The Vatican confirms the excommunication of the four new Lefebvrian bishops

RomeThe Vatican has confirmed the excommunication of the four new bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, an ultraconservative religious congregation that groups about 600,000 faithful worldwide, after consecrating them without the authorization of Pope Leo XIV this Wednesday in the town of Écône, Switzerland.

The Vatican's decision includes the excommunication of the two consecrators, the Spaniard Alfonso de Galarreta and the Swiss Bernard Fellay, "for having committed an act of a schismatic nature through the episcopal consecration of four priests without pontifical mandate".

In a document signed by the cardinal prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Argentine Víctor Manuel Fernández, the rite celebrated the previous day is defined as an "act of a schismatic nature" and the rest of the clergy and lay faithful are warned that, if they join the schism of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, they will also incur "ipso facto the penalty of excommunication of full right".

The Vatican had warned the previous day that consecration without the pontiff's approval meant automatic excommunication, and with the document published this Thursday, the sanction is now official.

A deeply fractured relationshipThis religious community, contrary to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and which advocates for the Latin Mass with the priest facing away from the faithful, had not consecrated new bishops since 1988, when its founder, the late French bishop Marcel Lefebvre, initiated a schism by ordaining four bishops without Rome's approval, a move that led Pope John Paul II to automatically excommunicate them all. However, in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI built bridges and lifted the excommunication of the prelates, in an attempt at reconciliation that failed when it became known that one of them was an Holocaust denier.

On Wednesday, at a Mass celebrated on an esplanade in Écône, in Latin and before some 16,000 faithful, according to the organizers, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X consecrated four new bishops without pontifical mandate: the Swiss Pascal Schreiber, the American Michael Goldade, and the Frenchmen Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier.

In the ceremony, the four priests lay down while the litany of the saints was sung, before receiving the imposition of hands from the bishop, the key moment, followed by anointing. A "historic" day, said the community's superior general, Father Davide Pagliarani, in his homily.

For the Vatican's Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, it was a "schismatic" act that caused "deep pain." At a meeting with journalists, the Vatican's number two expressed his hope that, "despite what has happened today, dialogue can be resumed and a true solution can be found."

With this massive celebration, the religious congregation – known as "the Lefebvrians" – even ignored the ultimatum from Pope Leo XIV, who on Tuesday urged the Fraternity's superior general in a letter to "turn back" to avoid a schism. For the Vatican, consecrating a bishop without the Pope's authorization is an act of insubordination that entails the automatic excommunication of the prelates and constitutes a "schismatic act."