Introduction
The Priestly Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX, or—more often—just SSPX) has been in the news and on Catholic social media a lot lately. While some people are familiar with this organization, there are still some Catholics who have no idea who or what it is. Perhaps more concerning, there are also many Catholics who have misunderstandings about it and its status.
Hence, I would like to offer a brief synopsis answering the question “What is the SSPX?” I will start with biographical information about its founder before the establishment of the SSPX. Next, I will discuss the founding of the SSPX. I will then summarize the canonical suppression of the SSPX and its subsequent conflicts with the Holy See. Finally, I will outline the most recent controversy.
The Founder
Marcel Lefebvre (1905–1991) was born in Tourcoing, France. In September 1929, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Lille. A couple years later, he joined a missionary religious order: the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (the Holy Ghost Fathers). He taught at St. John’s Seminary in Libreville, Gabon, in Africa. He became rector of that same seminary in 1935. A decade or so later, Lefebvre was named the rector of his religious congregation’s seminary in Mortain, France. In 1947, Lefebvre returned to Africa when Pope Pius XII appointed him as vicar apostolic of Dakar in Senegal. For this new role, Lefebvre was consecrated bishop in September of that year. In 1955, he was made the first archbishop of Dakar.
In 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed Lefebvre to the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. He then became bishop of the small Diocese of Tulle, France, in 1962, but he resigned that same year upon his election as superior general of the Holy Ghost Fathers. He participated in all the sessions for the Second Vatican Council from 1962–1965. As someone intimately involved in reviewing the original draft texts (schemas or schemata), however, he was distraught to see them discarded by the council fathers.
In response, along with other traditionally minded bishops, Lefebvre formed a group known as the Coetus Internationale Patrum (International Group of Fathers), which started operating during the second working period of the council (1963). It expressed opposition to the draft text of what became the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate. Similarly, as Jared Wicks reports, “All during the fourth period, the Coetus also marshalled particularly vehement oppositions to the drafts that Vatican II eventually promulgated in its final day as the Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).”
The Founding of the SSPX
A few years after the council, Lefebvre retired as superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers when a new one was elected. But shortly thereafter, some French seminarians approached him, asking him to help provide a more traditional formation. With the permission of a Swiss bishop, Lefebvre established a seminary named after Pope Pius X in Fribourg in 1969, which moved to Écône the following year. That same year (1970), the bishop of Fribourg, Francois Charriere, approved the formation of the SSPX as a “pious union of priests in the diocese, originally for an experimental period as is customary with newly-established religious congregations.”
However, as Andrew Mioni notes in his book Altar Against Altar, “Lefebvre drew the ire of the Vatican after issuing a public statement in 1974 in which he claimed that the Council’s reforms ‘contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments,’ and that it was ‘therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to . . . submit to [them] in any way whatsoever.’” This led to the eventual suppression of the SSPX, to which we now turn.
Suppression of the SSPX
On January 24, 1975, Bishop Charriere’s successor as bishop of Fribourg, Pierre Mamie, petitioned the Sacred Congregation for Religious to suppress the SSPX’s status as a pious union, even before the end of the six-year experimental period. The congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Arturo Tabera, responded on April 25, 1975, stating that Bishop Mamie had the authority to withdraw his predecessor’s approval of the SSPX and expressed the congregation’s agreement that the SSPX should be suppressed immediately. Accordingly, Bishop Mamie formally suppressed the SSPX on May 6, 1975. On the same day, a commission of cardinals, which had interviewed Lefebvre back in January 1975, issued a separate letter, with the approval of Pope Paul VI, detailing the conditions of the suppression.
Lefebvre sought recourse from the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court of canon law within the Catholic Church. The recourse was refused. Since the condemnation by the three-member commission of cardinals had been approved by the pope in forma specifica, making it the pope’s own act, appeal to the court was impossible. Lefebvre then asked the Holy Father to refer his case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), but Paul VI refused, expressed his sadness over Lefebvre’s actions, and reiterated his choice to make the cardinals’ conclusions his own, ordering their immediate enforcement. After yet another failed attempt at recourse in July 1975, “The SSPX ceased to exist canonically from this point in time.”
Lefebvre continued to ordain priests annually and acted disobediently for years, despite attempts at reconciliation via the CDF over the course of about a decade.
Further Controversies
Rather than submit to the Holy See, Lefebvre continued to operate as if the SSPX were still canonically regular. Four days ahead of Lefebvre’s plans to ordain a group of seminarians to the priesthood on June 29, 1976, Paul VI—through Cardinal Giovanni Benelli—ordered Lefebvre to refrain from performing any ordinations under threat of suspension. Lefebvre proceeded anyway and was notified of his suspension by the Congregation of Bishops on July 22, 1976. Lefebvre continued to ordain priests annually and acted disobediently for years, despite attempts at reconciliation via the CDF over the course of about a decade.
Despite this ongoing tension, Lefebvre nevertheless petitioned Pope John Paul II to allow him to consecrate new bishops for the SSPX. Ratzinger, as prefect of the CDF, proposed a meeting. Lefebvre agreed. As a result, the Holy See and Lefebvre reached an agreement, but the latter soon became wary of the arrangement, demanding he be allowed to consecrate new bishops on June 30, 1988 (a date he had requested previously). Eventually, Ratzinger counter-proposed August 15 as a date but without giving a specific number of bishops.
Lefebvre indicated he would proceed with the consecrations on June 30. Pope John Paul II responded on June 9, 1988, exhorting Lefebvre not to proceed, since doing so would be seen as a schismatic act. This warning was reiterated by the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, on June 17, 1988, stating unequivocally, “If you should carry out your intention . . . you yourself and also the bishops ordained by you will incur ipso facto excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See in accordance with canon 1382.”
The episcopal consecrations of four bishops of Lefebvre’s own choosing—against the pope’s express wishes—proceeded anyway. In response, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, which declared that “notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Maillerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.”
Not everyone within the SSPX was comfortable with this situation. “A number of SSPX priests who heeded the Vatican’s declarations were reconciled to the Church, and John Paul II permitted them to continue their ministry in its pre-conciliar form. . . . These priests formed the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter [FSSP].”
Members of the SSPX sometimes argue they cannot be in schism because in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the penalty of excommunication on the bishops ordained by Lefebvre. However, as Andrew Bartel reminds us, “It is also worth pointing out the precedent set by Pope Paul VI in 1965 when he lifted the declared excommunication on the Orthodox church, which obviously did not end the schism.”
Pope Benedict XVI himself clarified matters in a letter dated March 10, 2009. Therein, he writes:
The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return. . . . As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. . . . In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers—even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty—do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.
In this vein, it is important to note that since the priests of the SSPX did not have a canonical mission from the Church, they had no jurisdiction to hear confessions or witness the exchange of vows for the sacrament of holy matrimony. In other words, their absolutions and weddings were invalid. Their Masses remained valid but nevertheless illicit (i.e., against the law of the Church).
Some confusion arose in 2015, when Pope Francis—for the sake of mercy—granted SSPX priests faculties to absolve sins in the sacrament of penance. (Of course, the presupposition is that they were doing so invalidly prior to that point!) Then, in 2016, he extended that faculty “beyond the Jubilee Year, until further provisions are made, lest anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the Church’s pardon.” But in that same paragraph, Pope Francis had already spoken of their striving “with God’s help for the recovery of full communion with the Catholic Church,” indicating that—even then—they were not in full communion with the Church.
“We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally.”
Recent Controversy
History appears to be repeating itself. As many, including Victoria Cardiel, have reported, “The Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) says it will proceed with plans to consecrate new bishops on July 1 without a pontifical mandate, despite a Vatican warning.”
In an effort to prevent further latae sententiae excommunications that would make the situation even worse than it already is, the prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Fernández, welcomed the superior general of the SSPX, Fr. David Pagliarani, on February 12, 2026, with the hope of opening a renewed dialogue between Rome and the society. Subsequently, however, Pagliarani sent a letter to Cardinal Fernández rejecting the offer for dialogue.
The first reason Pagliarani gave was as follows: “We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally.” Additionally, he noted that he himself had requested dialogue back in 2019, but that request was never granted. Accordingly, he surmises that it is only the threat of the proposed episcopal consecrations and Rome’s desire to prevent them that has led to this overture. The SSPX is not willing to delay the consecrations and so will proceed as planned.
Basically, the SSPX and the Vatican’s relationship appears to be going back to square one. Unless something drastic happens in the meantime, on July 1, 2026, the ordaining bishops and the priests receiving the episcopal consecrations will incur latae sententiae excommunications. If one might look for a silver lining in the midst of a great tragedy, perhaps some of the faithful who have been laboring under the illusion that the SSPX was not schismatic will come to realize the sad reality. As Cardinal Raymond Burke—the exemplary canonist, advocate for the Traditional Latin Mass, and former head of the Apostolic Signatura—said back in 2017: “Despite the various arguments surrounding the question, the fact of the matter is that the SSPX is in schism.”1
1 Cardinal Burke gave this response to a question about the SSPX following a speech at a conference in Medford, Oregon. Quote here taken from Noah Weidig and Wesley Weidig, “SSPX: Indefensible: A Concise Treatment of the Canonical Status of the Society of St. Pius X,” True or False Pope? website, https://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/sspx-indefensible.html.