Two priests in ceremonial vestments distribute communion to churchgoers during a religious service, with additional attendees observing in the background.

Two priests in ceremonial vestments distribute communion to churchgoers during a religious service, with additional attendees observing in the background.
Society of St. Pius X’s founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, giving Communion in 1981 – Wiki Commons

A 21st-century schism?

The highly controversial Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Holy Office and a Pope Francis holdover, has issued a decree on behalf of leftist Pope Leo XIV saying that ​priests and lay Catholics from a traditionalist Catholic group that the bishops ordained with Leo’s approval are in a schism ‌with the wider Church, and are now excommunicated.

Reuters reported:

“In a strong decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top watchdog authority for the 1.4-billion-member Church, also warned Catholics globally that the Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X now celebrated the sacraments illicitly.”

The group cannot officially officiate marriages or hear confessions validly, ​the decree says.

“It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops, in ​order to maintain the Church’s ties to Jesus’ 12 apostles, who are considered the first priests and bishops.

The Society ⁠was not available for immediate comment on the Vatican decree. It said on Wednesday it had to go forward with the ordinations without papal ​approval ‘owing to exceptional circumstances’.”

Vatican News reported:

“The bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay—respectively principal consecrator and co-consecrator—and the newly consecrated bishops Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred ‘ipso facto’ the ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See for having carried out ‘an act of a schismatic nature’: the ‘episcopal consecration of four presbyters, without pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff’.”

The announcement came a day after the ceremony celebrated in Écône, Switzerland.

“The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s decree establishes that, in the act of carrying out the consecration, both the consecrators and those consecrated incurred the prescribed excommunication.

[…] As for the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Fraternity are to be considered excommunicated.”

Read more from February:

A Year Into His Papacy, Leo XIV Faces His First Great Crisis With Traditionalists as Many Fear a New Schism

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