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.
The Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, headed by Cardinal Fernandez, has formally excommunicated the bishops associated with the Society of Saint Pius X for consecrating four new bishops without papal approval.
It further warns that any clergy or lay faithful who… pic.twitter.com/K5Z357CUFB
— AF Post (@AFpost) July 2, 2026
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’.”
BREAKING: Holy See declares all 6 SSPX bishops are excommunicated
Bishop Galarreta committed “an act of a schismatic nature through the episcopal consecration”
All four bishops consecrated received “have ipso facto incurred the latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the… pic.twitter.com/DaLw7sfidm
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) July 2, 2026
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’.”
JUST IN – The Vatican excommunicates priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing ultra-traditionalist Catholic group, the Society of St Pius X, that ordained bishops without Pope Leo’s approval, judging they were in schism with the wider Church — Reuters pic.twitter.com/feB1V9qgpp
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 2, 2026
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:
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