Écône (Switzerland) (AFP) – Decades after triggering a rift with the Vatican by consecrating bishops in 1988, the Society of Saint Pius X is doing it again on Wednesday in defiance of Pope Leo XIV.
Issued on: 01/07/2026 - 03:46
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The ultra-traditionalist breakaway group with about 600,000 followers worldwide intends to appoint four bishops: two French, one American and one Swiss.The ceremony will take place during a mass in Latin lasting around four hours before an expected 15,000-strong congregation in the fields of Econe in Switzerland -- the very spot where the society's founder Marcel Lefebvre controversially consecrated four bishops 38 years ago."I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!" Pope Leo wrote Monday in a letter to the society, calling it a "schismatic act"."To tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity," the pontiff said.The Society of Saint Pius X comprises fundamentalist Catholics who strongly oppose the liberal reforms imposed by the Vatican II Council in the 1960s.The brotherhood was founded in 1970 by Lefebvre, a French bishop.The new consecrations are set to take place near the society's seminary in Econe, a village in the Rhone valley in Alpine southwest Switzerland, at the foot of the mountains.
