Pope Leo XIV meets faithful during his visit to Madrid on June 6. On Thursday, Leo and the Vatican excommunicated members of the St. Pius X Society. Photo by Ciro Fusco/EPA
July 2 (UPI) -- Pope Leo XIV excommunicated members of the Society of St. Pius X after they consecrated four bishops against the will of the church.
The group consecrated four new bishops Wednesday. The Vatican called it "an act of a schismatic nature" and said it was the "episcopal consecration of four presbyters, without pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff."
The SSPX ceremony happened in Écône, Switzerland, where the group was created in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. It opposed what they saw as the liberalization of the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
The church excommunicated the group in 1988 after it consecrated four bishops, but Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications in 2009.
