Vatican excommunicates bishops and members of ultraconservative Catholic group

The Vatican announced this Thursday (2) that priests and members of a dissident Catholic group, which ordained four new bishops in defiance of the will of Pope Leo XIV, are in schism and excommunicated.

The Society of Saint Pius

In response, the Vatican's doctrine department published, this Thursday, a decree declaring that the four bishops are excommunicated, along with the two bishops who participated in the ordination ceremony. Excommunication means they are excluded from the sacraments of the Church.

In an explanatory note, the decree added that priests belonging to the society and lay people who "formally adhere" to the group are also in schism and excommunicated.

The decree warns all "clerics and lay faithful" not to formally follow the society, as they will automatically incur the penalty of excommunication.

In a blunt decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith - the main doctrinal oversight body of the Church, which has 1.4 billion faithful - also warned Catholics around the world that the Society of Saint Pius X, based in Switzerland, is now celebrating the sacraments illicitly.

The ultra-traditionalist group, which rejects fundamental teachings of the Church, cannot validly celebrate weddings or hear confessions, according to the decree.

It is a strict principle of the Church that only the Pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops, in order to preserve the institution's links with the 12 apostles of Jesus, considered the first priests and bishops.

Decree beyond expectations
The Church considers the unauthorized ordination of bishops so serious that it entails the automatic excommunication of those participating in the ceremony, that is, their withdrawal from communion with the Church, preventing them from receiving the sacraments until they repent and ask for forgiveness.

This Thursday's decree was already widely expected.

Schism is a term that indicates a formal and serious rupture within the Catholic community.

The Society of Saint Pius

The Council also allowed the Mass, until then celebrated only in Latin, to be held in vernacular languages. The Society rejected this change, citing a preference for the sense of mystery and formality of the Latin rite.

The Society - whose followers are sometimes called Lefebvrians, after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - claims to have 733 priests around the world.

Its leadership, which has long had tense relations with the Vatican, maintains that it needed to ordain new bishops to ensure a sufficient number of prelates to lead the group.

*With information from Reuters news agency

Source: CNN