movement that rejects key modern reforms of the Catholic Church and operates outside regular church authority.
The Associated Press reported that the Vatican’s doctrine office issued the decree one day after the consecrations at the SSPX seminary in Econe, Switzerland. The ceremony installed Marc Hanappier, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, Michael Goldade and Pascal Schreiber as bishops, according to AP photo captions from the event.
The Vatican said the consecrations were a schismatic act and declared that the society had created a formal rupture with the Catholic Church, the AP reported. The decree excommunicated the four newly consecrated bishops as well as the two bishops who took part in the ceremony.
The penalties went further than the minimum sanctions set out in canon law, according to the AP. The Vatican also said SSPX priests are schismatic and excommunicated, and it invalidated the confessions and marriages they administer.
The decree warned Catholics who attend SSPX Masses to stop doing so, the AP reported. It said those who formally adhere to the society are themselves considered schismatic and excommunicated.
The SSPX is known for celebrating the old Latin Mass and opposing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s gathering that reshaped Catholic relations with other Christians, Jews and other faiths and permitted Mass to be celebrated in local languages rather than Latin. The AP reported that the society has accused the wider church of modernism, liberalism and other errors, and says it is preserving the true Catholic faith.
French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the group in 1970 after Vatican II. In 1988, Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without the pope’s consent; the Vatican excommunicated him and the bishops and called that ceremony a schismatic act, according to the AP.
Pope Benedict XVI lifted those excommunications in 2009 as part of an effort to bring the group closer to Rome, the AP reported. Even before Thursday’s decree, the SSPX had no formal legal status in the Catholic Church.
The latest consecrations challenged Pope Leo XIV, who had asked the society to delay them in the interest of church unity, according to the AP. About 15,500 people, including children, attended the five-hour Mass in Switzerland.
The AP reported that the SSPX defended the consecrations by citing a “state of necessity” to serve its followers. In his homily, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the society’s superior, said the act was meant to serve the pope and the church.
“We are accused of not respecting the pope,” Pagliarani said, according to the AP. “But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.”
The AP reported that the SSPX says it now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters from 50 nationalities.
This story draws on original reporting from NPR.