SSPX rejects Vatican dialogue, plans to consecrate bishops without papal mandate

ROME (OSV News) — The Society of St. Pius X has rejected a Vatican offer of dialogue and said it will move forward with plans to ordain bishops without a papal mandate this summer.

In a letter sent to the Vatican on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, and made public Feb. 19, Father Davide Pagliarani, superior general of the traditionalist society known as SSPX, told Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, that he could not accept the terms under which the Vatican proposed to resume talks. Pagliarani added that he would not postpone the episcopal ordinations planned for July 1.

“We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally, particularly regarding the fundamental orientations adopted since the Second Vatican Council,” Father Pagliarani wrote.

The letter came one week after Cardinal Fernández and Father Pagliarani met at the Vatican Feb. 12, in which the cardinal proposed dialogue to address the “minimum requirements necessary for full communion with the Catholic Church,” on the condition that SSPX suspend its plans for the ordinations.

The Vatican dicastery had warned that proceeding with the consecrations “would imply a decisive rupture of ecclesial communion (schism) with grave consequences for the Fraternity as a whole.”

At the same time as the letter, SSPX published a statement on its website arguing that it does not believe it is acting in schism.

The specter of schism represents a significant challenge for Pope Leo XIV in the first year of his pontificate, as the pope has repeatedly emphasized his desire for Christian unity.

Father Pagliarani claims that he had recently written to the pope twice, “first to request an audience, then to clearly and respectfully explain our needs and the real-life situation of the Society,” but received no timely reply.

“Yet, after a long silence, it is only when episcopal consecrations are mentioned that an offer to resume dialogue is made, which thus seems dilatory and conditional,” he wrote.

Vatican officials have sought for decades to bring SSPX fully back into communion with Rome. In his letter, Father Pagliarani justified the rejection of the Vatican’s offer of dialogue by citing a lengthy prior history of failed negotiations

In particular, he highlighted the formal dialogue that began in 2009, continued with particular intensity for two years, then proceeded more sporadically until June 2017.

“Throughout these years, we sought to achieve what the Dicastery now proposes,” he said, adding that “everything ultimately ended in a drastic manner, with the unilateral decision of Cardinal Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who, in June 2017, solemnly established, in his own way, ‘the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church,’ explicitly including the entire Council and the post-Conciliar period.”

Father Pagliarani signed off the letter to Cardinal Fernandez by saying, “I pray for you in particular to the Holy Ghost and — do not take this as a provocation — His Most Holy Spouse, the Mediatrix of all Graces,” alluding to a document on Marian titles released by the dicastery in November.

The illicit consecrations planned for July 1 echo a 1988 crisis when the society’s founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without a papal mandate. St. John Paul II declared the act schismatic and excommunicated Lefebvre and the newly ordained bishops.

SSPX was founded in 1969 by Archbishop Lefebvre in opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Its priests celebrate the traditional Latin Mass and the society rejects the council’s positions on religious freedom and ecumenism.

When SSPX first announced on Feb. 2 that it would proceed with the consecrations, a move that could lead to automatic excommunication, two traditionalist groups that celebrate the Latin Mass and remain in communion with the Holy See expressed concern.

The Vatican has not responded to a request from OSV News for comment on the Feb. 19 announcement by SSPX.

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