Timeline

A decree of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, signed by Cardinal Fernández, declared that the consecrating bishop, Alfonso de Galarreta, the co-consecrator, Bernard Fellay, and the four new bishops had incurred latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See, and warned clerics and lay faithful not to adhere to the schism. An accompanying explanatory note said the Society's clergy are to be considered schismatic and treated confessions heard and marriages witnessed by SSPX priests as invalid, a point disputed by some canonists and by Cardinal Gerhard Müller. The dicastery also issued a procedure for priests and faithful wishing to return to full communion.

At Écône, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, assisted by Bishop Bernard Fellay, consecrated Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier as bishops for the Society of Saint Pius X, in defiance of the Holy See's warnings. The ceremony, which the Society streamed live, came 38 years after Archbishop Lefebvre's consecrations at the same seminary. Superior general Davide Pagliarani preached the homily.

On 8 May 2025, the second day of a conclave of 133 cardinal electors, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected on the fourth ballot and took the name Leo XIV. Born in Chicago in 1955, an Augustinian who spent years as a missionary in Peru and had led the Dicastery for Bishops since 2023, he became the first pope from the United States.

Pope Francis died at the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88; the death was announced from the Casa Santa Marta by the Camerlengo, Cardinal Kevin Farrell. His pontificate had begun in March 2013 and lasted twelve years.

The motu proprio declared the reformed liturgical books "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite", made the 1962 Missal subject to the diocesan bishop's authorisation, barred new groups, and abrogated earlier norms not in conformity. Francis's accompanying letter cited a 2020 consultation of bishops.

After Benedict XVI's resignation at the end of February 2013, the conclave elected the Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 13 March 2013, on the fifth ballot. He was the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope and the first to take the name Francis. The Associated Press later reported that traditionalists had become some of his fiercest critics.

In his Declaratio, Benedict XVI announced that he was renouncing the ministry of Bishop of Rome, with the See to fall vacant on 28 February 2013 at 20:00. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. The wording later became the basis of benevacantist claims that the resignation was invalid.

By a decree dated 21 January 2009 and announced on 24 January, Benedict XVI remitted the excommunications of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988, in response to a renewed request from Bishop Bernard Fellay on their behalf. The Society nonetheless remained without canonical status.

Benedict XVI permitted the 1962 Missal as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, effective 14 September 2007. His accompanying letter said the older Missal had never been juridically abrogated and described the two Missals as two uses of one rite.

On 19 April 2005, the second day of the conclave, the cardinal electors chose Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1981, as the 265th pope; Religion News Service reported that he was elected on the fourth ballot. He later said he chose the name Benedict to link his pontificate to Benedict XV and to the cause of peace and reconciliation.

Two days after Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's unlawful episcopal ordinations of 30 June, John Paul II's motu proprio stated that excommunication had been incurred, created the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and asked for a "wide and generous application" of the permissions for the 1962 Missal.

Archbishop Lefebvre, with Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer, consecrated Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta as bishops at Écône without a papal mandate, despite a formal canonical warning sent on 17 June 1988 by the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

At Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's request, Bishop François Charrière of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg erected the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X as a pious union in his diocese, approving its statutes on a trial basis for six years. According to the Society's published founding documents, the Congregation for the Clergy sent it a letter of praise on 18 February 1971.

On Holy Thursday 1969, Paul VI issued the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum, promulgating the Roman Missal revised in line with Sacrosanctum Concilium as a revision of the Missal in use since Pius V's edition of 1570. It added three new Eucharistic Prayers and a three-year cycle of Sunday readings, restored elements such as the prayer of the faithful, and took effect on the First Sunday of Advent, 30 November 1969.

Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica with the address known by its first words, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, presenting the Council's aim as safeguarding Christian doctrine and teaching it more effectively, and preferring mercy to severe condemnation. The Council went on to meet in four autumn sessions between 1962 and 1965.