GENEVA: A breakaway Catholic group has lodged an appeal with the Vatican against the excommunication of all six of its bishops, having defied Pope Leo XIV by consecrating four new ones.
The ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X consecrated the four new bishops on Jul 1, despite Pope Leo pleading with them to turn back from a “schismatic act”.
The following day, the SSPX’s new bishops, and the two who consecrated them in a ceremony in Econe, Switzerland, were excommunicated.
In response to that decree, issued by the Church’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the society said it had submitted “a preliminary recourse to the same dicastery” on Saturday.
The request “has the effect of suspending the execution of the decree” it said.
“By this recourse, the Society intends to exercise the right which the Church recognises to any person who considers himself harmed by an administrative act to seek its correction, in a spirit of respect for ecclesiastical authority and of faithful attachment to justice, truth and the good of the Church.”
For the Holy See, consecrating bishops without the approval of the pope is an act of insubordination, leading to the automatic excommunication of the bishops involved.
Lay faithful would also be excommunicated and “regarded as schismatics” were they to “formally adhere” to the group, the Vatican said, warning that confessions and marriages presided over by the newly ordained bishops would be “invalid”.
