The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has ordained new bishops, returned to schism, and incurred excommunication, and the Vatican has announced these facts.
The SSPX is a society of priests, founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991). It promotes traditional views and liturgy and critiques certain statements made by the Second Vatican Council, particularly concerning religious liberty and ecumenism.
Today the society has around 750 priests and 264 seminarians. The SSPX estimates that 600,000 people worldwide attend its Masses regularly, representing 0.04% of the 1.4 billion global Catholic population.
Although statistics are difficult to come by, it appears that a comparable number of traditionalist Catholics not affiliated with the SSPX (estimated to be 500,000-1,000,000+) attend authorized celebrations of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), including about 2 percent of the U.S. Catholic population.
The History
In 1976, Archbishop Lefebvre was suspended a divinis (“from divine things”—e.g., the celebration of the sacraments) for ordaining priests without the proper authorization. He continued leading the SSPX (and ordaining priests without authorization), placing it in a canonically irregular situation (that is, a situation where they weren’t operating in compliance with the law).
In 1988, Lefebvre was turning eighty-three, and there were concerns about the long-term survival of the society. Without a bishop heading it, other bishops might not be willing to ordain new priests for it, particularly given the society’s irregular status.
Consequently, Lefebvre engaged the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI), in dialogue. On May 5, Lefebvre approved a statement affirming the pope’s authority and the continuity of Vatican II with the prior Magisterium. Although groups like the SSPX are not normally headed by bishops, Rome agreed to approve and appoint a bishop from within the SSPX and to regularize it canonically.
However, the next day—May 6—Lefebvre retracted his consent to this arrangement, and it was soon announced that he would consecrate not one, but four new bishops for the society. This took place on June 30, 1988.
Two days later—on July 2—Pope John Paul II issued a motu proprio titled Ecclesia Dei in which he ruled that “this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the Church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience—which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy—constitutes a schismatic act” (3).
Since canon 1382 (now 1387) of the Code of Canon Law provides that “a bishop who consecrates someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See,” the pope also ruled that Lefebvre and the four new bishops had excommunicated themselves, and he warned that “formal adherence to the schism is a grave offense against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church’s law” (5c; cf. can. 1364).
The document also established a commission for those affiliated with the SSPX who wished to remain in communion with the pope and the Church. This led to the founding of “Ecclesia Dei” orders such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP).
In subsequent years, efforts were made by the SSPX and the Church to achieve a reconciliation. In 2007, Benedict XVI liberalized the celebration of the TLM, and in 2009, he lifted the excommunications on the Lefebvrist bishops.
This implied that they were no longer in schism, since schism itself carries an automatic penalty of excommunication (can. 1364). If they had remained in schism, then as soon as the original excommunications were lifted, the state of schism would have automatically triggered excommunication again.
Still, the society remained in a canonically irregular situation, and dialogue continued with the goal of regularizing its status. For example, under normal circumstances, a priest needs permission (or jurisdiction) from the local bishop to validly hear confessions or witness marriages. But in 2015, Pope Francis extended special faculties to the SSPX to allow its priests to validly hear confessions, and in 2017, he granted it faculties to allow its priests to validly celebrate marriages.
And Now . . .
Ultimately, talks between the SSPX and the now-Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) broke down.
By 2026, the SSPX had only two remaining bishops, aged sixty-seven and sixty-eight, and on February 2, it announced that it would consecrate four new bishops for the ongoing health of the society.
This led to a flurry of new efforts by the Vatican to address the situation, including a last-minute appeal by Pope Leo, but the society declined to postpone the new episcopal consecrations.
On July 1, the two remaining SSPX bishops (Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay) consecrated four priests, including American Michael Goldade, as bishops. (The new bishops’ ages are fifty-three, forty-five, forty-two, and thirty-six, so if the society waits until the two youngest bishops enter the age range of de Galarreta and Fellay, the situation will repeat around the year 2052.)
The following day—July 2—Cardinal Victor Fernandez, the head of the DDF, issued a decree and an explanatory note in response. These indicated that we’ve returned to the post-1988 situation, though the new documents clarified a few things.
Where Does the SSPX Stand Today?
The decree ruled that all of the bishops involved excommunicated themselves and stated that “clerics and lay faithful are warned not to adhere to the schism of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, because they would ipso facto incur the penalty of latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication.”
The expressed logic of the new excommunications is slightly different from in John Paul II’s 1988 motu proprio. There, the pontiff ruled that the bishops had been excommunicated based on canon 1382 (now 1387), which provides that one who consecrates a bishop without a papal mandate—as well as the one consecrated—incurs automatic excommunication.
However, it did not state that the 1988 bishops were also excommunicated by canon 1364, which provides automatic excommunication for schism, though it did warn that this canon did apply to those who formally adhered to the Lefebvrian schism.
The new decree explicitly applies both canon 1387 (excommunication for episcopal consecration) and canon 1364 (excommunication for schism) to Bishop de Galarreta and the four new bishops. It also applies canon 1364 to Bishop Fellay but not canon 1387, since Fellay was only co-consecrator and not the principal consecrator.
There has been confusion about the nature of the schismatic act that was performed in these two instances. After the 1988 consecrations, it was pointed out that schism is defined as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him” (can. 751), which the SSPX bishops claimed they had not done. It was further pointed out that canon 1382 did not refer to schism, so merely consecrating a bishop “without a pontifical mandate” should not be an act of schism.
It’s not, but that is not the situation Lefebvre was in. He didn’t just consecrate a bishop without a papal mandate. He consecrated against papal instructions not to. This wasn’t a case of merely doing something without authorization, which would not be schismatic; it was a case of defying orders to the contrary.
Consequently, John Paul II ruled that they had engaged in “disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church,” which “implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy” (Ecclesia Dei 3) and thus schism.
The new DDF decree uses this same logic, stating that the SSPX bishops “committed an act of a schismatic nature through the episcopal consecration of four priests, without a pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff” (emphasis added). It’s that last fact that elevates a merely excommunicable act into an act of schism.
The DDF’s accompanying explanatory note lacks the legal force of the decree, but it seeks to clarify a few matters.
It says, “The sacred ministers [bishops, priests, deacons] belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in schism . . . resulting in them being subject to the excommunication provided for by law” (1).
What About Laypeople?
The note also says that laypeople “who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X . . . are to be considered schismatic and excommunicated.”
In explaining what constitutes formal adherence, the note refers to a 1996 document from the then-Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (PCLT), which did not formally rule on this matter but expressed the legal opinion that formal adherence involves two elements.
First, “one of an internal nature, consisting in freely and consciously sharing the substance of the schism, that is, in opting in such a way for the followers of Lefebvre that this option is placed above obedience to the pope” (5a).
And second, “another of an external nature, consisting in the externalization of that option, the most manifest sign of which will be exclusive participation in the Lefebvrian ‘ecclesial’ acts, without taking part in the acts of the Catholic Church” (5b)—for example, attending SSPX chapels exclusively and never attending regular Catholic churches.
The PCLT noted that, for the faithful, “there is the possibility that some faithful participate in the liturgical functions of the followers of Lefebvre without, however, sharing their schismatic spirit” (5b), but that “in the case of Lefebvrian deacons and priests, it seems beyond doubt that their ministerial activity within the schismatic movement is a more than evident sign that the two requirements mentioned above (5) are present and that there is therefore a formal adherence” (6).
This is the basis for the new explanatory note stating that the sacred ministers of the SSPX are in schism (because they have formally adhered), whereas the faithful receive only a warning.
The explanatory note also states that “the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly” and that “the sacrament of penance administered by them and the marriages assisted by them are invalid” (3). The DDF thus regards the faculties granted by Pope Francis to allow SSPX priests to validly hear confession and celebrate marriages as revoked.
However, since explanatory notes do not natively carry legal force, at this point, we would only expect this one to reflect DDF opinion. We may well see a future document that gives it binding force.
Finally, the note exhorts the faithful “to abstain from participating in the celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.” There is thus now an official exhortation not to attend SSPX Masses.
A Sad New Chapter
Speaking personally, I find it tragic that the SSPX has brought about this situation. It would have been better if they had suggested an arrangement like the one Archbishop Lefebvre originally agreed to in 1988. It also would have been better if—upon the negotiation of such an arrangement, and unlike Lefebvre—they followed through on it.
That way, the society would have been able to obtain a new bishop from among its members, not plunge the society into a state of schism again, and not have lost the faculties that had been generously granted to it.
So they’ve really damaged the situation, set things back by almost forty years, and harmed numerous souls. Let us pray for all involved—both in the society and at the Vatican.