A breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics directly defied Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday by celebrating an ancient Latin Mass to consecrate four bishops without his consent, dismissing the threat of schism and excommunication and justifying their actions as a sacred duty to defend the Catholic faith.
Bells tolled through the mountain valley of Econe, Switzerland, as the Society of St. Pius X began the solemn ceremony at its seminary. Thousands of faithful Catholics who prefer the traditional Latin Mass over modern liturgies filled the field under cloudy skies as an incense-led procession of hundreds of priests approached the altar under a tent. The orderly, solemn ceremony, accompanied by organ music and livestreamed on the society’s YouTube channel with simultaneous translation in several languages, went ahead despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off.
In a letter published Tuesday, the American pope warned that consecrating bishops without his approval amounts to a sin of extreme gravity that will actually harm their faithful. I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back, Leo wrote in his extraordinary appeal to Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X. The pope urged the group to consider the spiritual good of the faithful, saying that the schismatic act would deprive them of the licit, and in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments.
For the society, known by its acronym SSPX, neither the threat of a declared schism nor an excommunication matters. The SSPX believes it alone is upholding church tradition and the Catholic faith. We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us, said Marc-André Mabillard, media manager for the society. In a late response to Leo’s letter, the SSPX superior urged Leo to wait before declaring any penalty.
The four newly consecrated bishops are Pascal Schreiber of Switzerland, Michael Goldade of the United States, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry of France and Marc Hanappier, also of France. At the start of the Mass, a priest read aloud a statement justifying the consecrations as a necessary defense of the faith and criticizing how the Catholic Church today had deviated from tradition. Therefore before God we consider it a sacred duty toward Holy Church and toward souls to proceed with the consecration of bishops who are entirely faithful to her holy tradition and to her constant magisterium, the priest said. We consider every punishment and censure brought to bear against this step will have no validity.
According to church law, the mere act of consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate incurs the harshest penalty in the Catholic Church: automatic excommunication for the four new bishops and the bishop administering the rite. It also amounts to a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church.
Yet everything about Wednesday’s ceremony had the air of a joyous celebration. The website for its consecration had a countdown clock running for days. Video clips showed seminarians joyfully unloading boxes. Participants received a baseball cap with the Econe2026 seal on it. The field, located under giant power lines, was awash in smiling nuns, priests posing for photos, Girl Scouts handing out water bottles, black-clad security guards with earpieces and orange-vested volunteer escorts keeping journalists on a short leash. Registered participants were even able to purchase souvenir wine sets to commemorate the historic event.
The ceremony took place exactly 38 years to the day after the Vatican declared the last consecrations of SSPX bishops a schismatic act that incurred automatic excommunication for the bishops. The French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had founded the ultratraditionalist SSPX in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. That historic 1960s gathering revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.
The group denies that the consecration is a rejection of Leo’s authority or a challenge to his power. Rather, it says the creation of four new bishops is solely to be able to ordain new priests and preside over confirmation ceremonies according to the ancient rite. The society has justified the consecrations, citing a state of necessity to minister to its faithful. The SSPX has accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors, including modernism, liberalism and ecumenism.
The consecrations amount to a major crisis for Leo, who has prioritized church unity and healing tensions with traditionalists that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate. Since becoming pope, the American-born pontiff has emphasized healing divisions within the church, including tensions with traditionalist Catholics who favor the old Latin Mass. The SSPX, as the society is known, is a threat to the Holy See since it represents a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church.
Today, the SSPX now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities. The highly organized religious extravaganza on Wednesday underscored the society’s international reach and appeal to conservative, traditionalist Catholics wary of the modern, secular world, despite its schismatic outsider status.
Despite his general distrust of traditionalists and a broader crackdown on the old Latin Mass, Pope Francis actually went out of his way to offer concessions to the SSPX. In 2015, he decreed that Catholics could validly go to confession with SSPX priests, essentially recognizing as legitimate the absolutions granted to Catholics who confessed their sins to SSPX priests. Francis had made the concession as a one-year gesture during his Jubilee of Mercy, but then extended it indefinitely. He also made a provision to allow SSPX priests to celebrate marriages legitimately. Experts say Leo could revoke some of the concessions that Francis granted the SSPX as part of the Holy See’s response to the new consecrations.
Many Catholics, including conservative and traditional ones, are opposed to the consecrations, viewing them as an act of severe disobedience to the pope that hurts the church. You can’t serve tradition while disobeying the church and her authority, said Rev. Robert Gahl, an ethics expert at the Catholic University of America.