The Vatican said on Thursday that priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing Catholic group that ordained bishops without Pope Leo's approval are in schism with the wider Church and now excommunicated.

Pope Leo XIV has made a last-ditch appeal to a rebel group of traditionalist Catholics who plan to ordain bishops without his approval in Switzerland on Wednesday.

Consecrations by Society of Saint Pius X bring automatic excommunication for bishops – and crisis for Pope Leo