SSPX Consecrates Bishops Without Pope's Consent, Vatican Declares Schism.

The Vatican declared the Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicating its bishops and priests and warning its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the Catholic Church. Pius X, which opposes modernizing reforms in the Catholic Church, went ahead with a ritual-filled ceremony at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, despite a last-ditch appeal by Pope Leo XIV to call it off.

The Vatican’s doctrine office went beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law in response to Wednesday’s consecration of four new bishops at the society’s seminary in Econe, Switzerland. It declared SSPX priests schismatic and therefore excommunicated, and invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that they administer. In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops who participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a "schismatic act " and said the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church. The Vatican warned the faithful who attend the society’s Masses to stop, declaring that "those who adhere formally" to the society are themselves considered schismatic and excommunicated.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers rife with heresies and errors and has accused of straying from the Catholic faith. The sanctions, especially those targeting priests, the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years as part of its outreach to bring the group back under Rome’s authority.

During a ceremonial five-hour Mass on Wednesday, attended by about 15,500 people and their children, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Pope Leo XIV, who had urged the society to hold off for the sake of the church’s unity.