The Society of Saint Pius X, a breakaway traditionalist Catholic fraternity of priests, announced Wednesday that it will not seek full reconciliation with the Catholic Church, dealing a major blow to Pope Francis’ efforts to court Catholic traditionalists.
The Society, known colloquially as SSPX, was founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to preserve liturgical and religious practice common before the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, which the group believes promoted erroneous teachings. SSPX is the largest and most prominent traditionalist organization in the Catholic world, known particularly for their practice and vigorous defense of the Tridentine Mass, the Catholic liturgy said in Latin before the major reforms of Vatican II.
According to its own figures, the Society has approximately 600 priests across 37 countries and operates more than 100 schools, including 26 in the U.S.
The chilly relationship between the Vatican and SSPX froze entirely in 1988, when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops against the orders of Pope John Paul II. Lefebvre and the four bishops were excommunicated. Relations began to thaw in 2009, when the excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, who hastened to add that Society priests do not, as a legal matter, exercise valid ministries in the Church.
Pope Francis stunned Vatican observers last year when he announced that SSPX priests could validly administer the sacrament of confession, a Catholic practice in which a penitent is absolved of their sin. He also expressed hope for an imminent reconciliation between the groups.
Those hopes were thwarted on Wednesday.
“In the great and painful confusion that currently reigns in the Church, the proclamation of Catholic doctrine requires the denunciation of errors that have made their way into it and are unfortunately encouraged by a large number of pastors, including the Pope himself,” a communique from SSPX’s Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay.
The term “confusion” is very much the watchword of the pope’s orthodox critics, often eager to rebuke some of Francis’ teachings without attacking the pope himself. In 2015, over 500 British priests endorsed an open letter decrying confusion surrounding “Catholic moral teaching” occasioned by the pope’s allowing a bishop’s conference to hear controversial proposals regarding divorced and remarried Catholics.
“The ‘restoration of all things in Christ’ intended by Saint Pius X, following Saint Paul (cf. Ep.h 1:10), cannot happen without the support of a Pope who concretely favors the return to Sacred Tradition,” the statement from SSPX continued.
Fellay met with the pontiff in April, but remained coy as to the prospect of reconciliation.
The statement from the group further hinders the pope’s outreach to traditionalist elements in the Church, troubled by some aspects of his papacy. Francis alienated many in the Church’s most traditional camp early in his tenure when he ignominiously demoted Raymond Cardinal Burke, one of the most prominent conservatives in the Church, from his post atop the Apostolic Signatura – the Vatican Supreme Court – to the patronage of a Catholic philanthropic organization. Tensions have been further exacerbated by a wide spectrum of theologically progressive statements. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE – Cardinal Burke: Church Risks Serious Tensions In Months Ahead)
Though SSPX has practically no supporters within the institutional Church, some particularly orthodox prelates are thought to be quietly sympathetic to the group. Extending an olive branch to the Society was seen as a gesture to the Church’s traditionalists who, though small number, have been loudly critical of the pontiff. The move was seen as all the more beneficent because the group is generally unpopular with Francis’ supporters.
Some prominent SSPX clerics were pushing for restoration of normal relations with the Vatican. Father Franz Schmidberger, the group’s former superior general, circulated a letter among Society members, saying Francis’ papacy had been sanctioned by Christ and that their re-admittance to full communion would create a “heathy turmoil” in which “the good would be encouraged and the malevolent will suffer a defeat.”
SSPX previously rejected an offer for full restoration with Rome in 2013.
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