Introduction: the Ecclesial Context and What Is at Stake
As is now known throughout the entire Catholic world even minimally interested in traditional ecclesiastical matters (but not only), the Society of Saint Pius X has announced for next July 1 the ordination of five new bishops. The announcement was made by Fr. Pagliarani on February 2, Candlemas. Obviously, the announcement has alarmed the Holy See, which is attempting to find a compromise so as not to reopen the wound of 1988, laboriously, but indeed clumsily, stitched up by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The thankless task has been entrusted to Cardinal Fernández. Thus, we are in good hands.
For those unaware of the history of the Society or—for some reason—not yet acquainted with the dynamics currently underway, one may read an analysis of mine published here. In summary, I maintain that these forthcoming episcopal ordinations concern not only the Society or the Traditional world, but the Church as a whole. The reaction of the Holy See will reveal the presence or absence of at least three knots within the Church of Prevost.
- Concerning the use of canon law: whether it serves more to protect power than the salvation of souls, creating double standards that strike an act perceived as schismatic while tolerating widespread heresy, in a paradoxical context, for example, of severity toward the Society but decades-long silence toward Beijing and tolerance toward the heterodox German Synodal Path.
- Concerning ecumenism: whether, while leaders of schismatic and religiously “woke” Churches are celebrated, dialogue is instead closed to those who defend traditional doctrine and liturgy, opening outward but hardening inward.
- Concerning Leo’s real freedom of action: whether, constrained by a Curia inherited from the previous pontificate and traversed by internal tensions, he struggles to impose a coherent line without risking clashes with those who defend Tradition. In short, we will understand whether Pope Leo XIV suffers or not from Stockholm syndrome toward the Curia, but also toward certain representatives of the American episcopate, Blaise Cupich foremost among them.
The Two Positions in the Traditional World
There are two positions in the conservative-traditional Catholic world regarding the advisability of the forthcoming episcopal ordinations of the Society. On the one hand, those who condemn them because they would essentially represent a schismatic act. Defend Tradition, yes, but always in perfect and manifest hierarchical communion with Rome. On the other hand, those who defend them because they would be justified by the current “state of necessity,” that is, by the crisis of the Church.
First: the SSPX does not deny the authority of Pope Leo XIV nor his primacy of jurisdiction. Second: it does not deny the validity of Vatican II. Third: one cannot attribute infallible value and thus require an act of faith toward documents of a Council declared “pastoral and not dogmatic.”
As Professor Kwasniewski recently rightly emphasized, today there is a great good to preserve against a great evil to be opposed. The great good is communion with the visible hierarchy, regardless of the orthodoxy professed by it, without which there is no Church, but only a body without a head, that is, a corpse. This temptation is—I add, allowing myself to gloss the acute reflection of the American professor—proper to this decades-long moment of ecclesial crisis, which is essentially a crisis of Authority: first pontifical, then inevitably episcopal and presbyteral. Since the power of jurisdiction is distributed by God to the Pope and by him attributed to bishops, it follows that a defect in the use of authority by the former reverberates upon the latter.
Concretely, the temptation to consider oneself Catholic without maintaining communion with the hierarchy may have various consequences, beginning with erroneous conceptions of the papacy (see hyper-infallibilism) and extending to migration toward pseudo-ecclesiastical realities which, often justifying the present moment in charismatic-apocalyptic terms, deny altogether the presence of Popes for the past seventy years, effectively affirming the end of the hierarchy of jurisdiction: thus some arrive at classical sedevacantism, some at its renewed version since 2013, and some even migrate toward the Eastern schismatic Churches, erroneously considered “schismatic but not heretical” (in reality, synodalist, heterodox and—so to speak—sedevacantist for a thousand years). The great evil to be opposed is, obviously, neo-modernism, which is the very soul of the Crisis of Authority. Faced with this double awareness, is the choice of the Society opportune, that is, fitting for Catholics?
Three Misunderstandings to Clarify
First: the SSPX does not deny the authority of Pope Leo XIV nor his primacy of jurisdiction. Second: it does not deny the validity of Vatican II, but criticizes its ambiguity, insofar as it confuses the theological plane with the sociological one (for example: the three “Abrahamic religions” are such sociologically, not theologically, because only Catholics are heirs of Abraham in faith), and criticizes its error insofar as it opposes to its pastoral nature no doctrinal binding force. Third: one cannot attribute infallible value and thus require an act of faith toward documents of a Council declared “pastoral and not dogmatic,” whose texts, though mostly presented in solemn form (see the Apostolic Constitutions), do not define new dogmas but reiterate the ordinary magisterium, thereby showing the contradiction of an instrument of extraordinary magisterium (cf. Can. 749 §2) that in fact operates for the ordinary magisterium.
Therefore, since the pastoral is not an object of faith but at most of obedience, and since obedience is conditioned by conformity to doctrine, it is lawful for the faithful to resist authority should it propose what contradicts faith and morals.
Power of Order, Power of Jurisdiction, and Canonical Mission
In the Church there are two hierarchies, distinct but united: the power of order is given by God to the subject immediately through episcopal ordination in the sacrament; the power of jurisdiction, on the other hand, is given immediately by God to the Pope alone; and he, as intermediary, enables this power to be exercised first by the bishops and then, in delegated form, by other possible subjects (including laypersons).
It must be specified that the power of jurisdiction does not coincide with the actual governance of a diocese. Confusion often arises on this point. Jurisdiction is—precisely—a power in the proper sense, that is, a stable potency enabling the four activities proper to a ruler: to discipline, to judge, to administer, and to teach (the munus docendi is assimilable to the munus regendi). The governance of a diocese means putting such power into act over a particular Church.
In this perspective, the bishop, at the moment of ordination, unlike the presbyter, receives immediately from God not only the fullness of the power of order, or munus sanctificandi, but also the power of jurisdiction, as potency.
However, unlike the Pope, a bishop cannot exercise such power over a portion of the People of God without the mandate, or canonical mission, received from the Supreme Pontiff. The canonical mission is thus the juridical determination that allows the passage from potency to act with regard to the governance of a particular Church. The case of the Pope is different: at the moment of accepting election, he receives immediately from God not only the fullness of the power of jurisdiction but also its exercise in act, without need of further mediation. His power is full, supreme, and immediate, both as to principle and as to exercise.
It should be noted that, in truth, there has been a centuries‑long debate among theologians regarding the origin of the bishops’ power of jurisdiction, a debate that not even Lumen Gentium has fully resolved. Some have maintained that it derives from ordination; others, instead, have argued that it comes entirely from the Pope through the canonical mission, fearing that the first position might diminish the monarchical nature of the Church. I believe that the view I have just outlined is coherent in upholding both the Petrine Primacy and the episcopal dignity, and it is compatible with the teaching of various Doctors (Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bellarmine) as well as of the Supreme Pontiffs. This, of course, is not the place to examine the matter further. I hope to be able to explore this further in the future.
The Bishops of the Society and the Absence of a Parallel Hierarchy
Now, the bishops of the Society do not claim for themselves the exercise of power of jurisdiction over a particular Church; that is, they do not assign themselves a diocese, nor do they intend to constitute an ecclesiastical province or an autonomous territorial structure. That is, they recognize that they do not have the canonical mission. They do not present themselves as Ordinaries. Their action is inserted within the internal structure of the Society, whose Superior General is, moreover, a simple presbyter; he is not a diocesan Ordinary nor the head of a particular Church.
There is, in the SSPX, no claim to constitute a “parallel” hierarchy to that of the universal Church. This element radically distinguishes the situation of the Society from that, for example, of the bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Association, who were inserted into an alternative ecclesial structure independent of Rome.
There is therefore, in the declared intention and in the current juridical configuration, no claim to constitute a “parallel” hierarchy of jurisdiction with respect to that of the universal Church. This element radically distinguishes the situation of the Society from that, for example, of the bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Association condemned by Pius XII, who were inserted into an alternative ecclesial structure promoted by the State and oriented toward realizing a Church independent of Rome.
In that case, ordination without pontifical mandate was functional to the creation of an autonomous and separated hierarchy; in the case of the Society, instead, the primacy of the Roman Pontiff is expressly recognized and no proper power of jurisdiction in act opposed to that deriving from him is claimed.
The Problem of Titular Sees and Episcopal Emeritus Status
According to the law, “those who are in sacred orders are qualified for the power of jurisdiction” (CIC 1982, can. 129), which means that the power of order stands to the power of jurisdiction as matter to form: this is, for example, the clear explanation provided by St. Albert the Great in his explanation of the expression ‘Supreme Pontiff’ in the case of the Pope, who cannot be conceived without the Roman See, whose spousal union was sealed by the martyrdom of the Apostle Peter.
Indeed, traditionally, the figure of the bishop has always been considered as characterized by two correlated elements: celibacy and governance over a diocese. The first is explained by the second, that is, since the bishop has united himself in marriage with a particular Church, analogously to Christ the mystical bridegroom, he must not unite himself to a woman. A bishop without a diocese appears historically inconceivable, just as a husband without a wife is inconceivable. Indeed, in the past, a bishop reigned for life over his diocese, and the appointment of a new ordinary had to await the death of the predecessor.
Just as happens in the sacrament of marriage, to which canonistic doctrine has not by chance referred in an analogous sense when it comes to jurisdiction: “until death do you part.”
Though the bishops of the Society should technically receive at least titular sees from the Holy See, this argument cannot be coherently advanced by the current hierarchies, on pain of appearing hypocritical, since post-conciliar canonistic practice introduced the status of episcopal “emeritus.”
For this reason, over the centuries, the practice has arisen whereby, when the Pope assigns bishops tasks other than pastoral ones, he must nevertheless assign them the title over a fictitious or suppressed diocese. A fig leaf, certainly problematic, but explained by this theological assumption of the spousal union between bishop and diocese.
Therefore, strictly speaking, even the bishops of the Society should receive at least titular sees from the Holy See, because it would seem impossible that there be a bishop without a Church over which he governs. However, this argument cannot—another great paradox—be coherently advanced by the current hierarchies, on pain of appearing hypocritical, since post-conciliar canonistic practice introduced the status of episcopal emeritus, which traditionally would always have been considered a juridical monstrum, since it is inconceivable that a local Church have two spouses: one (or even more than one) “retired” and one in act. In other words, by instituting emeritus status, Rome has in some way paradoxically provided a theoretical justification for the fact that the Society possesses bishops without titular sees.
The Penal Profile: Illegitimacy and Mitigating Factors
Be that as it may, on the basis of what has been said thus far, it seems that the Society cannot licitly ordain bishops without explicit pontifical mandate. Otherwise, we would have bishops validly (that is, truly capable of administering the Sacraments), but illicitly ordained (that is, not in communion with Rome, and therefore schismatic, thus in a state of mortal sin).
However, although the act of episcopal ordination is illegitimate from an objective point of view (can. 1013) and entails excommunication latae sententiae for the consecrating bishop and for the one consecrated (can. 1387), the same law provides for mitigating circumstances. It states, in fact, that “the author of the violation is not exempt from the penalty established by law or precept, but the penalty must be mitigated or replaced with a penance if the offense was committed […] by a person compelled by grave fear, even if only relatively such, or who acted out of necessity or grave inconvenience,” provided that “the offense committed is intrinsically evil or harmful to souls” (can. 1324). If, however, such an offense is not intrinsically evil or harmful, the penalty is even null (can. 1323).
The state of necessity is the very crisis of the Church, recognized as such in recent decades by all the likes of Pope Benedict XVI, Alfredo Ottaviani, Antonio Bacci, Giacomo Biffi, Carlo Caffarra, Alfons Maria Stickler, Raymond Leo Burke, Gerhard Müller, Robert Sarah, Athanasius Schneider, Joseph Edward Strickland, Marian Eleganti, Nicola Bux, etc. The list is considerable.
Thus, it remains to be understood whether the episcopal ordinations of the Society are motivated by grave fear, a state of necessity, or grave inconvenience. Attention: these possible three conditions do not render licit an act intrinsically contrary to the hierarchical constitution of the Church; at most they can affect imputability and therefore the penalty. Moreover, the necessity must be objective, grave, proportionate, and cannot concern a good that can be defended by licit means.
Does an Objective State of Necessity Exist?
Now, these conditions exist. Indeed, the state of necessity is the very crisis of the Church, recognized as such in recent decades even by the ecclesiastical hierarchies themselves: it is unnecessary in this regard to recall all the interventions of Pope Benedict XVI on the matter or of the many prelates and theologians who have expressed themselves on the theme: Alfredo Ottaviani, Antonio Bacci, Giacomo Biffi, Carlo Caffarra, Alfons Maria Stickler, Raymond Leo Burke, Gerhard Müller, Robert Sarah, Athanasius Schneider, Joseph Edward Strickland, Marian Eleganti, Nicola Bux, etc. The list is considerable.
It should be noted that the public interventions of the Popes carry, in this regard, greater weight than the interventions of theologians and bishops acting as private doctors. Let us mention a few.
Paul VI: Address of 7 December 1968; Homily of 29 June 1972. John Paul II: Address of 11 January 1997; Address of 21 September 1993; Encyclical Redemptoris Missio (7 December 1990). In particular, the latter states: “In this new springtime of Christianity, there is an undeniable negative tendency. Missionary activity specifically directed to the nations appears to be waning. Difficulties both internal and external have weakened the Church’s missionary thrust toward non-Christians, a fact which must arouse concern among all who believe in Christ. For in the Church’s history, missionary drive has always been a sign of vitality, just as its lessening is a sign of a crisis of faith.”
We should note that this list of speeches and similar documents is not exhaustive due to space constraints.
Now, such a state of necessity consists in the grave difficulty, which in certain cases approaches impossibility, of providing the faithful with right doctrine and worthy and effective sacraments. If one does not wish to admit the state of necessity, it is difficult not to recognize at least the condition of grave inconvenience.
Moreover, such an objective and grave state of necessity does not concern a good defensible by licit means, that is, by using the other instruments provided by law to overcome disputes aimed at safeguarding faith, morals, and discipline (appeals to congregations, lists of dubia, admonitions, etc.), simply because, in all these years, they have always proved fruitless. The neo-modernists in power have always avoided direct confrontation.
To the state of necessity must also be added grave fear on the part of numerous presbyters and faithful throughout the world who see the survival of traditional liturgy threatened, especially after the last extraordinary Consistory, in which Arthur Roche and his associates defended the illiberal motu proprio Traditionis custodes and indeed implicitly invited renewed repression of the more ancient rites. If the Society disappears, it is plausible to believe that Rome, in the hands of the various Fernández, Viola, Roche, etc., will proceed to ban the ancient Missal entirely, or relegate it as proper to marginal institutes reduced to TLM Indian reservations, rather than common and ordinary liturgical patrimony of all the baptized, thereby causing wounds, scandals, and consequences even worse than those witnessed thus far. It is unnecessary to recall, for example, the fate suffered by religious orders such as the Franciscans of the Immaculate.
The Canonical Position of the Lay Faithful
It remains to be understood whether this penalty, possibly mitigated to nullity, nevertheless implies gravity of sin, and whether the faithful may peacefully attend or receive the sacraments administered by deacons, presbyters, and bishops of the Society. In the present state of affairs, no particular problems seem to arise. The Church, in recent practice, has never declared excommunicated the faithful who attend the Society’s chapels. Moreover, according to canon law, the simple reception of the sacraments from a minister illicitly ordained does not in itself amount to formal adherence to schism. For a faithful to incur excommunication, a formal act of adherence to a declared schism would be required: this is not the case of the SSPX, which recognizes the authority of Pope Leo XIV.
In other words, participation in the sacraments at the hands of an illegitimate minister could constitute grave matter only if it implied rejection of communion with the Church of Rome, contempt toward legitimate ecclesiastical authority, or manifestation of a will of separation from Rome.
Therefore, ultimately, it seems that we would find ourselves, should the Vatican refuse the five forthcoming ordinations, before an illegitimate act that strictly speaking ought to require a null penalty, because motivated by grave fear and by an objective state of necessity. In other words, it is the neo-modernists in the Vatican who force the SSPX to act accordingly, despite the theological-canonical problems that arise.
From Non-Punishability to Legitimacy
We now ask whether it is possible to go even further and therefore to recognize also the legitimacy of the ordinations of the SSPX, and this with solid arguments first theological-canonical and then also historical. Thus far, indeed, the argument has moved on the plane of imputability and penalty. However, there is a further possible step.
The only way to sustain, in my view, not only the nullity of the penalty but the very legitimacy of these episcopal ordinations is the following. As we have said, we are not faced with a subjectively perceived state of necessity, but with an objective state of necessity because recognized as such by the teaching and governing Church itself, that is, by Popes and bishops, who have spoken openly of a profound crisis of faith, liturgy, and doctrinal transmission. To this are added convergent positions of cardinals and bishops who have diagnosed a gravely compromised ecclesial situation.
If the state of necessity is publicly recognized by the teaching and governing hierarchy, the supreme principle of the canonical order from which any codification and discipline derives, namely the salvation of souls, cannot be subordinated to the mere formal preservation of the juridical structure, much less to the preservation of personal power, under pain of incurring the abuse mentioned at the beginning of these articles.
Since ecclesiastical law is ordered to the salvation of souls, it cannot bind in such a way as to prevent what is necessary for the preservation of faith and the sacraments. It would fall into contradiction. It would follow that, in the presence of an objective state of necessity recognized by the very authority that generates it, the same divine law that grounds the hierarchical structure of the Church would dispense from observance of the positive norm concerning the pontifical mandate, legitimizing the act carried out for the safeguarding of the faith, even when the authority that ought to grant the canonical mission is, at the same time, part of the proximate cause of the crisis and aware of its existence.
Here, obviously, there is a logical tension: if the authority formally recognizes the crisis, why does it not intervene? The answer is obviously complex and will not be the object of the present study: let us limit ourselves to noting this tension as a datum.
Moreover, the objectivity of the state of necessity does not depend solely on the judgment of the post‑conciliar teaching Church, but also on the judgment of the traditional Magisterium—that is, the infallible pronouncements of Popes and Councils throughout the centuries. The former, in fact, limits itself to observing the effect or symptom without diagnosing the cause; the latter, instead, by presenting salutary doctrine, indirectly indicates the cause of the illness, namely the present crisis. Anyone who compares these two judgments can arrive at a unified view of the diagnosis.
Historical Precedents: Wojtyła and Slipyj
In confirmation of what has been said, it may be useful to recall a significant historical precedent, while clarifying an essential methodological point. History, as such, neither founds nor refutes a universal principle; it can, however, offer empirical confirmations of its coherence and show its outcomes in concrete application. To assume the historical fact as a normative criterion would amount to sliding into historicism.
In circumstances of grave and objective necessity, the Church has concretely recognized that the material non-observance of a disciplinary norm may not constitute rebellion against authority, but obedience to the founding principle of every canonical codification.
That said, the behavior of Karol Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II) when he was still Archbishop of Kraków is illuminating. Since 1965 at least, together with his auxiliary Juliusz Groblicki, he proceeded to clandestine priestly ordinations in favor of the persecuted Church in Czechoslovakia, despite the Holy See having forbidden the underground bishops of that country to carry out such ordinations. Wojtyła did not inform Rome in advance. He did not interpret such acts as a challenge to authority, but as a duty toward the faithful deprived of the sacraments. He did not raise the question “before the authorities” because he held that, in that concrete circumstance, the Roman prudential judgment was erroneous and that a formal contestation would have produced only further harm.
Let us recall that, as of 9 April 1951, by a general decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, the penalty for ordination without a mandate was changed from suspension to ipso facto excommunication, in a most special manner reserved to the Apostolic See, both for the one who confers and for the one who receives consecration (cf. Bruno F. Pighin, “Le ordinazioni episcopali senza mandato pontificio e le loro conseguenze canoniche”, Ius Ecclesiae XXIV, 2012, pp.. 401-420).
The Vatican prohibition, moreover, arose from distrust toward the discernment exercised by figures such as Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński or Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, that is, pastors who directly knew the situation of the persecuted Churches. Here the tension between universal positive norm and prudential judgment concerning a state of necessity clearly emerges.
Even more significant is the case of Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (1892–1984), head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, whose cause of beatification has recently been opened. In 1976, he consecrated three bishops without pontifical mandate to guarantee the survival of his clandestine Church under the Soviet regime. Formally, this was an act contrary to the prevailing discipline. However, Paul VI, having learned of the facts, did not punish him. Such omission was not mere tolerance, but implicit recognition of the exceptional situation and of the salvific purpose of the act. One of the bishops consecrated, Lubomyr Husar, was later created cardinal by John Paul II.
The Case of Lefebvre in Light of the Precedents
These precedents do not constitute automatic proof of the legitimacy of every consecration without pontifical mandate. However, they show that, in circumstances of grave and objective necessity, the Church has concretely recognized that the material non-observance of a disciplinary norm may not constitute rebellion against authority, but obedience to the founding principle of every canonical codification, and therefore ultimately legitimate.
In light of such cases, the episcopal consecrations of Bishop Lefebvre in 1988 cannot be dismissed simply as “schismatic,” both because they do not claim to have canonical mission and therefore do not create a parallel hierarchy of jurisdiction, and because there is no profession of heresy whatsoever. St. Thomas Aquinas explains well that there is never schism without a heresy that generates it, and that the latter is always more grave than the former, contrary to what is commonly believed today even in conservative circles, and notwithstanding that, from a disciplinary point of view, schism and heresy are rightly treated as two distinct offenses.
The question is not whether there was material disobedience, but whether such disobedience was placed against the divine constitution of the Church or for its preservation in a context perceived as extraordinary. If this second interpretation is accepted, then the episcopal ordinations of Bishop Lefebvre in 1988 and those that will take place in 2026, possibly without canonical mission from Pope Leo XIV (but we hope that some fitting agreement may be found), are to be considered legitimate.
