Pope Leo XIV has made a last-ditch appeal to a rebel group of traditionalist Catholics who plan to ordain bishops without his approval, saying they will be committing a “sin of extreme gravity” if they proceed.
Just over a year into his tenure, Leo is facing the first major challenge of his papacy from the Society of Saint Pius X, a group that rejects reforms made by the Catholic Church in recent decades – including allowing Mass to be celebrated in languages other than Latin – and is expected to ordain four bishops on Wednesday at its seminary in Écône, Switzerland.
The ordinations, the pope told them, would be a “schismatic” act. If they go ahead, the new bishops will be excommunicated, or officially excluded from the sacraments of the church.
“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” the pope wrote in an 11th hour letter to the society, known as the SSPX. “I 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.”
In Catholic teaching, the link, or communion, between bishops and the pope is a cornerstone of the church’s unity. Since his election, Pope Leo has made fostering church unity a focus, but the society’s decision to proceed with the consecration of bishops without the pontiff’s consent will be viewed as a serious violation of church law.
SSPX has an active presence in the United States, with a headquarters in Missouri and a seminary for training priests in Dillwyn, Virginia. One of the bishops set to be ordained on Wednesday is Father Michael Goldade, who leads that seminary.
The group was founded in 1970 in Switzerland by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French prelate, but five years later was officially suppressed by the Bishop of Fribourg. In 1988 the group ordained four bishops without papal approval, which led to their excommunication.
At the heart of the splintering from the mainstream church was Lefebvre and his followers’ opposition to church reforms introduced in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council.
The “Lefebvrists” do not accept what the council taught on religious freedom, on ecumenism (teaching on other Christian denominations and religions) and reforms to Catholic worship. One of the major reforms at the council was a condemnation of all forms of antisemitism.
Lefebvrists insist they need to ordain bishops without approval because the Catholic Church is in a “state of emergency” due to what they see as the introduction of liberal and “modernist” ideas. The group believes it must prioritize “the salvation of souls” and in recent days issued a 28-page “profession of Catholic faith” to “enlighten souls in the face of modern errors.”
While the SSPX numbers around 700 priests and 600,000 followers worldwide – relatively small, given the Roman Catholic Church has 1.4 billion members and around 400,000 priests – the threat to unity is being taken seriously by the pope.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, who is a close ally of Leo, told CNN that “the danger” is “the setting up of a parallel structure within the ecclesial body of the church.”
He said the pope had issued numerous invitations for the society to reconsider its plans.
“They are a small group, however they do misuse the rites of the church when it comes to having bishops ordained,” the cardinal said. “He (Leo) is very serious about the issue and that’s why he has had multiple interventions.”
In recent decades, various popes have sought to reconcile with the group and in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four bishops ordained in 1988. However, one of those bishops, Richard Williamson, was later found to have falsely claimed the Nazis did not use gas chambers in the Holocaust and would later be prosecuted and convicted by a German court. He was subsequently expelled from the society.
While the pope has appealed to the society not to go ahead with the ordinations of bishops, the group is well-advanced with its preparations. A website has been set up detailing four days of events around the ordinations which includes the offer of a 75 Swiss Franc souvenir box of four bottles of wine.
In his remarks to journalists on June 16, the pope said he was open to dialog but was also aware of the limits as regarded the impending ordinations. “If they make that choice, I am sorry, but we must move forward,” he said.
