How Have the Popes Treated the SSPX?

National Catholic Register, 23 February 2026

As the Society of St. Pius X is again on the brink of schism, perhaps a more traditional approach from the Holy See would serve the universal Church — and the adherents of the SSPX — better.

Is it time to treat the self-styled “traditionalist” Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in a more traditional manner? 

The Holy See has attempted for nearly 40 years to accommodate the SSPX with highly untraditional innovations, some of them canonically peculiar, to no avail. Now that the SSPX has confirmed its intention to ordain bishops this summer without the required papal mandate, perhaps a more traditional disciplinary approach would serve the Church — and the adherents of the SSPX — better?

Feb. 22 marked Pope Leo XIV’s first feast of the Chair of St. Peter as pope, though liturgically the first Sunday of Lent took precedence. The Chair of St. Peter is the sign of the Holy Father’s mission and authority as universal pastor of the Church, a mission given first by Christ himself to St. Peter. That mission and authority serve the unity of the Church, sometimes through necessary discipline, sometimes through patient indulgence. 

Consider the various measures, all highly unusual, that successive popes have attempted to bring the SSPX into the heart of the Church. 

In 1988, when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder and superior of the SSPX, announced that he would consecrate bishops to succeed him without the necessary mandate of the Holy Father, he was warned that he and the bishops he ordained would suffer the automatic penalty of excommunication. Archbishop Lefebvre had already been ordaining priests for years despite being suspended from doing so by the Holy See, so he had long become accustomed to defiance. 

Nevertheless, Pope St. John Paul II asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to work out an agreement with Archbishop Lefebvre, if possible, securing his doctrinal adherence to Vatican II, and providing a new bishop for the SSPX. 

Archbishop Lefebvre agreed and signed an agreement with Cardinal Ratzinger, but reneged upon it the next day. He ordained four new bishops despite a direct papal directive not to do so, and therefore he, his co-consecrating bishop, and the four new bishops were all excommunicated, formally declared by Pope John Paul for committing a “schismatic act.”

Despite the clarity of what Archbishop Lefebvre did, the Holy See for years has refrained from using the term “schism” — even though used by John Paul in an authoritative document — in order not to offend SSPX sensibilities.

Then, immediately after the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre and his accomplices, John Paul created a religious order — the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) — out of whole cloth as a new home for SSPX priests who desired to remain in communion with Rome, but maintaining their SSPX customs. Religious orders are not created by papal fiat; they organically emerge when founders propose a new charism and, after years of testing, are recognized at the diocesan level first, and then by the Holy See. 

The process takes decades, not just a few weeks. A foundational criterion for approval is specifying the charism of the new order. What is the charism of the FSSP? Offering Mass according to the 1962 Missal cannot be a charism by itself, much less not celebrating the Missal of Paul VI. 

Nevertheless, Pope John Paul and Cardinal Ratzinger set the usual process aside in order to fashion an ecclesial home for those who did not wish to follow Archbishop Lefebvre in his “schismatic act.” They chose generosity when severity was also an option, indeed a deserved one.

When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, the SSPX asked for greater permission to be given throughout the Church for the Tridentine Mass — what Pope Benedict would call the “extraordinary form” — as well as the lifting of the excommunications of 1988. Pope Benedict granted both requests. 

In 2007 with Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict did something that may never have been done in liturgical history, giving priests the right to celebrate Mass — the “extraordinary form” — without the permission of their bishops. Indeed, out of goodwill toward the SSPX, he effectively granted all priests greater rights regarding the “extraordinary form” than the “ordinary form.” There was nothing at all traditional about that. 

In 2009, Pope Benedict then lifted the penalty of excommunication as an act of personal mercy, despite the offending SSPX bishops not expressing any regret for their illegitimate consecration. As excommunications are usually lifted discreetly, without global press attention, it is not possible to know how often they are lifted for those entirely unrepentant. But it would be unusual. Two of the bishops who had their 1988 excommunications lifted in 2009 have apparently opted to be excommunicated again this year for the same canonical offense. Their contumacy is not only a provocation today, but an act of towering ingratitude toward Benedict XVI and an insult to his memory. 

Despite lifting the excommunications in 2009, absent any contrition or purpose of amendment, Pope Benedict underscored the very grave and potentially sinful situation of the priests of the SSPX.

“As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church,” Benedict wrote. “There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers — even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty — do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.”

Pope Benedict thus extended two significant olive branches — olive orchards, to be more precise — to the SSPX. What then would they do in return, to remove themselves from the situation in which every act of their ministry — every Mass they offer — is illegitimate?

Nothing. 

Pope Benedict then tried a third time, with intense dialogues culminating in 2012 with the offer of a “personal prelature” — a nonterritorial diocese — to the SSPX, if it would affirm the doctrinal teaching of Vatican II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the magisterium of the Church subsequently. Having been offered more than could reasonably be demanded, the SSPX refused. Again.

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register.