LAST week, the Vatican declared the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) to be in “schism” with the Catholic Church after the traditionalist group defied Pope Leo XIV by ordaining four bishops without his approval.
The Church promptly excommunicated the ordained bishops and all of the group’s 751 priests worldwide. It also warned the SSPX’s 300,000 or so lay followers they, too, face excommunication if they continue to attend the group’s Masses and other rituals.
In the Catholic Church, consecrating a bishop is a deeply spiritual rite which requires a papal mandate. Pope Leo XIV had warned the SSPX that carrying out the consecrations without his approval is a “sin of extreme gravity.” The SSPX brushed aside his warning and justified the consecrations as a “sacred duty” to defend the traditional Catholic faith against modernizing reforms.
The rift between the Vatican and the SSPX lays bare a deep ideological chasm over the Church’s trajectory toward changes that would help it engage better with the modern world.
The SSPX was founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre as a movement that strongly opposed many of the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II.
The group particularly loathed the Vatican II’s decree allowing Mass to be celebrated in local languages instead of exclusively in Latin. It also frowned at improving relations with other Christian denominations and religions like Islam and Judaism.
Lefebvre declared it was “imperative to return to the traditions of the Church, to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all times, to the Sacraments of all times, and to the adoration and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only way to salvation.”
He said the Church’s shift of emphasis would lead to the “destruction of Catholic Doctrine” and the “ruin of the Catholic priesthood.”
SSPX’s extreme traditionalist doctrines have attracted a considerable following. The SSPX has a global network of bishops, hundreds of priests, seminaries and religious communities.
The SSPX has a church in the Philippines, the Our Lady of Victories Church in Quezon City, with a flock numbering between 3,000 and 4,000.
The group had its first run-in with the Vatican in 1988, when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without Pope John Paul II’s permission.
Lefebvre and the four new bishops were excommunicated.
The excommunications were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 as a way to heal the rift, although the Vatican was wary enough to deny canonical status to the SSPX.
The Church also found itself in an awkward situation with officials of the Jewish faith because one of the four bishops denies that the Holocaust happened.
Reacting to the latest Vatican sanctions, Don Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX’s superior general, said: “It appears to us that this decision once more brings to light the profoundly tragic context in which the universal Church finds herself.”
What the SSPX did, “and will continue to do, is nothing other than an extraordinary initiative for the salvation of souls, amid the doctrinal and moral confusion into which the Church is plunged. We in no way claim to substitute ourselves for the Church, and we have no ambition other than to remain faithful to her,” Pagliarani said.
The Catholic Church has experienced — and survived — doctrinal crises before, but the schism issue with the SSPX is considered by observers as the biggest it has faced in 156 years.
The Vatican’s hard-line stance could signify that it is done negotiating with the rogue group, and that it considers papal authority as nonnegotiable.
The SSPX considers itself as a rallying point for Catholics who feel the Church has been moving away from the traditions that have held it together for centuries, traditions that provide the spiritual compass in a world that has seen an alarming erosion of faith.
In 2024, a group of Carmelite nuns in Arlington, Texas, severed ties with the local bishop after he accused their prioress of sexual misconduct and associated themselves with the SSPX. The Vatican sided with the bishop and declared the Arlington monastery “extinct.”
Traditions die hard. The Catholic Church must respond to challenges to its authority by maintaining doctrinal integrity while actively seeking resolution.
