ROME (AP) — Catholic Church leaders delivered an ultimatum Wednesday to a traditionalist organization, cautioning that their upcoming bishop consecrations without Vatican approval would constitute a schismatic action resulting in immediate excommunication.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s chief doctrine official, released a statement saying Pope Leo XIV is seeking divine guidance in hopes that Society of St. Pius X leadership “may reconsider the extremely grave decision they have made.”
The warning represents what appears to be a final attempt to prevent the organization’s scheduled July 1 consecration of four new bishops. Should they proceed, it would mark the most serious challenge to Leo’s papal authority as he works to mend relationships with traditionalist Catholics that deteriorated during Pope Francis’s tenure.
Known as SSPX, the organization was established in Écône, Switzerland in 1970 as a response against the progressive changes of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which permitted Mass to be conducted in local languages instead of exclusively in Latin.
The organization, which maintains the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass tradition, initially separated from Rome in 1988 when founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without Vatican permission. Church officials immediately excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops, leaving the group without official recognition within the Catholic Church.
Despite this break, the organization has expanded significantly over the following decades, establishing educational institutions, seminaries and parishes worldwide, along with communities of priests, nuns and laypeople devoted to traditional Latin Mass practices.
This expansion presents a genuine concern for Vatican officials as it essentially creates a competing Catholic church structure. Current SSPX data shows the group includes two bishops, 733 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters from 50 different countries.
Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the present SSPX leader, revealed plans earlier this year for the July 1 bishop consecrations to serve their growing membership, explaining that the organization’s two elderly bishops can no longer adequately serve their worldwide community.
Vatican officials extended an invitation to Pagliarini for discussions, but the same doctrinal and logistical issues that have blocked reconciliation for five decades appear to have left both parties at a standstill.
In recent statements on the SSPX website, Pagliarani reinforced the necessity for additional bishops. He expressed approval that his announcement sparked discussions about what the SSPX views as a crisis within the church, including religious pluralism and doctrinal uncertainty.
“Now, what is at stake today is not an opinion, nor a sensibility, nor a preferential option, nor a particular nuance in the interpretation of a text, but the faith and morals that a Catholic must know, profess, and practise in order to save his soul and reach paradise,” he said.
The approaching consecrations, which would trigger automatic excommunications, represent the first concrete crisis for Leo, who has worked to improve relationships with Catholic traditionalists that deteriorated under Pope Francis after the Argentine pontiff restricted the use of the traditional Latin Mass.
Although the SSPX remains separated from the Holy See, many Catholic traditionalists who maintain loyalty to Rome while preferring the old Mass sympathize with the SSPX situation and are observing Leo’s response to this challenge.
