The Catholic Church’s preeminent traditionalists now find themselves firmly outside its communion, and the Vatican laments that they have only themselves to blame.The Holy See recognized on Thursday the self-inflicted excommunication of the Society of St. Pius X after the priestly fraternity defied the pope with an illicit consecration of bishops. Four priests were consecrated on Wednesday in a meadow of Écône, Switzerland, despite explicit demands from Pope Leo XIV not to proceed.According to Catholic doctrine, illicitly consecrating a bishop without the approval of Rome, or receiving such an illicit consecration, activates the automatic and immediate penalty upon one’s soul. But just in case the SSPX didn’t get the message, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a terse document on Thursday making the excommunication explicit.
“This Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, considers it necessary to state that this act constituted the delict of schism, with the canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and lay faithful involved,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez wrote in a communique. “The sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatics … and are subject to the excommunication prescribed by law.”Newly consecrated Bishops, from left, Marc Hanappier, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, Michael Goldade, and Pascal Schreiber wearing their miters and holding their pastoral staffs, stand at the end of their consecration ceremony in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
