The Vatican said on Thursday that priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing Catholic group that ordained bishops without Pope Leo's approval were in schism with the wider Church and now excommunicated.
Here is background on what excommunication from the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church means for the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
WHAT IS EXCOMMUNICATION?
Excommunication, deriving from Latin words meaning to be "out of communion" with the Church, is one of the most serious penalties that can be imposed by the Vatican.
It bars a Catholic from receiving sacraments, getting married, or holding Church office, among other measures.
The Church considers excommunication as a "medicinal" penalty. It is not forever. It is a temporary measure that can be removed when the person at fault repents of their action and asks for forgiveness.
WHAT IS SCHISM?
Schism is a term to indicate a severe, formal rupture inside the Catholic community. It indicates that a person or group has broken their relationship with the pope, who Catholics believe is a successor to St. Peter, one of Jesus' 12 apostles.
WHY WERE THESE PEOPLE EXCOMMUNICATED?
It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops in order to maintain the Church's ties to the apostles, who are considered the first priests and bishops.
Consecration without papal consent incurs automatic excommunication for both the person being consecrated and the bishop conducting the ceremony.
WHAT IS AUTOMATIC EXCOMMUNICATION?
The Church considers some actions so serious that they impose an automatic excommunication, known by the Latin term "latae sententiae".
This means that the excommunication happens at the moment of the action, without need for any decree from the Vatican. Sometimes, however, the Vatican will make a public announcement to inform Catholics of the penalty.
Other offences of this type include a priest who violates the seal of confession or a Catholic who physically attacks the pope.
A recent high-profile automatic excommunication was handed down in 2024 to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States and critic of Pope Francis. The Vatican said he had refused to recognise and submit to the pope.
WHO ARE THE SOCIETY OF ST. PIUS X?
They are an ultra-traditionalist group that denies the key teachings of the Second Vatican Council, a landmark Vatican gathering of bishops in the 1960s that pursued a range of reforms for the global Church and sought to repair its relations with Jews and other Christian denominations.
The group, which counts about 733 priests worldwide, has had tense relations with the Vatican for decades. Its late founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated in 1988 after ordaining four bishops without permission from then-Pope John Paul II.
Benedict XVI, John Paul's successor, sought to renew dialogue with the society and lifted the remaining excommunications of four bishops.
That action sparked a fierce backlash from Jewish leaders when it became known that one of those bishops, Richard Williamson, had publicly denied the extent of the Holocaust.
Reuters
