The Vatican has formally declared the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) to be in schism after the traditionalist fraternity proceeded with the illicit consecration of four bishops in Écône, western Switzerland, on July 1, despite repeated warnings from Pope Leo XIV and the Holy See.
The following day, on July 2, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree, signed by its prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, declaring the consecrations “an act of a schismatic nature”, confirming the automatic excommunication of the six bishops involved and stating that the society had placed itself outside full communion with the Catholic Church. The penalty fell on the four newly ordained bishops, Frenchmen Marc Hanappier and Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, American Michael Goldade and Swiss national Pascal Schreiber, as well as on the two prelates who performed the rite, principal consecrator Alfonso de Galarreta and co-consecrator Bernard Fellay, according to Vatican News.
The decision marks the definitive collapse of decades of efforts to reconcile Rome with one of the most influential traditionalist movements in modern Catholicism.
Known as the Lefebvrists after their founder, French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the SSPX was established in 1970 in opposition to the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). While recognising the authority of the Pope in principle, the movement has consistently rejected key aspects of the Council, arguing that they represented a break with centuries of Catholic tradition.
Its criticism has focused on the replacement of the traditional Latin Mass with vernacular liturgies, as well as the Church’s teaching on religious liberty, ecumenism and dialogue with the modern world.
Although relatively small compared with the global Catholic Church, numbering around 600,000 faithful and some 700 priests and seminarians, according to America Magazine, the SSPX has built an influential international network of seminaries, schools, chapels and publishing houses spanning roughly 800 places of worship in 77 countries, as reported by NBC News, with particularly strong roots in France, Switzerland, Germany and parts of Central and Eastern Europe.
Over the past decades, it has also become an important point of reference for Catholics concerned about secularisation, mass migration, demographic decline and what they see as the erosion of Europe’s Christian identity.
While the society is not a political organisation, many of its members and sympathisers have found common ground with conservative and sovereigntist movements across Europe.
The current rupture has its roots in June 30, 1988, when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal approval at Écône, arguing that extraordinary measures were necessary to preserve Catholic tradition. Two days later, Pope John Paul II declared the consecrations a schismatic act in the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei. In January 2009, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four bishops as a gesture aimed at reopening dialogue, but the SSPX never obtained canonical recognition within the Catholic Church. Two of them, Fellay and de Galarreta, were among those who carried out the July 1 rite. Subsequent doctrinal talks under Benedict XVI and Pope Francis failed to resolve fundamental disagreements over the authority and interpretation of the Second Vatican Council.
The consecration of four new bishops on July 1 gives the SSPX, which until then had only two bishops of its own, for the first time in almost four decades, a new generation of leadership capable of perpetuating the movement independently of Rome. That makes any future reconciliation considerably more difficult and signals that the society intends to continue operating as a parallel ecclesiastical structure.
The consequences are likely to extend beyond Church governance. Across Europe, traditionalist Catholicism has become increasingly intertwined with wider debates over national sovereignty, religious heritage, migration and the continent’s cultural identity. Although the SSPX itself does not function as a political movement, its schools, publications and intellectual networks have exercised an influence extending well beyond their relatively modest numbers.
