VATICAN CITY (AP) — A breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics will challenge Pope Leo XIV’s authority next week by consecrating four bishops without his consent. Rather than shying away from the confrontation, the Society of St. Pius X seems intent on embracing its notoriety.
The group, which celebrates the traditional Latin Mass and rejects the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, is planning a highly organized, four-day, livestreamed extravaganza for the consecrations at its Swiss seminary — complete with a souvenir wine set offered to those attending.
The July 1 event, nearly four decades after the group first became a thorn in the Vatican’s side, suggests it is leaning in even more ardently to its schismatic status for a new generation of Catholics who prefer their Masses in Latin and don’t mind that their bishops are out of communion with Rome.
“To me, they look really like Traditionalism 2.0,” said Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova University, Leo’s alma mater. The group, known as the SSPX, has embraced a digital branding of its religious identity, despite its antimodern, integralist agenda.
“Their game is not about getting back into the fold, but getting back into the monopoly of that ultra-traditionalist identity,” Faggioli said.
An initial break with Rome
The SSPX was founded in Écône, Switzerland, in 1970 in opposition to the reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, the church meetings that, among other things, allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Lati …