The SSPX’s plan to consecrate bishops without papal mandate revives the risk of schism, testing canon law, Church unity, and Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate.
Editorial (03/02/2026 Gaudiumpress) – The announcement by the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) that it intends to consecrate new bishops without the mandate of the Apostolic See on the coming July 1st is neither an administrative gesture nor a simple chapter in yet another failed negotiation with Rome. It is an act that touches the central nerve of Catholic ecclesiology: the relationship between tradition, authority, and communion. According to canon law, this act would entail automatic excommunication both for the bishop who performs the consecration and for the bishops ordained, further aggravating the already confused and irregular canonical situation of the group within the Catholic Church.
The SSPX was founded in 1970 as a direct reaction to the Second Vatican Council. Its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, took part in the Council but rejected central aspects of its teachings, especially the liturgical reforms and the Church’s new approach toward other religions. In 1975, Saint John Paul II ordered the dissolution of the society, an order that was refused. The rupture became explicit in 1988, when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without pontifical mandate, thereby incurring automatic excommunication.
Although Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of those bishops in 2009, the Fraternity was never fully reintegrated into the Church, above all because of its persistent rejection of the doctrinal authority of the last council. Its status remained “irregular.” Pope Francis adopted a more pragmatic pastoral approach, granting faculties for confessions and allowing the recognition of marriages celebrated by SSPX priests under certain conditions, without however resolving the underlying problem.
Today, two of the four bishops ordained in 1988 have already died. One of them, Richard Williamson, had been expelled from the Fraternity in 2012 and became known for extreme positions, including the public denial of the Holocaust. The SSPX currently counts hundreds of priests and seminarians spread throughout the world, which explains—according to its leaders—the urgency and the state of what a communiqué from the General House calls a “grave necessity” to ensure new bishops to continue its activities.
According to the official statement, the superior general, Father Davide Pagliarani, requested an audience with Pope Leo XIV last August and sent a letter emphasizing the need to ensure the continuity of the Fraternity’s episcopal ministry. Having received no response considered satisfactory from the Holy See, he decided to proceed with the ordinations after prayer and internal consultation.
The magazine America Magazine aptly summarized the impasse by stating that the SSPX case is trapped in a structural contradiction: Rome seeks to avoid a formal schism by maintaining pastoral bridges, while the Fraternity demands practical guarantees of institutional survival without fully accepting the doctrinal and ecclesiological conditions of communion. In short, it has been a dialogue of the deaf for the last 30 years.
The announcement of new episcopal consecrations sets history in motion once again, almost as a tragic repetition. From the canonical point of view, the situation is crystal clear. The Church has always taught that no one can be ordained bishop without pontifical mandate. This is not modern centralism, but an ancient guarantee of unity. Apostolic succession is not merely a valid sacramental chain, but a visible guarantee within a spiritual and invisible communion. When this communion is broken, sacramental validity remains, but the illicit act causes ecclesial damage equivalent to an atomic bomb. The wounds can last centuries.
The argument of pastoral necessity reappears with force. The SSPX claims it needs bishops to ordain priests, confirm the faithful, and ensure its survival. But it is precisely here that the reasoning becomes dangerous. The Church has never recognized institutional self-preservation as the ultimate criterion of legitimacy. When a structure begins to justify itself apart from the authority that constitutes it, it begins to assume the contours of a parallel body, even if it maintains Catholic language and traditional symbols.
It must also be recalled that, in the current ecclesial landscape, this dynamic is not unprecedented. An inevitable parallel arises with the situation of the Church in China. There, for decades, bishops were ordained without pontifical mandate—not out of attachment to tradition, but out of submission to the State. The result was equally painful: valid but illegitimate bishops; communities divided between clandestinity and official recognition; faithful confused about where true communion with Rome lay. Curiously, the canonical problem is the same, even though the motivations are opposite. In China, political authority replaced the Pope. In the case of the SSPX, it is institutional conscience itself that arrogates the right to act without him. In the Chinese context, there are indications that the Church allowed the government of the Chinese Communist Party a certain degree of influence in the choice of bishops through a secret agreement. Periodically, the Pope sought to deal with this issue through renewals of agreements and recognitions, although there is no evidence that such measures reduced the persecution of the faithful promoted by Beijing’s authorities. In this scenario, the strategy of concession may not have achieved the expected results, and it will be relevant to follow how Leo XIV conducts future negotiations with the Chinese government.
In both cases, the Church of Rome reacted with extreme prudence. It avoided definitive declarations whenever possible, sought gradual agreements, and tolerated imperfect situations to avoid a formal schism. With the Sino-Vatican agreement, Rome preferred to recognize irregular ordinations rather than consecrate an irreversible division. The logic was clear: to preserve the possibility of future communion, even at the cost of present ambiguities.
It is precisely this logic that is now under pressure in the SSPX case. By announcing consecrations after explicitly requesting authorization and not receiving it, the Fraternity takes a qualitatively distinct step. This is no longer an irregularity inherited from the past, but a current, conscious, and deliberate decision. This hardens positions in Rome and weakens the arguments of those within the Curia who have always defended patience and progressive integration.
The pastoral consequences are not abstract. Many faithful attached to tradition already live a silent drama. They love the ancient liturgy, distrust certain contemporary doctrinal directions, but do not wish to break with the Pope. The radicalization of the SSPX may push these faithful toward painful choices or into even greater confusion. At the same time, traditional communities in full communion with Rome end up being unjustly associated with a logic of disobedience that is not theirs.
At bottom, the debate reveals a deeper tension about the way authority is exercised in the contemporary Church. The SSPX accuses Rome of doctrinal ambiguity, betrayal of tradition, and abuse of power. Rome sees in the SSPX a practical refusal of obedience and a permanent risk of schism. And the gravest problem is that unilateral decisions—especially at the episcopal level—tend to seal ruptures that later require centuries to heal.
The history of the Church teaches that schisms rarely begin with explicit declarations of rupture. They are born of concrete acts that make communion practically impossible. The consecration of bishops without mandate has always been one of those acts. Not by chance, Rome reacts to them with extreme gravity, even when it avoids definitive words.
In the face of this scenario, the pontificate of Leo XIV will be put to the test. His temperament, his reading of tradition, and his understanding of the Pope’s role in the unity of the Church will decisively influence the next steps. The decision will be neither simple nor painless. Between the rigorous application of canonical discipline and the obstinate search for a pastoral solution, the line is thin.
It remains to be seen, therefore, what the response of Pope Leo XIV will be before this impasse: to declare the excommunications and consummate a definitive rupture with the SSPX, consolidating the schism, or to insist on the path of agreements, with the risk of practically validating the method of Lefebvre’s heirs and, at the same time, strengthening other groups that pressure Rome to submit to their own reading of the Magisterium and tradition. Whatever the Pope’s choice may be, it will also be followed with heightened attention in Germany, where, for very different reasons, ecclesial communion with Rome is likewise dangerously suspended by a thread.
By Rafael Ribeiro, Gaudium Press
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
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