The ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four new bishops on July 1, despite Pope Leo XIV urging them to refrain from this “schismatic act.”
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The next day, the new SSPX bishops and the two priests who consecrated them in Écône, Switzerland, were excommunicated.
In response to this decree from the Church’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the society announced on Saturday that it had submitted a “preliminary complaint to the same dicastery.”
This request “suspends the execution of the decree,” the statement said.
“With this complaint, the society seeks to exercise the right recognized by the Church to every person who believes that an administrative act has harmed them, to seek its correction, while respecting ecclesiastical authority and fidelity to justice, truth, and the good of the Church,” it said.
For the Holy See, the consecration of bishops without the pope’s approval is an act of disobedience, incurring automatic excommunication for all participating bishops.
The Vatican also warned that laypeople “formally joining” the group would be excommunicated and “considered schismatics,” and that confessions and marriages performed by the newly consecrated bishops would be “invalid.”
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SSPX, with about 600,000 followers, unites fundamentalist Catholics who strongly oppose the liberal reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
The society claims to operate in more than 75 countries across six continents and has over 750 priests.
Founded in 1970 by the controversial French bishop Marcel Lefebvre, the group first caused disagreements with the Vatican in 1988 when it consecrated four bishops.
At that time, they were immediately excommunicated, but in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI lifted this sanction.
At the ceremony in Écône, attended by thousands of believers from around the world, the last two remaining SSPX bishops consecrated four new ones: two Frenchmen, one American, and one Swiss.
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