Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops and invalidates sacraments

Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops and invalidates sacraments 0 seconds of 1 minute, 2 secondsVolume 0% Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts Keyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabled Shortcuts Open/Close/ or ? Play/PauseSPACE Increase Volume↑ Decrease Volume↓ Seek Forward→ Seek Backward← Captions On/Offc Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf Mute/Unmutem Decrease Caption Size- Increase Caption Size+ or = Seek %0-9 Next Up Shiite Muslims beat themselves during Ashoura mourning ritual in Kabul 01:03 Subtitle Settings OffEnglish(US)_v Font Color White Font Opacity 100% Font Size 100% Font Family Arial Character Edge None Edge Color Black Background Color Black Background Opacity 50% Window Color Black Window Opacity 0% Reset WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25% 200%175%150%125%100%75%50% ArialCourierGeorgiaImpactLucida ConsoleTahomaTimes New RomanTrebuchet MSVerdana NoneRaisedDepressedUniformDrop Shadow WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan 100%75%50%25%0% 00:00 01:02 01:02 More Videos 01:03 Shiite Muslims beat themselves during Ashoura mourning ritual in Kabul 01:00 AP top stories July 1 00:58 US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits 00:51 Thousands of Shiite Muslims commemorate Ashoura in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala 01:27 Yodelers brave record heat as national festival opens in Basel 00:59 Yodelling festival in full voice despite record temperatures 01:26 Meet members of Albania's 'Flamingo Revolution' trying to torpedo Kushner-linked development 00:47 Supreme Court rules that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job Close 1 of 6 | The Society of St. Pius X, which opposes modernizing reforms in the Catholic Church, went ahead with a ritual-filled ceremony at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off. (AP video: Jamey Keaten) 2 of 6 | Newly consecrated Bishops, from left, Marc Hanappier, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, Michael Goldade and Pascal Schreiber wearing their miters and holding their pastoral staffs, stand at the end of their consecration ceremony in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) 3 of 6 | Newly consecrated Bishops, from left, Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier, wearing their miters and holding their pastoral staffs, pray at the end of their consecration ceremony in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) 4 of 6 | Newly consecrated Bishops, from left, Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier hold their pastoral staffs at the end of their consecration ceremony in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) 5 of 6 | Nuns attend a consecration ceremony for four new bishops in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary, in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) 6 of 6 | Newly consecrated Bishop Michael Goldade delivers his blessing at the end of his consecration ceremony in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner) By NICOLE WINFIELD Updated 9:49 AM MESZ, July 2, 2026 Leer en español Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit Vatican CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicating its bishops and warning its faithful. The Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimal sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops at the society’s Econe, Switzerland, seminary. The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors and has accused of straying from the Catholic faith. In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops that participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a “schismatic act” and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church. The Vatican warned the faithful who go to the society’s Masses to stop, declaring “those who adhere formally” to the society are considered themselves schismatic and excommunicated. It also invalidated the sacraments of confession and marriage that the society’s priests administer. What to know about the breakaway traditionalist Catholics defying Pope Leo XIV 4 MIN READ Defying Pope Leo XIV, traditionalists go ahead with bishop consecrations in Switzerland 6 MIN READ 156 Pope promotes Italian nun to top migrant role in his first major appointment of a woman to Holy See 1 MIN READ The sanctions, especially those targeting the faithful and the sacraments they can receive, were particularly harsh and reversed concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years. French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin. Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.” Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group, but the SSPX today has no legal standing in the church and with Thursday’s decree is declared to be in schism. The consecrations had posed a crisis for Pope Leo XIV because the American pope has stressed the need for church unity. He has reached out especially to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church that was in many ways alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate. But the sanctions imposed Thursday suggest that after nearly five decades of trying to negotiate with the society, the Holy See has had enough. The SSPX has accused the church of being rife with heresies and errors and that only it is upholding the true faith of Christ. It has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful. In his homily during the consecrations Wednesday, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX superior, also insisted the consecrations served Leo and the church. “We are accused of not respecting the pope,” Pagliarani said. “But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.” NICOLE WINFIELD Winfield has been on the Vatican beat since 2001, covering the papacies of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and the Francis pontificate and traveling the world with them.