The continuing SSPX recourse exposes an ecclesiological paradox which neither the Society nor the Holy See can afford to evade.
Three months after the episcopal consecrations at Écône, the Society of Saint Pius X has confirmed that its challenge to the Roman decree of excommunication remains ongoing. The development acquires particular significance when considered alongside Father Davide Pagliarani’s insistence that the Church’s crisis can ultimately be resolved only through Rome, and Bishop Michael Goldade’s explanation of the doctrinal necessity claimed by the Society. An extraordinary act of resistance has been accompanied by a persistent profession of Roman primacy. The resulting contradiction is not necessarily one of principle, but it is a serious question of ecclesiastical conduct which demands examination according to the Church’s own law.
The Society of Saint Pius X has confirmed that its canonical challenge to the decree of excommunication issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on 2 July 2026 remains ongoing in Rome. In a communiqué dated 13 October, the General House at Menzingen announced that, following its preliminary petition of 11 July, the Society had pursued the avenues of recourse provided by canon law, observing the applicable procedures and deadlines. The bishops concerned continue to seek examination of their juridical and doctrinal objections to the Roman documents issued immediately after the episcopal consecrations at Écône. Pending further action by the competent authorities, the Society intends to maintain appropriate discretion and has invited priests and faithful to pray for the Holy Father and the whole Church.¹
The statement is unusually restrained for a controversy which has generated so much polemic. It announces neither vindication nor victory. It does not claim that the penalties have been annulled, disclose the contents of the proceedings, or report a determination by the competent authority. It does establish that the Society reports having pursued further canonical remedies beyond its initial petition. The decree has been issued; the challenge to its juridical foundations and consequences has not been publicly brought to a conclusion. To distinguish those two facts is not to prejudge the appeal. It is simply to recognise the difference between an administrative decision and the completion of the process through which that decision may be contested.
Nuntiatoria examined the original petition in The Law That Binds Peter and The Verdict Before the Hearing. Both editorials insisted upon a principle frequently obscured by the controversy: the Church’s legal provisions for challenging an administrative decree cannot become meaningless precisely because the authority whose action is challenged possesses genuine jurisdiction. A Roman dicastery may act with the authority of the Holy See without every administrative determination becoming thereby irreformable. The Code provides remedies because ecclesiastical government, like every exercise of human judgement, must be capable of identifying and correcting error.²
The October communiqué brings this principle into renewed focus, but a recent intervention by Robert Morrison in The Remnant identifies another aspect of the Society’s conduct which deserves closer examination. Writing on 15 October, Morrison argued that the extraordinary boldness of the episcopal consecrations had been accompanied by a surprising degree of modesty. He pointed to the Society’s attempts at negotiation before proceeding, its decision to consecrate four bishops rather than establish a larger episcopal hierarchy, its recourse against the penalties imposed, and its continued expressions of respect and prayer for Pope Leo XIV. Morrison interprets these circumstances as evidence of humility and confidence in Divine Providence.³
The observations are worth considering, although the conclusion requires greater caution. Humility is a moral virtue concerning the truthful estimation of oneself before God. It cannot be established merely by the numerical restraint of an otherwise prohibited act, nor by the courtesy with which its perpetrators address the authority they have disobeyed. A man may behave politely while remaining obstinate; another may resist a command in circumstances which genuinely trouble his conscience. The external evidence must be examined before an inward disposition is presumed.
Nevertheless, Morrison has identified a genuine paradox. Those who proceeded with episcopal consecrations against the express prohibition of the Roman Pontiff have continued to invoke the jurisdiction of the Apostolic See against the penalties declared upon them. They have neither established an alternative supreme tribunal nor purported to absolve themselves by their own authority. The Society which judged that necessity required it to act without papal authorisation continues to address itself to Rome as the authority competent to examine its conduct and the lawfulness of its punishment.
This is not, by itself, proof that schism is absent. Recognition of papal authority in theory can coexist with conduct which repudiates it in practice. Yet the reverse proposition is equally important: disobedience to a particular papal command and rejection of the divinely instituted authority of the papacy are not identical by definition. The former may constitute evidence of the latter, and under particular circumstances may amount to its practical expression. Whether it has done so must be established by examination of the act, the intentions of those responsible and the ecclesiastical relationship they have sought either to preserve or to abandon.
A statement by Father Davide Pagliarani, made before the consecrations, gives this distinction particular force. In an interview published on 19 April, the Superior General maintained that the crisis afflicting the Church had arisen principally through developments emanating from Rome. Yet he concluded that its eventual resolution could come only “from Rome and through Rome”.⁴
This is perhaps the most consequential admission in the Society’s contemporary account of itself. Pagliarani does not locate the ultimate remedy in an autonomous traditionalist hierarchy, a permanently separate jurisdiction or the institutional self-sufficiency of the Society. He locates it in the Roman See. His argument is that the authority which has permitted or promoted developments he considers destructive of Tradition must itself ultimately correct them. Whatever judgement one makes of his diagnosis, the remedy he professes to seek presupposes the continuing authority of Rome and the permanence of the Petrine office.
The significance is reinforced by the Society’s profession of Catholic faith, issued on 24 June. In paragraphs 73–82, it explicitly acknowledges the Roman Pontiff as successor of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ and supreme pastor of the universal Church, possessing full, immediate and universal jurisdiction. It professes the duty of obedience in the legitimate exercise of that office and affirms papal infallibility according to the conditions defined by the Church. These are not the formulations of an ecclesiology which formally denies Roman primacy. They are recognisably those of the Roman Catholic doctrinal tradition.⁵
The same profession, however, makes the Society’s subsequent conduct more demanding of explanation. It acknowledges an authority whose express prohibition was nevertheless defied. Nor should the declaration read at the consecrations be overlooked: the Society asserted that penalties incurred through the action would have no validity. The juxtaposition is striking. The Society professes the Pope’s supreme jurisdiction while claiming that the particular exercise of that jurisdiction, in circumstances it judges exceptional, cannot produce the penal consequences announced by Rome.
There is not necessarily a formal contradiction between those propositions. Catholic theology distinguishes the possession of legitimate authority from the justice and legality of every particular act performed under it. An administrative decision may be challenged without the office from which it proceeds being repudiated. Yet that distinction cannot become a licence by which the governed determine, solely upon their own judgement, which commands are sufficiently acceptable to bind them. If the Society’s position is to be sustained, it must be established by theological and canonical argument, not merely by repeating its conviction that necessity exists.
The nature of the four episcopal consecrations is relevant here. The Society’s declaration identified the newly consecrated bishops as auxiliaries, chosen for the purpose of serving the Roman Church. Its stated intention was to preserve the transmission of priestly orders and the provision of episcopal sacraments within its apostolate. It did not claim to establish four dioceses, confer ordinary territorial jurisdiction or erect an ecclesiastical government formally independent of the Roman Pontiff. The Society’s own theology distinguishes the sacramental power of episcopal orders from the canonical mission by which authority to govern is conferred.⁵
That distinction does not render the consecrations lawful. Episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate remains a serious violation of ecclesiastical discipline, expressly punishable under canon 1387. Nor does the absence of an asserted territorial jurisdiction automatically exclude schism. Refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff may be manifested in conduct without the formal construction of a rival hierarchy. Nevertheless, the Society’s disclaimer of ordinary governing jurisdiction is relevant to the character and intention of its actions. It cannot responsibly be ignored merely because the acts themselves were prohibited.
As Nuntiatoria argued in The Society Is Not the Scandal, the accusation that the SSPX constitutes a parallel Church requires more careful analysis than is usually afforded it. The Society’s international organisation, seminaries, chapels and sacramental ministry undoubtedly demonstrate a substantial degree of practical independence. Such independence may produce grave canonical difficulties. But an extensive apostolate operating under claimed necessity is not necessarily the same thing as an institution asserting a divinely or canonically autonomous jurisdiction. The distinction matters precisely because the Church’s law distinguishes the unlawful exercise of ministry from schism, and schism from other forms of ecclesiastical disobedience.
There is, however, a danger for the Society itself. An emergency cannot become a permanent ecclesiology without eventually contradicting its own justification. Necessity must remain ordered towards the restoration of normal ecclesiastical life. If extraordinary episcopal provision becomes a settled alternative to canonical mission, the Society risks establishing in practice what it continues to deny in principle. The preservation of the inherited Roman liturgy and priestly formation cannot absolve any apostolate from the obligation to seek regular communion with the hierarchy of the Church.
This is why Pagliarani’s insistence that the crisis must ultimately be resolved through Rome is more significant than Morrison’s claim of modesty. It supplies a criterion against which the Society’s own future conduct must be judged. Its exceptional measures must remain directed towards a resolution which restores the ordinary exercise of ecclesiastical authority without compromising what it understands to be the received Catholic Faith. The Society cannot consistently profess Rome to be the necessary agent of restoration while allowing its own exceptional circumstances to become an end in themselves.
Bishop Michael Goldade’s October letter to the friends and benefactors of St Thomas Aquinas Seminary brings the underlying doctrinal controversy into sharper focus. One of the four bishops consecrated at Écône, Goldade argues that the present crisis is not the accidental accumulation of unrelated disciplinary and pastoral problems, but the consequence of theological changes introduced through Vatican II and developed in subsequent ecclesiastical teaching and practice. He identifies controversies concerning Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, religious indifferentism, the relationship between Church and state, and the blessing of same-sex couples as manifestations of a deeper discontinuity with the received Deposit of Faith.⁶
His argument is that the Society’s decision to consecrate bishops cannot be understood apart from this diagnosis. The immediate purpose of the consecrations was the preservation of episcopal succession within its apostolate; the wider purpose, in Goldade’s account, was to expose and resist the doctrinal errors which the Society believes have produced the present ecclesiastical crisis. The significance of the letter lies not in proving the correctness of that diagnosis, but in explaining the reasoning of a bishop personally subject to the disputed decree.
It is an argument Rome must be prepared to examine. Yet it cannot be accepted as demonstrated simply because subsequent controversies can be traced historically to the post-conciliar period. The contention that ambiguous formulations developed into contradictions of previously defined doctrine must be tested through comparison of particular propositions, their theological authority, their authentic meaning and their relation to earlier teaching. Ambiguity is not automatically contradiction. Neither, however, does the invocation of doctrinal development make genuine contradiction impossible. The continuity of Catholic teaching must be demonstrated where it is disputed, not merely presumed because the later formulation has received official approval.
Nuntiatoria has already developed this distinction in Crisis Is the Cause; Necessity Is the Effect and The SSPX Is Not Really on Trial—The Post-Conciliar Settlement Is. The first examined the relationship between the existence of an ecclesiastical crisis and the justification of extraordinary remedies. The second explored the doctrinal questions which remain unresolved beneath the immediate disciplinary confrontation. Goldade’s intervention strengthens the connection between them. He presents the consecrations as a consequence of the Society’s theological judgement concerning the Church’s condition. Whether that judgement was sufficient to establish canonical necessity remains an entirely separate question.⁷
Morrison’s suggestion that the consecrations constitute a providentially authorised intervention therefore requires qualification. Divine Providence may draw good from an action without that action thereby becoming justified. Beneficial consequences do not establish the moral legitimacy of every means by which they were obtained. A controversy which compels renewed examination of neglected doctrinal questions may prove salutary without establishing that the conduct which precipitated it was canonically lawful. Neither the Society’s continued growth nor its persistence in preserving the traditional Roman liturgy can substitute for the precise argument concerning necessity and penal responsibility.
That argument returns us to the decree itself. The Dicastery declared excommunications following the consecrations performed on 1 July. Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta and the four newly consecrated bishops were declared to have incurred the penalties prescribed by canons 1387 and 1364 §1. Bishop Bernard Fellay was treated separately: his participation as co-consecrator was judged to constitute public adherence to the alleged schismatic act, bringing him under canon 1364 §1. The distinctions within the decree are significant. The offence of episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate and the offence of schism are juridically distinct, even where a particular act is alleged to constitute both.⁸
Canon 751 defines schism as refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with those subject to him. The fact of the prohibited consecrations is undisputed. The Society knew the Pope’s will and acted contrary to it. The question is whether the circumstances established the further offence of schism and whether the relevant automatic penalties were incurred by each of those concerned. The Society’s professions of papal allegiance are relevant to that assessment, but do not determine it. Equally, the external act of disobedience is relevant without necessarily establishing every element of the additional offence.
The general norms of penal law cannot be disregarded. Canon 1321 requires grave imputability before punishment, while canons 1323 and 1324 regulate circumstances of necessity, grave inconvenience and certain mistaken judgements concerning those circumstances. Their application to the Écône consecrations is disputed. The Society cannot simply announce that the emergency absolves it of all responsibility. The Holy See, however, must examine whether the circumstances alleged engage the provisions which excuse or mitigate penal liability, including those affecting the incurrence of automatic penalties.⁹
Nor can the explanatory note issued alongside the decree be treated as indistinguishable from the individual penal determinations. The note extended its analysis to the Society’s clergy and to laypeople formally adhering to the alleged schism, and made further assertions concerning sacramental validity. The Holy See’s explanatory note of 1996, expressly adopted in July, strongly supported the Roman judgement concerning the Lefebvrist movement. Yet it also distinguished the moral question of schism from the juridical establishment of a punishable offence, and recognised that the situation of laypeople required examination of their intention and conduct. Occasional liturgical participation without schismatic disposition was expressly distinguished from formal adherence. These qualifications are part of the Roman canonical record, not concessions invented by the Society’s defenders.¹⁰
The questions concerning Penance and Matrimony demand equal precision. Pope Francis expressly extended the faculty for valid and licit absolution by SSPX priests beyond the Jubilee of Mercy. The Holy See subsequently established arrangements under which local ordinaries could provide for marriages involving Society clergy, including the delegation of the necessary faculty to an SSPX priest in appropriate circumstances. The July explanatory note’s declaration concerning the invalidity of Confession and Matrimony must therefore be considered in relation to those earlier provisions. Competent authority may modify or withdraw faculties, but the juridical mechanism and extent of any such change should be identified rather than left to conjecture, particularly where the validity of sacraments is concerned.¹¹
There is a useful historical corrective in Pope Benedict XVI’s letter of March 2009 concerning the remission of the excommunications following the 1988 consecrations. Benedict distinguished between the disciplinary status of particular bishops, the institutional position of the Society and the unresolved doctrinal disagreements which prevented regularisation. The remission of individual penalties did not confer canonical status or legitimate the ordinary exercise of ministry. Nor did the Society’s irregular canonical position dispense with the need to address its theological objections. His distinction remains directly relevant. A penal determination against particular bishops cannot by itself resolve every question concerning an institution, its clergy, its faithful or the doctrinal controversy underlying its irregularity.¹²
The continuing recourse must accordingly be understood within the limits of what the Society has publicly disclosed. Canon 1353 provides that appeal or recourse against a decree imposing or declaring a penalty has suspensive effect, while canon 1736 §1 addresses the effect of the preliminary petition. The Society invoked these provisions in July. Its October communiqué confirms the pursuit of further remedies but does not disclose sufficient procedural material to establish independently the precise personal and material scope of suspension in every case. Suspension is not annulment. Neither should the continuation of proceedings be represented as proof that Rome has accepted the Society’s objections or that a particular tribunal has assumed jurisdiction.¹³
These distinctions are important because the integrity of the appeal depends upon its being treated as an actual legal proceeding, not as a symbolic contest between institutional power and traditionalist resistance. The Society must demonstrate the factual and juridical grounds upon which it challenges the decree. The competent Roman authorities must examine those grounds according to the applicable law. The result may be confirmation, amendment or revocation of the contested act. What cannot properly substitute for that examination is the assumption that the authority which issued the decree must necessarily have determined every relevant question correctly.
The wider ecclesiological question nevertheless remains. The Society has taken extraordinary measures against the Pope’s express will while maintaining that it recognises his supreme jurisdiction. Its conduct presents a real difficulty which cannot be dissolved through professions of loyalty alone. Yet the Holy See’s corresponding responsibility extends beyond securing obedience to a particular prohibition. It must also govern in a manner recognisably ordered to the preservation of the Faith, the protection of souls and the restoration of ecclesiastical communion.
The distinction between the Church and those who govern her at any particular moment is indispensable. The Roman Pontiff is the visible principle of ecclesiastical unity and the supreme pastor of the Church on earth. He is not the author of Revelation, nor is the Deposit of Faith subject to alteration by administrative command. The authority established by Christ for the safeguarding of His Church exists to preserve and transmit what has been received. Its legitimate exercise cannot be understood apart from that purpose.
Equally, no bishop, priest or society acquires the right to become the final interpreter of Catholic Tradition merely by identifying defects in contemporary ecclesiastical government. Tradition is not private property, and the defence of inherited doctrine cannot justify treating one’s own judgement as a permanent substitute for the juridical constitution of the Church. The preservation of the Faith and the preservation of ecclesiastical communion cannot ultimately be separated, because both belong to the divine constitution of the same Church.
This is the uncomfortable balance which the controversy demands. Rome must not confuse the defence of legitimate authority with the presumption that every particular exercise of that authority is beyond criticism. The Society must not confuse resistance to what it considers a defective exercise of authority with an unrestricted liberty to determine for itself when canonical obligations cease to bind. Both errors would undermine the very ecclesiastical order which each professes to defend.
The October communiqué offers no triumphal conclusion. It instead confirms that the Society continues to seek a determination through Roman jurisdiction. That choice has ecclesiological significance precisely because it accompanies actions which Rome has judged schismatic. The professions of submission and the conduct alleged to contradict them must be assessed together. One cannot simply cancel the other without argument.
Morrison was right to notice that the Society’s response to Rome possesses a character different from outright institutional secession. His account becomes less persuasive when the observation is made to establish a verdict upon the Society’s virtues or the providential justification of its actions. A more exacting conclusion is available. The Society’s persistent profession of Roman primacy and its continued recourse are material evidence concerning the intention with which it acted. They deserve serious consideration, though they cannot independently establish canonical innocence.
Goldade was right to direct attention to the doctrinal controversy which lies beneath the disciplinary dispute. Yet identifying an ecclesiastical crisis does not prove that every remedy adopted in response to it was necessary. The Society’s burden is to demonstrate that the circumstances of July 2026 were sufficient to justify the exceptional action taken, or to affect the penal consequences prescribed by law.
Pagliarani’s insistence that the eventual remedy must come through Rome supplies the standard by which the Society’s extraordinary position must ultimately be judged. If the crisis can end only through Rome, then the Society cannot regard permanent irregularity as its desired condition. If Rome remains the necessary centre of Catholic communion, then its authority must be exercised towards the restoration of that communion, not merely the administration of sanctions.
The salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church. This principle neither places the Society above canonical discipline nor places the Holy See beyond the demands of justice. It requires the lawful exercise of authority, the protection of the faithful, the correction of genuine offences, and the serious examination of circumstances which may affect culpability. It also requires that doctrinal disagreements of sufficient gravity to sustain decades of ecclesiastical conflict should be addressed as doctrinal questions rather than indefinitely displaced into disciplinary procedures.
The present appeal may conclude against the Society. The Roman authorities may establish that the decree was lawfully issued and that the penalties were correctly declared. Such an outcome would not settle the theological questions raised by Goldade or the difficulties identified by Pagliarani. Nor would a successful appeal vindicate every assertion of the Society concerning Vatican II, the post-conciliar reforms or the necessity of the Écône consecrations.
The juridical issue and the doctrinal issue must each be answered according to their proper principles.
Three months after the consecrations, the bishops have continued their recourse to the authority whose prohibition they defied. They have not claimed that their extraordinary act establishes a new supreme jurisdiction. They continue to profess that the restoration of ordinary ecclesiastical life must ultimately come through Rome.
The significance of that position should neither be exaggerated into proof of innocence nor diminished into irrelevance.
The Society has appealed to the authority it is accused of rejecting. That does not settle the charge of schism. It makes the precise grounds of that charge all the more necessary to establish.
And beyond the appeal remains the obligation which neither side can evade: to preserve the Catholic Faith, restore the integrity of ecclesiastical communion and ensure that the law of the Church serves the salvation of souls rather than the vindication of institutional positions.
The decree has been issued. The appeal continues.
Rome must now answer the case, not merely repeat the judgement.
¹ Society of Saint Pius X, “Communiqué from the General House: The Appeal Against the Decree of Excommunication Is Ongoing in Rome”, 13 October 2026.
² Nuntiatoria, “The Law That Binds Peter”, 14 July 2026; “The Verdict Before the Hearing”, 17 July 2026.
³ Robert Morrison, “The Paradoxical Modesty of the SSPX’s Salutary Jolt to the Church”, The Remnant, 15 October 2026.
⁴ Davide Pagliarani, “Who Is Tearing the Tunic of Christ? Interview with the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X”, 19 April 2026, question 20.
⁵ Society of Saint Pius X, “Profession of Catholic Faith of the Society of Saint Pius X to Enlighten Souls in the Face of Modern Errors”, 24 June 2026, nn. 73–82; “Habetis mandatum apostolicum? Declaration Read Before the Episcopal Consecrations”, 2 July 2026.
⁶ Michael Goldade, October 2026 letter to the friends and benefactors of St Thomas Aquinas Seminary, cited in Emily Mangiaracina, “SSPX Bishop Says Consecrations Expose Vatican’s Doctrinal ‘Errors’”, LifeSiteNews, 13 October 2026.
⁷ Nuntiatoria, “Crisis Is the Cause; Necessity Is the Effect”, 6 September 2026; “The SSPX Is Not Really on Trial—The Post-Conciliar Settlement Is”, 18 August 2026.
⁸ Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Decreto”, 2 July 2026; Holy See, Code of Canon Law, canons 1364 and 1387.
⁹ Holy See, Code of Canon Law, canons 1321–1324.
¹⁰ Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Nota Esplicativa”, 2 July 2026; Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, “Sulla scomunica per scisma in cui incorrono gli aderenti al movimento del Vescovo Marcel Lefebvre”, 24 August 1996, nn. 5–8.
¹¹ Francis, Misericordia et misera, 20 November 2016, n. 12; Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, “Letter to the Ordinaries of the Episcopal Conferences Concerned on the Faculties for the Celebration of Marriages of the Faithful of the Society Saint Pius X”, 27 March 2017.
¹² Benedict XVI, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre”, 10 March 2009.
¹³ Holy See, Code of Canon Law, canon 1353; canons 1734–1739; Society of Saint Pius X, “General House Communiqué: The Society Files a Recourse Against the Decree of 2 July 2026”, 13 July 2026.
Leave a Reply