Vatican Declares Excommunications Following SSPX Episcopal Consecrations
The Vatican also declared that lay Catholics who formally adhere to the Society are likewise to be considered schismatic and excommunicated.
The Vatican has formally declared that the bishops involved in the July 1 episcopal consecrations at Écône, Switzerland, have incurred automatic excommunication for proceeding without papal approval.
According to a decree issued on July 2 by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the consecrations constituted what Rome describes as “an act of a schismatic nature” because four priests were elevated to the episcopacy without a pontifical mandate and despite the explicit opposition of Pope Leo XIV.
The ceremony took place at the Society of Saint Pius X seminary in Écône, the same location closely associated with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the historic consecrations of 1988.
Bishops Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay, who served as principal consecrator and co-consecrator respectively, were named in the decree alongside the four newly consecrated bishops: Bp. Pascal Schreiber, Bp. Michael Goldade, Bp. Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Bp. Marc Hanappier.
The Vatican stated that all six men incurred latae sententiae excommunication automatically through the act itself, with the penalty reserved to the Apostolic See.
In an accompanying explanatory note, the Dicastery argued that the consecrations represented a rejection of Roman authority and therefore amounted to schism under canon law. Vatican officials cited the 1988 apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, issued following Archbishop Lefebvre’s original episcopal consecrations, as precedent for the decision.
The decree goes further than the sanctions against the bishops themselves. Rome now states that priests of the Society of Saint Pius X are to be regarded as schismatics and subject to excommunication under canon law.
The Vatican also declared that lay Catholics who formally adhere to the Society are likewise to be considered schismatic and excommunicated under the conditions outlined in earlier Vatican documents dating from 1996.
According to previous Vatican explanations, “formal adherence” means more than simply attending an occasional SSPX Mass or visiting an SSPX chapel. The term generally refers to Catholics who publicly identify with the Society as a body separate from Rome, consciously reject papal authority as understood by the Vatican, or intentionally place themselves under the Society’s authority in opposition to diocesan structures. Previous Vatican guidance distinguished between occasional attendance at SSPX chapels and a deliberate commitment to what Rome considers a schismatic movement.
Additionally, the decree warns Catholics against attending SSPX activities and states that sacraments administered by SSPX clergy are illicit. The Vatican further maintains that confessions heard by SSPX priests and marriages witnessed by them are invalid.
The Holy See concluded its statement by calling on clergy and laity associated with the Society to return to what it described as “full communion” with Rome.
The announcement marks the most significant escalation in relations between Rome and the Society of Saint Pius X since the episcopal consecrations carried out by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, and signals a decisive break between the Vatican and the traditionalist fraternity founded to preserve the traditional Catholic priesthood and liturgy.
Our Lady, Co-redemptrix, pray for us…
Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces, pray for us…
Viva Christo Rey!
Way to go, Tucho! All I can say is, "Thank God." And in a turn of phrase that can only be read as ironic, "...the Dicastery argued that the consecrations represented a rejection of Roman authority...". No truer words were ever spoken, especially since the "authority" of Vatican apostates is nil.. If we're lucky, the Vatican will continue to overplay its hand and the SSPX will experience a groundswell of vocations, support, and conversions from the Conciliar/Synodal monstrosity.
It is an honor to be excommunicated from apostate Rome & the counterfeit V2-Synodal church of darkness.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824, whose visions inspired much of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ) had seen in her visions a “counterfeit church of darkness” occupying Rome at some time in the future, in an era when she also saw the priest facing the people when saying Mass.
"I saw again the new and odd looking church that they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it. People did not receive the Body of our Lord but only bread. Then [Jesus] said to me, 'This is Babel'."