Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday begged a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics to call off its plan to consecrate new bishops without his consent, calling the move a schismatic act and a "sin of extreme gravity." "I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!" Leo wrote in a letter to the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X. Leo issued the last-ditch appeal a day before the society plans to consecrate four new bishops at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, reports the AP. Under church law, the consecrations constitute a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church, and incur automatic excommunication for the four bishops and the bishop administering the consecration.
The ceremony poses the first major crisis for the American pope, who has stressed the need for church unity since the start of his pontificate. He has worked especially hard to heal tensions with traditionalist Catholics who prefer the old Latin Mass, which worsened under Pope Francis. The society, known as the SSPX, was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the council revolutionized the Catholic Church's relations with other religions and the laity, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in languages other than Latin. Its members celebrate the ancient Latin Mass and have accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a "state of necessity" to minister to its faithful.
In 1988, SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the church. The Vatican in 2009 lifted those original excommunications as part of its outreach to try to bring the group back under its wing. But the Vatican has warned that a similar fate awaits the new bishops if Wednesday's consecrations go ahead. In his letter, Leo repeated the Vatican's offer of dialogue and said that going through with the consecrations would be counterproductive for the SSPX faithful. "I urge you to consider carefully the spiritual good of the faithful, because the schismatic act you are about to undertake would deprive them of the licit, and in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments," he wrote.
Despite the original 1988 schismatic act, the group has continued to grow and today poses a threat to the Holy See as a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church. The SSPX counts two bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates, and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities.
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