Timeline: Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)

On the feast of the Canadian Martyrs, the SSPX's national pilgrimage to the Martyrs' Shrine in Midland, Ontario, could not enter the shrine church or venerate the relics there, after the Archdiocese of Toronto under Cardinal Frank Leo barred SSPX groups from diocesan sites following the 1 July consecrations; Mass was celebrated in a nearby park. In an update dated 6 October, the society's Canadian district superior, Fr. Yves Le Roux, asked the faithful to accept the decision without bitterness, writing "we fully submit to this decision of the Cardinal." The society put attendance at about 300.

On the eve of Pope Leo XIV's visit to France, France 24 reported that SSPX gatherings at the Lourdes shrine had been ruled out for October 2026, including the society's annual Christ the King pilgrimage. In a note dated 13 August, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes had withdrawn the SSPX's authorisation to celebrate Mass, administer sacraments or hold public prayers within the sanctuary, citing the 1 July consecrations. The SSPX's French district said it would maintain its 24–26 October pilgrimage to Lourdes.

The Society lodged a preliminary recourse with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith under canons 1734 and following, asking for the 2 July decree to be revoked and corrected for alleged errors in procedure and law, and argued that the filing suspends the decree. Canonists disputed that a recourse can suspend penalties incurred automatically, and The Pillar judged the Society's canonical prospects poor.

In a letter to Leo XIV, the SSPX rejected the excommunications as objectively unjust and invalid, denied that it is in schism and said it has no intention of leaving the Catholic Church.

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 the eve of the ceremony, Leo XIV appealed to the Society to turn back, warning that the consecrations would deprive its faithful of the licit, and in some cases even valid, reception of the sacraments. In the letter, dated 29 June and addressed to superior general Davide Pagliarani, he wrote that "to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity"; Pagliarani replied within hours asking for time for discernment.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said the planned consecrations would constitute a schismatic act carrying excommunication, with Cardinal Fernández warning that formal adherence to schism is a grave offence against God. The statement said the society lacked the requisite pontifical mandate.

In a letter dated 18 February, SSPX Superior General Davide Pagliarani confirmed that the consecrations would go ahead on 1 July, citing unresolved disagreement over the Second Vatican Council; Catholic World News reported that the Society had rejected a Vatican offer.

Officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by its prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, met the SSPX at the dicastery; America reported that the Vatican held firm against the planned consecrations. Meeting superior general Davide Pagliarani with the Pope's approval, Cardinal Fernández proposed a structured theological dialogue on the minimum requirements for full communion, conditional on suspending the consecrations.

On 2 February 2026, at the society's seminary in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France, superior general Davide Pagliarani announced that the Society of Saint Pius X would consecrate new bishops without a papal mandate on 1 July 2026, citing a "grave necessity" of souls and the unanimous support of its General Council. The society later launched a dedicated website for the ceremony, and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith responded by arranging a meeting with it.

Richard Williamson, one of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988, died on 29 January 2025 aged 84. Expelled from the SSPX in 2012, he had incurred excommunication again in 2015 by consecrating a bishop in Brazil without papal mandate; his televised Holocaust denial in 2009 had led to a conviction for incitement in Germany.

A letter of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei signed by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, dated 27 March and published 4 April 2017, said Pope Francis had authorised local ordinaries to grant faculties for marriages of faithful who follow the SSPX — where possible with a diocesan priest receiving the consent, otherwise by delegating an SSPX priest. The letter acknowledged the Society's 'illegitimate canonical situation'; the SSPX General House thanked the pope.

In a letter to Archbishop Rino Fisichella dated 1 September 2015, Pope Francis provided that the faithful approaching SSPX priests during the Jubilee Year of Mercy would receive valid and licit absolution; Vatican Radio noted that those priests otherwise lacked the faculties to hear confessions. In Misericordia et misera (dated 20 November 2016) he extended the provision beyond the Jubilee 'until further provisions are made'.

The Society of Saint Pius X expelled Richard Williamson, citing his distancing from the Society's leadership and his refusal to show due respect and obedience to his superiors. He had opposed the Society's talks with Rome.

On 13 June 2012 Cardinal William Levada gave Bishop Bernard Fellay the Holy See's evaluation of the SSPX's response to the Doctrinal Preamble first presented to him on 14 September 2011; a leaked internal SSPX letter later said Fellay found the text unacceptable and could not sign it. The Holy See treated the SSPX General Chapter's July declaration as primarily an internal document, and in late 2012 the Ecclesia Dei commission said dialogue would continue while it awaited the Society's official reply.

In a letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church, Benedict XVI explained the lifting of the excommunications as a disciplinary step meant to free the four bishops from a burden of conscience, and stated that until doctrinal questions were clarified the Society had no canonical status in the Church.

Swedish television broadcast an interview in which Richard Williamson denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers. It aired as Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops. The Vatican said the pope had not known of his views and required him to disavow them publicly; he never did.

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.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of Saint Pius X, died in Martigny, Switzerland, on 25 March 1991, aged 85, and was buried in a crypt beneath the Society's seminary at Écône. Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer, his co-consecrator in 1988, died the following month.

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.

Paul VI met Archbishop Lefebvre privately at Castel Gandolfo. According to a Vatican record of the meeting published in a 2018 book and reported by Catholic News Service, the pope told Lefebvre that his position was that of an antipope.

After Archbishop Lefebvre ordained 13 priests at Écône at the end of June 1976, despite a Roman instruction forbidding him to confer ordinations, he was suspended from exercising priestly functions (a divinis) in July 1976.

In an address to a secret consistory, Paul VI criticised the stance of Archbishop Lefebvre, insisted on faithful implementation of the Second Vatican Council and rejected the claim that the Council is not binding. A contemporary press report noted that repeated instructions to close the Écône seminary had gone unheeded; the address came a year after the Society's 1975 suppression, which Lefebvre had contested in Rome.

With the agreement of Cardinal Arturo Tabera, prefect of the Congregation for Religious, Bishop Pierre Mamie of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg suppressed the Society of Saint Pius X with immediate effect on 6 May 1975, after Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's declaration of 21 November 1974 rejecting the conciliar reform. Lefebvre appealed; according to the Society, Cardinal Staffa rejected the appeal on 10 June 1975. The SSPX maintains that a local bishop could not lawfully suppress the Society once approved.

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.

In a letter dated 25 September 1969, Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci sent Paul VI a "Short Critical Study on the New Order of Mass", arguing that the new rite departed from the Catholic theology of the Mass formulated at the Council of Trent's 22nd session. The SSPX still publishes the letter; the Fordham Internet Modern History Sourcebook notes that the opposition did not stop the worldwide change in liturgical practice.