The Vatican has excommunicated priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing Catholic group that ordained bishops without Pope Leo's approval.

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.

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.