Pope Leo Warns Rebel Catholic Sect of ‘Sin of Extreme Gravity’ as Extraordinary Punishment of Excommunication Looms

The emerging power struggle between Pope Leo XIV and a secretive and traditionalist Catholic sect over the power to appoint new bishops could amount to the first significant fracture in a papacy premised on the pursuit of unity.The clash involves the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, or SSX, a priestly fraternity founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a leading traditionalist dissenter at the Second Vatican Council, which liberalized the Church. Pope Pius X, now venerated as a saint, was an arch-traditionalist with a reputation for humility and asceticism. His pontificate ran from 1903 to 1914.In 1988 Lefebvre was excommunicated from the Church when he attempted to consecrate bishops without the approval of the Vatican. In 2009, though, that sentence was rescinded in an effort to reconcile with the group, which clings to the ancient Latin version, known as the Tridentine Mass and codified at the Council of Trent in 1570. In 1969 it was replaced by Pope Paul Vi with a vernacular edition, Novus Ordo, sometimes called the “Ordinary Form.” The society that bears Pius’s name, based in Switzerland, now plans to consecrate four new bishops. Pope Leo on Tuesday issued an appeal for them to desist from such a drastic step in the form of a letter to Reverend Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X. Pope Leo, the 267th Bishop of Rome, wrote, “I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” The Vicar of Christ accuses the group of standing on the precipice of a “schismatic act.”The society, though, is refusing to back down. In a statement it expressed “great sadness to not be understood by our leader” — meaning the pope — and insisted that “we are changing absolutely nothing in our plans.” When asked by the Associated Press about the prospect of excommunication, the group’s press representative, Marc-André Mabillard, said: “We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us.”The AP concludes that the society “poses a threat to the Holy See as a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church.” The group represents that its ranks include two bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters across 50 nationalities. It declares that its “main objective is the formation of holy priests.”Pope Leo wrote that he would “pray for you, because to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity. May the Lord enlighten your consciences and awaken your hearts. With a sorrowful yet hopeful heart, I feel it is my duty, through the authority received from Christ, to ask you to desist from your intended act.”Excommunication is the gravest penalty to be found in the canon law of the Catholic Church. Canon law mandates that “Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” This species of excommunication, whose name means “a sentence already passed,” is effectively automatic. The Society of St. Pius X maintains that “all private and public life, individual as well as family life, economic and political life must be subject to the laws of Christ and invigorated by His grace.” The pope lauded the group’s “desire for fidelity to Tradition” but insisted that if the group consecrates new bishops, excommunication will follow for all those involved — and possibly for the entire society.One of the society’s allies within the Church, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, called the threat of excommunication “unjust” and instead insisted that “the demand to accept Vatican II” and subsequent liberalization are “the root of the problem.” Relations between the Church’s traditionalists and the papacy deteriorated under Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis. Pope Leo described the rift between traditionalists and the mainstream as a “painful wound” in the Church and has called for the “generous inclusion” of those who maintain fidelity to the Old Rite. He also called for “a new way of looking at one another — marked by greater understanding of each other’s sensitivities.” Some Catholics on the left point out that in the years since Vatican II — which not only sidelined the Latin Mass but also attempted to reset Rome’s relations with Jews and Protestants — the number of the faithful has more than doubled, to 1.4 billion today from 653 million in 1970. The globe’s population, though, has more than doubled during that time span.The conflict between Pope Leo and the SSX erupts days after the Supreme Pontiff celebrated the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul at the Eternal City. They are reckoned to be Rome’s patron saints. The Catholic creed maintains that the pope is the successor to St. Peter, to whom Jesus Christ entrusted the nascent Church. The pontiff wears the Ring of the Fisherman to signal continuity with the apostle that Christ tasked with being a “fisher of men” for the faith.

Pope Leo Warns Rebel Catholic Sect of ‘Sin of Extreme Gravity’ as Extraordinary Punishment of Excommunication Looms

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