Is It 1988 All Over Again? Watching a New SSPX Drama Unfold

Get your popcorn ready…

Is It 1988 All Over Again?
Watching a New SSPX Drama Unfold

Left to right: Fr. Davide Pagliarani, Tucho Fernández, Bob Prevost, cool giraffe eating popcorn

After the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), Fr. Davide Pagliarani, publicly made known on Feb. 2, 2026, that new bishops would be consecrated on July 1, although the Vatican had refused the requisite permission (mandate), the anticipated drama began to unfold.

The news spread like wildfire, and the SSPX’s official web sites crashed, apparently overwhelmed by the volume of people trying to access them to see the news for themselves. Reactions began to pour in from countless bloggers, YouTubers, and other social media users. More on ‘who said what’ will be covered a little later in this post.

The Drama Begins

The following is a collection of news reports about the SSPX announcement and reaction from Rome. The sources linked are diverse, including publications that are Novus Ordo (progressivist, moderate, conservative), recognize-and-resist traditionalist, sedevacantist, and secular.

February 2

February 3

The Society of St. Pius X, also known as the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX), was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970. Its adherents are therefore also known as ‘Lefebvrists’, which is quite an appropriate moniker, as their loyalty is first and foremost to the thought of their founder and not to pre-Vatican II Catholic doctrine or principles, as demonstrated here. The (supposed) Vicar of Christ can be criticized, contradicted, and disobeyed — but their venerable founding archbishop, never.

Fr. Pagliarani made the announcement of a new round of bishops’ ordinations at the Lefebvrist seminary of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France, as part of a sermon given during Holy Mass for the Feast of the Purification. The full text of this sermon, translated into English, has since been published by the Rorate Caeli blog here.

At this time, the SSPX has not made known how many bishops will be consecrated, much less who the candidates are to be. However, Luisella Scrosati of the Daily Compass has gone on record stating: “According to our sources, five priests will be ordained as bishops by Bishop Bernard Fellay and Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta on 1 July, one more than the bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on 30 June 1988” (Feb. 4, 2026).

In any case, the Vatican responded to the announcement on Feb. 3:

“Contacts between the Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See continue; the intention is to avoid rifts or unilateral solutions with regard to the issues that have emerged,” said Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, on February 3.

He was responding to questions from journalists concerning the Society of St. Pius X’s announcement on Monday, February 2, of episcopal ordinations scheduled for July 1 at the International Seminary of Saint Curé of Ars in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France.

(“Contacts continue between Holy See and Society of St. Pius X”, Vatican News, Feb. 4, 2026)

With Fr. Pagliarani’s announcement taking place five months before the consecrations are scheduled to be carried out, it may be suspected that the Superior General wanted to have enough time to work out a deal with Rome after all. Whether that will happen remains to be seen; but an initial in-person meeting between the two sides has already been agreed upon.

On Feb. 5, the SSPX published an extensive interview with Fr. Pagliarani. Commentary on it will have to wait for another time, but here is the full text:

The same day, the SSPX General House in Menzingen, Switzerland, released this communiqué:

Following the announcement, on 2 February, of future episcopal consecrations for the Society of Saint Pius X, His Eminence Cardinal Fernández wrote to the Superior General to propose a meeting in Rome. The Superior General accepted this proposal. The meeting will take place on Thursday, 12 February.

We invite the members and faithful of the Society to offer their prayers for the good outcome of this meeting.

(“Press release from the General House: meeting in Rome”, FSSPX.news, Feb. 5, 2026)

On the other end, the Vatican confirmed the same:

A meeting has been scheduled next week between Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, said Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, in responding to journalists’ questions.

“The meeting,” he explained, “will be an opportunity for an informal and personal dialogue, which will help identify effective tools for discussion that can lead to positive results,” he said.

(“Meeting scheduled between Society of St. Pius X and Prefect of the DDF”, Vatican News, Feb. 5, 2026)

Next week, then, the Vatican will provide some ‘accompaniment’ for the Lefebvrists — but don’t expect anything of substance to come of it.

The idea of the Vatican’s blasphemous porn author and osculatory healing expert Victor Manuel Fernandez being the Unholy See’s front man to discuss doctrinal differences and negotiate a way forward with the Lefebvrists is utterly grotesque. In fact, probably no one alive today embodies the disaster that was the Francis ‘pontificate’ more than he.

If ‘Pope’ Leo is smart, he will quickly appoint a special envoy to deal with this crisis, someone who understands traditionalism, is not from Argentina, and does not have a career in erotic pseudo-spirituality. Unless, of course, the choice of Fernandez was quite a deliberate one and is to be understood as a provocation rather than a genuine effort at coming to an agreement with the Society, but this is unlikely.

A Cacophony of Commentators

In the meantime, of course all kinds of commentators have weighed in on the new SSPX-Rome drama. We obviously cannot link to all of them, but we are making an effort to capture most of the ones we’ve come across.

Among those voices who oppose the SSPX’s plan to consecrate more bishops or lean in that direction, we so far have: Most Rev. Marian Eleganti, CatholicSat, Dr. Larry Chapp, Dr. Joseph Shaw (1), Dr. Joseph Shaw (2), Steven O’Reilly (1), Steven O’Reilly (2), Silere Non Possum, Jorge Enrique Mújica, Luisella Scrosati (1), Luisella Scrosati (2), and Christian B. Wagner.

Among those who favor the SSPX’s undertaking or lean in that direction, we have: Most Rev. Joseph Strickland, Kennedy Hall (1), Kennedy Hall (2), Murray Rundus, Anthony Stine, Chris Jackson, Robert Morrison, and Laramie Hirsch.

Among those taking a neutral or mixed perspective, we have: Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Dr. Taylor Marshall, Timothy Flanders, and Michael Matt.

Also, we should mention that the recognize-and-resist brigade at Pelican Plus live-streamed a roundtable discussion in which Dan Sevigny hosted Kennedy Hall, Peter Kwasniewski, Christopher Ferrara, Murray Rundus, and Brian McCall to exchange ideas about the matter.

Among sedevacantist commentators on the developments, we have: Bishop Donald Sanborn (who was ordained for the SSPX by Abp. Lefebvre in 1975 and was expelled in 1983) of Most Holy Trinity Seminary, Fr. Carlos Zepeda of The Catholic Wire, Dr. Thomas Droleskey of Christ or Chaos, Riaan Van Zyl of Radical Fidelity, Sean D. Wright of The WM Review; and Kevin Davis of the Catholic Family Podcast hosted a panel of various speakers.

That the Society of St. Pius X will have its own team of priests, canon lawyers, theologians, and online personalities justifying the bishops’ consecrations is natural and not surprising. However, while it is one thing for an accused party to mount a defense, it is quite another for that party also to judge its own case and absolve itself from guilt; and this is where any defense by the SSPX, no matter how well argued it may be, must necessarily fail: The Lefebvrists don’t only defend their case, they also presume to take on the role of judge and jury, so to speak, and they will allow no one to overturn their own judgment. They are arrogating to themselves the right of the final say.

This is where holding that Robert Prevost (Leo XIV) is Pope makes all the difference, for it is Catholic dogma that the Pope is the judge of all and is himself judged by no one on earth:

And since the Roman Pontiff is at the head of the universal Church by the divine right of apostolic primacy, We teach and declare also that he is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all cases pertaining to ecclesiastical examination recourse can be had to his judgment; moreover, that the judgment of the Apostolic See, whose authority is not surpassed, is to be disclaimed by no one, nor is anyone permitted to pass judgment on its judgment. Therefore, they stray from the straight path of truth who affirm that it is permitted to appeal from the judgments of the Roman Pontiffs to an ecumenical Council, as to an authority higher than the Roman Pontiff.

(First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 3; Denz. 1830)

When the Lefebvrists say that Prevost is Pope, they seem not to understand the consequences this entails.

The Recognize-and-Resist Predicament

The new round of SSPX consecrations will put the spotlight on the predicament traditionalists who recognize Leo XIV as a true Pope — we like to call them ‘semi-traditionalists’ — are in, whether they be pro-SSPX or anti-SSPX. Divisions that were thought to have been overcome will re-appear and deepen. To put it in the language of The Remnant‘s Michael Matt, the ‘clans’ will ‘disunite’. It will once again become clear that what is at stake is not simply the Traditional Latin Mass or related liturgical matters but the very Faith for which the martyrs died: What does the Catholic Faith say regarding the Papacy, the Church, and the means of salvation?

The SSPX has maneuvered itself into a difficult spot. On the one hand, they’ve been playing fairly nice with Rome (and, in some places, with the local bishop) for the last 10 years or so. On the other hand, since they are invoking a ‘state of necessity’ to justify their unauthorized episcopal consecrations, they must now again severely castigate the ‘Holy See’ for its many grave spiritual crimes.

Let’s review.

In 2009, ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of 1988 against the surviving bishops of the Society, that is, Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (d. 2024), Alfonso de Galarreta, and Richard Williamson (d. 2025). By 2012, the SSPX had almost reached that coveted status of ‘full communion’ with the Vatican II Church, but stumbled at the finish line. In 2015, as part of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, ‘Pope’ Francis extended faculties to all SSPX priests to hear confessions and witness marriages validly, and the following year he renewed these faculties indefinitely. By 2017, there was serious talk regarding the Lefebvrists being granted the status of a ‘personal prelature’ by the Vatican (similar to that of Opus Dei or the Apostolic Administration of St. John Vianney in Campos, Brazil); however, an agreement was never reached.

Here are some links demonstrating how positive the SSPX relations with Rome were during the waning years of Bp. Fellay’s second term as Superior General — years that roughly overlapped with the first half of the Francis ‘pontificate’:

Bp. Fellay’s second 12-year term expired in 2018, and the General Chapter elected Fr. Pagliarani to succeed him. Fr. Pagliarani has taken a less conciliatory approach with Rome, but fundamentally, since they insist on recognizing the Neo-Modernist hierarchy as valid, lawful, and (somehow) Catholic, the SSPX position always tends to seeking to be recognized and regularized by Rome.

Without such a reconciliation, it was inevitable that before long, the Society of St. Pius X would once again have to consecrate (ordain) more bishops to ensure the continuation of its current state of independence from the Vatican, for only with bishops of their own can they guarantee that they will always be able to ordain priests, administer confirmation, and consecrate holy oils for extreme unction. But the law says that without a papal mandate, consecrating someone a bishop incurs automatic excommunication both for the ordaining bishop and the new bishop being ordained.

The Vatican Predicament

That this whole affair is not terribly desirable for the Lefebvrists is clear, but it also comes with certain dangers for the Vatican’s public relations department: After countless ecumenical and interreligious shenanigans, endless emphasis on human fraternity and dignity, the rights of conscience and reaching out to the marginalized, will the Church of Perpetual Inclusion and Limitless Mercy really declare a new rift, a formal schism with a (relatively) small group of priests and bishops simply because they decided to ordain more bishops without Leo’s permission?

Will the Church that rejoices at the creation of a Hindu temple and builds mosques for Muslim refugees, the Church that donates money to the building of a schismatic Orthodox cathedral and allows invalid Anglican clerics to ‘offer Mass’ on its own altars really exclude the Society of St. Pius X over a bishops’ consecration?

How will the Vatican explain that although it teaches that God wills a diversity of religions, that the Jews can be saved by adhering to the Old Covenant, and that the Holy Ghost uses Protestant sects as means of salvation, nevertheless there is no salvation to be found in the SSPX?

We are living in 2026, a time of instant communication. Such obvious, mind-blowing, and staggering contradictions and absurdities will not go unnoticed or unpunished. The internet memes pointing out, and ridiculing, the Vatican’s glaring double standard will populate social media faster than Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni will be able to finish his press conference declaring the excommunications.

At the same time, Leo XIV has a strategic advantage. If he does exactly nothing, the SSPX will have its own bishops under excommunication. No imposition or declaration is necessary for this penalty to take effect because it is automatic, being incurred simply by the fact of administering the sacrament. According to the Novus Ordo Code of Canon Law that has been in effect since 1983: “Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” (Canon 1387; formerly Canon 1382). A latae sententiae penalty is one that “is incurred automatically upon the commission of an offence” (Canon 1314).

So, Leo could simply decide to sit this one out, and let the chips fall where the law says they will, without drawing any attention to it. This might be a fairly smart move as far as public relations go. Just pretend the SSPX doesn’t exist.

On the other hand, Leo could maximize the controversy by being as strict and public about the matter as possible. This is unlikely, however, as this would be of little advantage to him and would not make him look very merciful or charitable, as we said above.

There is another thing Leo could do, however: He could make a singular exception. As the supreme legislator, he could decree that, although the SSPX does not have his permission for these consecrations, nevertheless, out of pastoral solicitude and for the easing of the consciences of the souls who frequent the SSPX for sacraments, he chooses to waive (or downgrade) the penalty of excommunication for this particular incident only. This would effectively ‘allow’ the SSPX to go ahead with the consecrations, while also making clear that the Vatican forbids the act. It would also make Leo look like a kind and compassionate man.

Which scenario is the most likely? Time will tell.

Back to the 1980s?

In many ways, then, it’s 1988 all over again, although there are also some important differences.

Not only is the apostasy of the post-Catholic Vatican much more obvious and acute now than it was 38 years ago, especially after 12 years of Francis; we are now also living in a time of the internet, which permits immediate distribution of information, ultra-fast reactions, and quick verification of the accuracy of asserted facts. It is a very different dynamic compared to a time when fast communication meant phone calls and fax machines.

Throughout the lead-up to the SSPX episcopal consecrations, Novus Ordo Watch will be working hard to expose the Lefebvrist arguments for the sophistry they are, and refute them. The ultimate motive for doing so is to show that if Leo XIV is Pope, as they believe, then, according to traditional Catholic doctrine, he must be submitted to and there is no licit way to ‘do one’s own thing’, so to speak, as the SSPX in fact does, even if the idea is to ‘defend Tradition’.

The motive for making this clear is not to get SSPXers to submit to Leo, of course, but to get them to understand that he cannot possibly be the Pope of the Catholic Church and therefore refusal of submission to him is not only permitted but necessary. The intention is furthermore to show the SSPX and its defenders that they cannot preserve or defend the Catholic Faith of all time if they are utilizing ideas and principles that are contrary to it, anymore than they could borrow their way out of debt.

Get the popcorn ready. It’ll be a wild ride.

Title image source: composite with elements from Shutterstock (paul saad), Alamy (Maria Grazia Picciarella), Apple (GIF), and YouTube (screenshot)
Licenses: paid, public domain, and fair use

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