The Woke Pope, Leo XIV, excommunicated an entire group of conservative traditionalists in an apparent clash between leftist infiltration of the Catholic Church and groups that oppose it. The Society of Saint Pius X received official notice from the Vatican after ignoring warnings over the ordination of four new priests, though the schism dates back decades.
For context, the Society of Saint Pius X advocates for a more traditional Catholic Church that resists contemporary encroachment of politics and ideology. It is named after pope emeritus Pius X, who embraced Thomism, an outlook from the 19th-century that likewise rejected current trends and called for a Catholic faith that resisted social changes. He served between 1903-1913, later being beatified in 1951 and canonized in 1954.
The organization that bears his name was founded in the 1970s and likewise embraced an anti-modernist position. The group was particularly opposed to the Vatican II outcomes that saw Latin fall out of favor in Mass for local languages. More recently, as Pope Leo XIV champions open borders and illegal immigration, it is not difficult to see why such a schism exists.
A news report discussed the July 2026 excommunication. “The Vatican has responded aggressively to the consecration of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X. This is an ultra-traditionalist Catholic group. It was formed in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council,” the report began.
“These priests celebrate the ancient Latin mass, and they are very traditional in their approach to the Catholic faith. On Wednesday, in Switzerland, they consecrated these four bishops without a papal mandate, in direct defiance of Pope Leo the 14th,” it continued.
“The Vatican today has responded with some of the harshest sanctions in the Catholic Church: excommunication for those bishops who participated in the ceremony, a declaration of schism, and that all the priests of the society are schismatics, and therefore also subject to excommunication,” it went on.
“And it warned ordinary faithful that if you go to these SSPX masses, you too could risk excommunication if you formally adhere to the group. Now this society is tiny, 750 priests. priests, six bishops, hundreds and hundreds of brothers and sisters, religious sisters, but it represents a real reality in the bigger Catholic Church, 1.4 billion strong, to be sure,” it stated.
“But this is a fringe group that represents a threat to the Holy See, because it is a reality internationally, and is growing as a result. The Vatican felt the need to respond publicly and harshly to this defiance that these consecrations represented. The Vatican still does hope, though, to engage in the dialog to eventually heal this rift,” it ended.
Watch that below: