VATICAN CITY (AP) 鈥� The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope鈥檚 consent, declaring the in schism, excommunicating its bishops and priests and warning its faithful they too face the harshest sanctions in the Catholic Church.
The Vatican鈥檚 doctrine office went above and beyond the minimal sanctions foreseen by the church鈥檚 canon law to respond to of four new bishops at the society鈥檚 Econe, Switzerland, seminary.
The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors and has accused of straying from the Catholic faith.
During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday, attended by some 15,500 people and their children, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of , who had urged the SSPX to hold off for the sake of the church’s unity.
In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops who participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a 鈥渟chismatic act鈥� and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church.
The Vatican warned the faithful who go to the society鈥檚 Masses to stop, declaring 鈥渢hose who adhere formally鈥� to the society are considered themselves schismatic and excommunicated. It declared SSPX priests to be schismatic, and therefore excommunicated, and invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer.
The sanctions, especially those targeting the priests, the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years as part of its outreach to bring the group back under Rome’s wing.
French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church鈥檚 relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.
Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a 鈥渟chismatic act.鈥�
Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group, but the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church and with Thursday鈥檚 decree is declared to be in schism.
The consecrations had posed a crisis for Leo because the American pope has stressed the need for church unity. He has reached out especially to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church that was in many ways alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate.
But the sanctions imposed Thursday suggest that after nearly five decades of trying to negotiate with the society, the Holy See has had enough.
The Vatican responded so aggressively in part because the group poses something of a threat by representing a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church that has grown in the decades since its original break from Rome.
The group now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.
The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with errors, such as modernism and liberalism, and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a 鈥渟tate of necessity鈥� to minister to its faithful.
In his homily during the consecrations Wednesday, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, also insisted the consecrations served Leo and the church.
鈥淲e are accused of not respecting the pope,鈥� Pagliarani said. 鈥淏ut it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don鈥檛 want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.鈥�
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
