There is probably limited reader appetite for a dispute between two Catholic journalists over internal Church intrigue, but I must take issue with Jane Stannus’s Coffee House hagiography of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). If you’re unfortunate enough to be a Protestant, you’re probably wondering what in the name of unholy Romish papism this is all about. Allow me to explain.

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The brutal excommunication of the Society of Saint Pius X

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The SSPX is a traditionalist sect which rejects key reforms of Vatican II and has a hokey-cokey relationship with the Catholic Church. It was in and later out under Pope Paul VI, even farther out under John Paul II, then in again when Benedict XVI shook things all about. As of Thursday, they’re back out for appointing their own bishops in direct defiance of Pope Leo XIV. That’s what it’s all about.

Canon law (1387) requires a pontifical mandate before a priest can be consecrated to the episcopacy – made a bishop – but the Society thought itself justified to proceed without one. The Vatican, including the Pope himself, made repeated pleas for the Society to pause its plans and take up an offer of talks. Within ten days of its announcement on new bishops, the SSPX superior general Fr. Davide Pagliarani was enjoying an audience with Victor Cardinal Fernandez, one of the Church’s most senior clerics. But it was all for naught, and in a ceremony on Wednesday, at Econe in Switzerland, the SSPX’s two bishops consecrated four........

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