SSPX consecrates four bishops without papal consent, faces excommunication

The Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic organization founded in 1970 in the Swiss village of Écône to oppose liberalizing changes in the Catholic Church, consecrated four bishops Wednesday without the consent of Pope Leo XIV. The Vatican had warned that such an act would bring automatic excommunication.

The Vatican issued a last-minute appeal to the group to reconsider. The Vatican previously stated that the bishops would be excommunicated if they went ahead with the ceremony.

MSI previously reported that the Vatican issued a final warning in May characterizing the planned consecration as a schismatic act carrying automatic excommunication, and that the SSPX subsequently rejected Vatican offers of talks. As covered in May, the warning set the first major test for Leo’s early effort to calm long-running disputes with traditionalist Catholics. In the same warning, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s doctrine chief, said Pope Leo was praying SSPX leaders “may reconsider the extremely grave decision they have made,” according to prior MSI reporting.

Before the ceremony, a priest read a statement defending the action and criticizing the modern Catholic Church’s break with tradition. “Therefore before God we consider it a sacred duty toward holy church and toward souls to proceed with the consecration of bishops who are entirely faithful to her holy tradition and to her constant magisterium,” the statement said, according to the Guardian. “We consider every punishment and censure brought to bear against this step will have no validity.”

The SSPX was founded by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to resist what its members saw as liberalizing changes following the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, including the introduction of Mass in languages other than Latin. The society rejects ecumenical efforts to heal divisions between Catholicism and other Christian denominations, though it continues to recognize the Roman Catholic Church as the preeminent church.

The last major confrontation between a pope and the SSPX occurred in 1988, when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without permission from Pope John Paul II. The pope excommunicated Lefebvre and the four men. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications in 2009. The SSPX now counts more than 730 priests and religious across 50 countries, according to prior MSI reporting.