SSPX rejects Vatican’s excommunication, calls it ‘objectively’ unjust and invalid

The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), whose members are known as “Lefebvrians,” rejected the recent excommunications decreed by the Vatican after consecrating four bishops without papal authorization on July 1 and asserted that the sanctions imposed are “objectively unjust and invalid.”

In a letter addressed to Pope Leo XIV, released on July 3, Father Davide Pagliarani, superior general of the SSPX, justified the episcopal consecrations that prompted the Vatican’s decree declaring the group to be in schism as “an extreme measure to save souls, amid the doctrinal and moral confusion in which the Church finds itself.”

“We in no way intend to replace the Church, and our sole purpose is to remain faithful to her,” wrote Pagliarani, who leads the group founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who died in 1991.

The group founded by Lefebvre aims to preserve the traditional liturgy as it existed prior to the reforms implemented after the Second Vatican Council while maintaining its opposition to aspects of the council’s teachings on ecumenism, religious freedom, and collegiality.

Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988 after ordaining, without the permission of Pope John Paul II,…