SSPX Masses an ‘abuse’ of Eucharist: U.S. bishops continue to urge Catholics not to attend

U.S. bishops continue to instruct Catholics to separate themselves from the schismatic Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) while urging the society’s members to return to full communion with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican declared July 2 that six prelates involved in the SSPX’s unauthorized July 1 episcopal consecrations incurred automatic excommunication. Despite repeated warnings, SSPX bishops consecrated four new bishops without a pontifical mandate — an act of open disobedience to the authority of the pope that carries automatic excommunication for the six bishops involved.

Lay faithful who formally adhere to SSPX are also considered schismatic and can incur excommunication by continuing to attend SSPX services after the Church’s formal pronouncement of a schism.

Various Catholic bishops with SSPX locations in their dioceses are explicitly forbidding Catholics from attending SSPX Masses, instructing them to avoid the now-illicit sacraments and to withdraw their children from SSPX-affiliated schools while also urging frequent attendees and SSPX priests to seek spiritual guidance and return to the Catholic Church.

Abuse of the Eucharist Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington,…