The Vatican says bishops from the ultra-conservative Catholic SSPX society were automatically excommunicated after ignoring Pope Leo's plea for unity.

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.

An ultra-traditionalist Catholic group has consecrated bishops without papal consent, risking a schism with the church in Rome. Pope Leo had begged the breakaway Society of Saint…