Trad Schism, Again

The Society of Saint Pius X went ahead and ordained four bishops without a papal mandate, reprising the events of 1988. The Vatican, in turn, has announced the imposition of the same penalty: excommunication, along with official guidance for SSPX priests or faithful to reconcile themselves to the Holy See and the broader Catholic Church.

In my eyes, the whole thing was an avoidable tragedy. Effectively, the church has lost more than 731 priests, several religious houses, and a community in Kansas that just built one of the largest modern cathedrals (at a time when much of the rest of the American church is downsizing).

I make no secret about where I stand. I’m a traditionalist who intends to stay in the normal ecclesial fold and prefers that the traditional Mass be celebrated in normal parishes rather than exclusively by priestly societies dedicated to them (happy as I am to have these). I think the SSPX could have delayed longer. I think the Holy See could have made a more gracious attempt to avert this.

It astonishes me still that, in 2012, when there were for the first time serious doctrinal discussions between the SSPX and the Vatican, that then-SSPX leader Bishop Bernard Fellay and Pope Benedict XVI could not find a formula that both sides could agree to honestly and wholeheartedly to effect a final reconciliation and avoid all that has happened since.

This excommunication is not the end of the story, of course. The severity of the remedy is precisely because of the nature of the ongoing crisis that this schism represents. The SSPX priests remain priests, and their bishops true successors to the apostles — all Catholics, in an emergency, could turn to them and receive the sacraments in good conscience.

Their separation from the church over often underspecified points constitutes a scandal, not only for them but for a Vatican that is determined to carry on ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Church and Protestant ecclesial communities. This is not just “elder brother” syndrome.

I thought the most insightful thing I read on this was from Roberto De Mattei, in Rorate Caeli. De Mattei points out an extreme irony in this ecclesiastical bust-up. The SSPX says that it is acting in “state of necessity.” That is, the salvation of souls, being the highest law, requires them to disobey even the pope. To abandon their mission to bring the traditional faith, and to form priests in the traditional way, would deny the faithful precisely what Christ commands us to give them, the means of salvation. Listen carefully to this leader of an SSPX religious house during an interview yesterday.

Abbé Michel Rion SSPX responds to the CDF's Declaration of Excommunication from Écône. pic.twitter.com/6saqgTghnW

— OnePeterFive (@OnePeterFive) July 2, 2026

De Mattei:

And yet this argument — so fragile on the theological and canonical level — presents itself as the strongest on the pastoral level. Archbishop Lefebvre was not a speculative theologian or a canonist, but a missionary and a pastor of souls. In his letter to priests of April 27, 1987, he wrote: “The faithful who are still Catholic find themselves in many places in a desperate spiritual situation. It is this appeal that the Church hears; it is for these situations that she grants jurisdiction through the law of supplied jurisdiction.” The decisive criterion for him was not the assertion of a right proper to the Society, but the spiritual need of the faithful. The episcopal consecrations of 1988 were intended as a response to this appeal of souls.

We thus find ourselves before the paradox. The Society of Saint Pius X, by invoking the state of necessity, grounds a large part of its justification on the primacy of pastoral requirements over strictly juridical and doctrinal considerations — thereby embracing that very primacy of pastoral practice which is a foundational mandate of Vatican II. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, by contrast, invokes Vatican II, yet does not acknowledge the weight of the pastoral argument and employs against the Society the terms and concepts of pre-conciliar theology, in the name of the binding force of doctrine and law.

Indeed, the priest above articulates this directly. Come, look at the faithful who seek us out, how can you, as their Father, deny them their legitimate requests? He doesn’t use the modern church jargon of accompaniment, but that is precisely what he appeals to when he hopes that the pope would “come to know” the SSPX faithful and see their good faith.

And it is precisely because of the fact that the new Code of Canon Law is permeated with that more liberal attitude that the excommunication lacks some effect. The dread deed has been done, but the break is not clean, or final. The SSPX’s self-understanding as truly faithful will continue to drive it toward Rome, and Rome’s self-image, conditioned by Vatican II, will continue to incline it toward understanding, tolerance, and ultimately reconciliation.