Pope Leo XIV (C) greets the people after presiding over a meeting June 7 in Madrid, Spain, 07 June 2026. An arch-conservative Catholic group on Wednesday consecrated four bishops without the pope’s permission and despite his appeal to them. Photo by Fernando Villar/EPA
The Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic organization, consecrated four bishops in a highly ritualized ceremony Wednesday without the consent of Pope Leo XIV.
The pontiff issued a last-minute appeal to the group to “desist from your intended act” and a warning that the ordination was “a sin of extreme gravity,” The New York Times reported. The Vatican also said the bishops would be excommunicated if they went ahead with the ceremony.
Two of the men were from the United States, with one from France and one from Switzerland, The Guardian reported. The ceremony took place in Écône, Switzerland, where the SSPX started in 1970. The founders created the society to oppose what they considered liberalizing changes in the Catholic Church.
The SSPX rejects the decisions of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, which included allowing services in languages other than Latin. It is also against efforts to heal divisions between Catholicism and other forms of Christianity but considers the Roman Catholic Church to be the preeminent church of the world even as it criticizes modernization attempts as heresy.
Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta performed the ceremony Wednesday. He also faces excommunication.
Before the ceremony, a priest read a statement defending the event and decrying how the modern Catholic Church has broken with tradition, The Guardian reported.
“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 statement said. “We consider every punishment and censure brought to bearagainst this step will have no validity.”
Among those attending were members of Forza Nuova, the Italian neofacist party, and Futuro Nazionale, a newer far-right group, The Guardian said.
The last major clash between a pope and SSPX was in 1988, when the society’s founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops in defiance of Pope John Paul II. The pontiff excommunicated Lefebvre and the four men. Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications in 2009.
The event Wednesday drew a crowd of thousands. Despite the SSPX’s stance against modernization, a live stream broadcast in French was also translated into several other languages. It provided those watching with a QR code with which to make donations.
The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a well-known Catholic author, told The Times that the ordination was “a huge party” and a marketing event.
“They want to be the leaders of the conservative dissenters in the Catholic church, even if it means leading people out of the Catholic church, which is what they’re doing,” Reese said.
