The Vatican announced the excommunication of all members of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), an ultra-conservative Catholic organization, following the group’s ordination of bishops without authorization from church leadership. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated in a statement released Thursday that the ordinations constituted a schismatic act subject to automatic excommunication under canon law. The Vatican declared that all SSPX priests and Catholics who formally adhere to the organization are in schism and excommunicated, and revoked sacramental privileges previously granted to the society, rendering confessions and marriages performed by its clergy invalid.
The SSPX, founded in 1970 in the Swiss village of Écône, ordained the bishops during a ceremony attended by approximately 16,500 people. The organization maintains nearly 1,500 priests, seminarians, and other vocational members and claims an estimated following of 150,000 to 200,000 adherents worldwide, with particular strength in the United States, France, and Argentina. Church leadership had attempted to prevent the ordinations, characterizing them as a grave violation. The society justified the action as a sacred duty to preserve the Catholic church’s traditional practices.
The SSPX rejects multiple reforms implemented following the second Vatican council, which convened between 1962 and 1965. The organization opposes the celebration of mass in languages other than Latin, rejects interfaith dialogue, and does not recognize other Christian denominations. Since his election in May of the previous year, the current pope has prioritized church unity and worked to reconcile divisions with traditionalist factions that had widened during his predecessor’s tenure.
This excommunication marks the first major confrontation between the Vatican and SSPX since 1988, when the organization’s founder and four bishops he had ordained without papal permission were excommunicated. Those excommunications were lifted in 2009. Vatican observers noted that while the society generates considerable visibility, the schism is unlikely to significantly impact the broader Catholic church given the organization’s relatively small membership compared to the global Catholic population of approximately 1.4 billion.
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