One day after the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X saw the illicit consecration of new bishops, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith responded with a decree declaring some excommunications, and an “explanatory note” offering additional ecclesial guidance.
While the overall intent is clear, both the note and the decree have raised questions about their meaning, and what they might mean for the future of the group, and its adherents.
You’ve got questions — we’ve got some answers. The Pillar explains.
So what happened to the bishops who were consecrated on Wednesday?
According to a decree issued Thursday by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the bishop who illicitly consecrated four priests without a pontifical mandate — Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta — incurred the penalty of excommunication, for two named offenses: consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate, and (by defying the pope over that) committing an act of schism.
The penalty for consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is “reserved to the Apostolic See,” which means that only the Vatican can remit the penalty, if the bishop shows contrition and asks for the penalty to be removed.
Similarly, the men who were ordained bishops were found to have committed the crime of being consecrated without a mandate, incurring an excommunication also reserved to the Apostolic See.
And Bishop Bernard Fellay, a co-consecrator, was found to have “adhered” to the act of schism, and to have also incurred an excommunication. That penalty is not reserved to the Apostolic See, meaning that, in some circumstances, it could be remitted by another bishop.
And what does excommunication mean, again?
Excommunications are censures in the Church’s language — “medicinal” penalties intended to call a person who has committed some grave act to repentance and conversion.
Excommunication limits — severely — a person’s permission to participate in the life of the Church. An excommunicated person is prohibited from offering the Mass or receiving sacraments, from holding a leadership, ministry, or liturgical position in the Church, and from performing acts of governance in the Church.
An excommunication, from the canonical perspective, is not itself a declaration on the state of a person’s soul, or a dismissal from the Church, it is instead a penalty intended to convey with practical consequences the spiritual consequences of a person’s actions, which have caused a separation with the hierarchical and sacramental communion of the Church.
Ok, so the bishops are excommunicated. Did the Vatican say that the entire SSPX is schismatic?
Well, not exactly. And this is an interesting canonical point, if somewhat pedantic.
When the SSPX was founded in 1970, it had provisional status as a canonical entity, on the path toward becoming an established religious institute. But in 1975, the society was canonically suppressed.
Since then, the Vatican has made the point frequently that the society is not recognized as a canonically existing reality, and the priests and deacons associated with it do not enjoy any prerogative of authority regarding the laity who worship there.
In line with that, the Vatican documents released Thursday deal with the people associated with the society, but not with the group as such, since the Vatican doesn’t technically recognize the group as a group.
Ok. So what about priests?
A July 2 “explanatory note” published by the DDF said that “from now on … the sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatic.”
As a result, they are “subject to the excommunication provided for by law.”
The decree itself did not actually declare the excommunication of the priests, but instead offered a formal canonical warning that continuing in the society would lead to the penalty — in other words, that priests now face a choice to leave the society, or to face the prospect of undeclared excommunication.
But the Vatican did more on Thursday than just say that SSPX-affiliated priests are subject to excommunication. In a document released after the excommunication decree, the DDF confirmed that such priests are suspended from any legitimate ministry because of the circumstances of their ordination or joining the society, and it provided a path for priests to be reconciled to the Church.
That path requires priests to find a bishop or religious superior willing to accept them, temporarily at first, and to write a letter to the pope requesting remission of the penalties associated with his irregular clerical status. It also requires such priests to sign a profession of faith and a promise of fidelity of the Church and the pope, which includes affirming the teaching of Vatican Council II on the Church’s magisterium and its authority, along with affirming the validity of the Mass and sacraments celebrated in the Church’s current liturgical books.
The path to reconciliation is not a guarantee, with the Vatican emphasizing the initially probationary period of such a priest’s acceptance for ministry in the communion of the Church.
And lay people?
The July 2 decree and explanatory note cautioned that lay people who “formally adhere” to the schism of the SSPX are also in danger of excommunication.
The caution raises a question: What does it mean to formally adhere to a schism?
For that, the DDF turns to a 1996 note from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, which identifies two elements of formal adherence.
The first is “freely and consciously sharing the substance of the schism, that is, in opting in such a way for the [SSPX] that this option is placed above obedience to the pope.”
The second is an external expression of that internal disposition, which could mean exclusive attendance at the SSPX liturgies, or formally joining an SSPX lay association, or even, in principle, exclusive and consistent financial commitment to the SSPX.
That does not mean that every lay person who attends SSPX Masses is subject to an excommunication — in fact, many canonists hold that while the Vatican has discouraged attendance as a serious moral warning, an SSPX liturgy fulfills, at least in principle, the Sunday obligation.
And the Vatican recognized on Thursday that lay people who attended SSPX liturgies without rejecting the authority of the pope would not be subject to a penalty, and could return to the full communion of the Church just by talking with their priest.
But there does arise a point at which commitment to the Society of St. Pius X constitutes schism, and thus excommunication — even if each individual case has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Similar to priests, the DDF provided on Thursday guidance for those who “who have formally adhered to or regularly attend the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and who seek to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church” — in other words, those who have incurred an excommunication.
In those cases, laity would be required to sign and give to their diocesan bishop a profession of faith and oath of fidelity — the same one provided for priests.
The tricky part is knowing when that process would be required, since it seems unlikely that many lay Catholics will be subject to an actually declared excommunication because of their affiliation with the SSPX, except in cases of extreme notoriety.
In practice, the onus will fall most often on parish priests as a point of entry for laity wishing to move away from affiliation with the SSPX, and in places where that becomes common, diocesan bishops may well offer guidance. But the process for laity raises at least some questions which are as yet unanswered, and will likely require ongoing input, either from diocesan bishops or from the Apostolic See.
What else did the Vatican say?
In addition to raising issues related to excommunication, the DDF warned Catholics on Thursday that “that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and the marriage assisted by them are invalid.”
The warning about the illicit celebration of sacraments is meant as a moral admonition and exhortation to Catholics that they not participate in the illicit — or illegal — celebration of sacraments.
But the point about penance and marriage has raised some canonical questions.
Except in danger of death, valid sacramental absolution from priests ordinarily requires they have a faculty conferred by a competent ecclesiastical authority — usually a diocesan bishop.
During the 2015 Year of Mercy, Pope Francis made a concession, giving the faculty to validly absolve to priests of the SSPX, for the sake of the souls of Catholics who approached them for confession. In 2017, he made it possible for SSPX priests to witness marriages, making it possible for Catholics to validly marry in SSPX chapels.
To date, the Holy See has not announced that those things have been especially revoked. While it seems clear that the ability to confer marriage delegation would not perdure under the SSPX’s present circumstances, excommunication prohibits the exercise of faculties given, but doesn’t explicitly revoke them. And a priest laboring under an undeclared excommunication can, according to canon 1335, confer sacraments validly when a Catholic requests them — suggesting that canonically, there is not yet a public expressed reason to account for the DDF’s assertion that the sacrament of penance would be invalid when celebrated by a priest of the SSPX.
That means either there could be some clarification forthcoming from the DDF, or that Pope Leo did rescind the faculty for SSPX priests, and that decision did not make it into the public announcements of July 2.
Given the tenor of the conflict to date, that point seems unlikely to be merely abstract — and will likely become more contentiously debated as time goes on without clarification from the Vatican. To date, The Pillar’s sources close to the DDF have said they do not have direct knowledge of the canonical framework behind the July 2 statement.
What have bishops said?
At least some U.S. bishops have responded to the whole thing by inviting Catholics close to the SSPX to take the dramatic moment of the declared penalty as an opportunity to reconsider things.
Minneapolis-St. Paul Archbishop Bernard Hebda put things this way:
“In the ten years that I have led this local Church, I have met many sincere people who worship regularly or occasionally at the chapels of the SSPX within the territory of our Archdiocese. I have been impressed by the strength of their families and their commitment to traditional Catholic values. I realize that today’s excommunications will affect them in a particular way.”
“It is my hope they will not follow the above-mentioned bishops in separating themselves from the Successor of Peter, Pope Leo XIV, and from the Church that he humbly leads.”
“At this difficult moment, we are blessed that the same traditional Eucharistic liturgy beloved by those who have worshiped with the SSPX in the past continues to be celebrated in six locations throughout the Archdiocese. I am confident that those who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass could find a home here,” the archbishop concluded.
I hate that this is getting so much media time, but I also really appreciate you guys taking the time to explain all the finer canonical details. It helps me to know if I'm thinking through things correctly, and it's a great resource to send people to for further info. So thanks!
This was a super helpful explainer! We read it out loud over dinner to answer all our questions.