Pope Leo faces crisis as breakaway Catholic group rejects Vatican talks

A breakaway Catholic traditionalist group on Thursday rejected the Vatican’s offer of talks, suggesting a collision course with Pope Leo XIV over its planned consecrations of new bishops without his consent.

In a letter to the Vatican’s doctrine chief, the Society of St. Pius X said the Holy See's threat of sanctions and schism if it goes ahead with the 1 July ceremony "is hardly compatible with a genuine desire for fraternal exchanges and constructive dialogue."

The SSPX, as the group is known, celebrates the old Latin Mass and was created in opposition to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernised the Catholic Church and allowed for the celebration of Mass in the vernacular.

The SSPX broke with Rome in 1988, after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops without papal consent, arguing that it was necessary for the survival of the church’s tradition.

The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the church.

In the decades since that original schismatic act with Rome, the group has continued to grow, with schools, seminaries and parishes around the world.

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It counts 733 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters – a Catholic reality that poses a real threat to the Vatican because it represents a parallel church.

Earlier this month, the SSPX announced it planned to consecrate four new bishops on 1 July, since there are only two left from the original group. The SSPX said it needs the new bishops as a matter of survival to minister to the SSPX faithful, whose numbers have grown around the world.

The threat of a new consecration ceremony has created the first tangible crisis for Leo, who has sought to pacify relations with Catholic traditionalists that worsened under Pope Francis.

While the SSPX is out of communion with the Holy See, plenty of Catholic traditionalists who are loyal to Rome but sympathetic to the SSPX plight are watching how Leo handles the challenge.

In a bid to head off the crisis, the Vatican’s doctrine chief Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández invited the SSPX superior, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, to the Vatican for talks Feb. 12. He proposed a theological dialogue on Vatican II, but only if the SSPX suspends the planned consecration ceremony.

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In a letter to Fernández posted on the SSPX website Thursday, Pagliarani recalled that he had proposed precisely such a dialogue in 2019 and received no reply. He said doctrinal talks now were impossible under such conditions, and that regardless they will never agree on Vatican II.

“Indeed, the hand extended to open the dialogue is unfortunately accompanied by another hand already poised to impose sanctions,” he wrote. “There is talk of breaking communion, of schism, and of ‘serious consequences.’”

With no hope for doctrinal agreement, Pagliarani asked instead for the Vatican to exercise charity, given the number of Catholic faithful who attend SSPX churches.

“The society is an objective reality: it exists,” Pagliarani wrote. “This same society asks you only to be allowed to continue to do this same good for the souls to whom it administers the holy sacraments.”

The Vatican said it had no immediate comment.