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Vatican excommunicates breakaway Catholic bishops who defied Pope Leo XIV
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Pope Leo XIV’s first major showdown with a breakaway Catholic movement ended Thursday with the Vatican declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism and excommunicating bishops who defied the pontiff by ordaining new bishops without his approval.
The Vatican acted one day after the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four new bishops at its seminary in Écône, Switzerland, despite a personal appeal from Leo urging the group to abandon what the Catholic Church called a «schismatic act.»
In a decree released Thursday, the Holy See excommunicated the four newly consecrated bishops as well as the two bishops who took part in the ceremony, declaring the ordinations a schism, or an intentional break from the Catholic Church.
The decision comes after decades of efforts by successive popes to reconcile with the traditionalist movement, which rejects many of the reforms adopted during the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, including allowing Mass to be celebrated in local languages instead of Latin.
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Newly consecrated bishops, from left, Marc Hanappier, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, Michael Goldade and Pascal Schreiber at the end of their consecration ceremony at the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Only the pope has the authority to approve the consecration of Catholic bishops, a practice meant to preserve the Church’s unity and its line of succession from the apostles.
The sanctions also reverse concessions the Vatican had granted the SSPX in recent years as it tried to bring the group back into full communion with Rome. According to the decree, the group can no longer validly administer the sacraments of confession and marriage, and the Vatican urged Catholics attending SSPX Masses to separate themselves from the movement.
Pope Leo XIV waves during the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The action comes just days after Leo made a rare personal appeal to the group’s leader, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, urging him to cancel the consecrations.
«I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!» the pope wrote in a letter to Pagliarani on Monday, warning the planned ordinations would deepen the decades-old division between Rome and the SSPX.
The dispute is the first major test of Leo’s pontificate. Since becoming pope, the American-born pontiff has emphasized healing divisions within the Catholic Church, including reaching out to conservatives and traditionalists who felt alienated during Pope Francis’ papacy.
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During Wednesday’s consecration ceremony, Pagliarani insisted the ordinations were carried out not in opposition to the pope but in service to the Church.
«We are accused of not respecting the pope,» Pagliarani said. «But it is precisely because we love the pope as the vicar of Christ, as the head of the church, that we don’t want to see the pope humiliated anymore, on the side of false shepherds representing false religions.»
Pope Leo XIV delivers his message as he celebrates a Mass where he confers the pallium on newly appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X has long opposed what it considers theological errors introduced by the Second Vatican Council. Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating four bishops without the approval of Pope John Paul II in a nearly identical confrontation.
Those excommunications were lifted in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI in an effort to restore dialogue, though the SSPX never returned to full communion with Rome and has remained outside the Church’s formal structure.
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Despite that status, the society has continued to grow, reporting hundreds of priests, seminarians and religious members serving followers in dozens of countries, making it one of the largest traditionalist Catholic movements operating outside the Vatican’s authority.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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‘It’s insane’: GOP senator says Supreme Court birthright ruling hands China a citizenship loophole
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FIRST ON FOX: In the midst of a blitz of Republicans shaking their fists at the Supreme Court, one Senate Republican is warning of national security consequences for the court’s bombshell birthright citizenship decision.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., worries that the court’s 6-3 decision leaves America vulnerable to threats, particularly from China. In an interview with Fox News Digital, he explained a multistep path that lawmakers and the administration could take to tackle the issue.
«I want to get this done because I really believe that the future of our country is on the line,» Schmitt said. «We can’t have Chinese generals sending their wives to this country to give birth and going back for 18 years and coming back and being citizens. It’s insane.»
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Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., questions FBI Director Kash Patel during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on September 16, 2025. (AFP via Getty Images)
While some lawmakers want a constitutional amendment and others are pushing legislation, Schmitt has a foot in both camps. He contended that in all, there is «a short-term, medium-term and long-term solution.»
«The short-term is executive action, the medium-term is our legislative action that we could take, and then the long-term solution is the constitutional amendment,» Schmitt said. «I think we should pursue all of those.»
The clearest shot to counter the court’s decision would be through a constitutional amendment, but legislation may be the more realistic route, he said. He’s following the breadcrumb trail left by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to do it, too.
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«Congress could — consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment — amend or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country,» Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s decision. «But Congress has not yet done so.»
Schmitt’s legislation would clarify the language of the 14th Amendment. The court interpreted the words «subject to the jurisdiction thereof» within the text to effectively mean all children born in the U.S. are automatically granted citizenship.
His plan is to modify the language to include «not subject to a foreign power,» which he contended would return the 14th Amendment to its original intent and prevent foreign adversaries from quietly scoring citizenship.
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«That would get back to what the meaning was supposed to be, that the court got wrong, which would give us the opportunity, I think, for potentially the decision to be overturned, because Congress has clarified it,» Schmitt said.
But, like nearly every legislative push in the Senate, the 60-vote filibuster threshold is a barrier.
That means that Schmitt, or any Republican pushing a bill dealing with birthright citizenship, will need Democratic support to pass.
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Schmitt pointed to the late former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill from 1993, the Immigration Stabilization Act, which among other things sought to tweak the 14th Amendment to prevent children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. from gaining citizenship, as a marker that at one point, Democrats supported the same thing he and Republicans are pushing for.
«It wasn’t that long ago that Harry Reid actually had legislation to deal with this issue,» he said. «And so, you know, are the Democrats going to be a party that learned their lesson from the Biden years where they were open borders and they let 15 to 20 million people here illegally?»
«They don’t believe in sovereignty that we can tell people who can come and who can go,» Schmitt continued. «Is that who they are, or are they gonna make a shift more towards where the American people are at?»
politics, immigration, constitution, national security, senate
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