On Thursday, one day after the unauthorized consecration of four bishops for the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X, the Vatican issued a decree excommunicating all six bishops involved in the ceremony: the four newly consecrated bishops and the two bishops who ordained them.
In a letter, the Holy See said the consecration of four bishops in Écône, Switzerland, constituted an “act of a schismatic nature” and was conducted “without a pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff.”
The excommunication follows warnings from the Vatican in the days prior to the ceremony. On June 29, Pope Leo wrote a letter pleading to halt the consecration. “In this spirit, and filled with Christian affection, I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!”
The letter went on: “The Church is open to a path of dialogue and understanding that the Holy Spirit can make possible and fruitful.”
The group still proceeded with the ceremony.
On Wednesday, Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the society’s leader, referred to the consecration as a kind of rebellion, according to the New York Times. Nearly 16,000 of the society’s adherents gathered on Wednesday in Écône, where the society was founded.
“The greatest sacrifice that God can ask of us is that of being treated as rebels while we want to serve the church as a mother in difficulty, overwhelmed, suffering,” said Pagliarani, according to the Times report.
The Vatican also warned that Catholics who join the group, which has about 600,000 members worldwide, could face excommunication. But among younger adherents, the priestly society is seen as preserving “the truth that Christ has taught throughout time,” as one believer put it, while resisting what they view as compromises introduced after the Second Vatican Council.
Among the four newly ordained bishops who were excommunicated on Thursday was one American citizen, 46-year-old Michael Goldade.
What is the Society of Saint Pius X?
The society’s main objective is “the formation of holy priests,” its website says. The society is present in 60 countries and operates six international seminaries for the training of priests, including one in Winona, Minnesota, according to the society’s website. The group has 103 chapels in the U.S. with headquarters in Missouri. The society operates seminaries, schools and chapels around the world and attracts Catholics who seek a more traditional expression of the faith.
The Society of Saint Pius X was founded in 1970 in Switzerland by Marcel Lefebvre as a reaction to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The society is best known for preserving the traditional Latin Mass and older forms of Catholic worship and teaching.
Its relationship with the Catholic Church has been complex for decades and has deteriorated over the years with deepening disagreements over religious liberty, ecumenism and certain teachings of Vatican II.
Catholic excommunication
This week’s excommunications were not the first instance of defying the Pope’s orders. In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal approval, leading to a major rupture with Rome.
Although the bishops’ excommunications were lifted in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, the Society of Saint Pius X remains in an irregular canonical status: its clergy are ordained but generally do not exercise ministry with ordinary canonical authorization from the Church.
Despite disagreements between the society and the Catholic Church, the Vatican has granted the society’s priests limited authority for confession and, even in certain cases, marriage. The current response from the Vatican, however, notes that marriage or confession by the group would be invalid.
The excommunication in the Catholic Church means that the priests can’t take the sacraments of the church, which include partaking of the Communion, officiating Mass and holding ecclesiastical offices, among other rituals. The purpose of excommunication is to help heal the relationship with the Catholic Church, rather than to punish the person or, in this case, a breakaway group.
Alongside Pope Leo’s calls for peace and unity, the excommunications come as a sign of the internal divisions within the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said he was open to reconciliation with the Society of Saint Pius X, according to the Washington Post.
“My hope is that despite what happened today, the dialogue can be resumed, and a solution can be found,” he said.