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\nThe Society of Saint Pius X was founded in 1970<\/p>\n
The Vatican has excommunicated six bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St Pius X and said any lay believers who “formally adhere” to the group would suffer the same fate.<\/p>\n
The Vatican decree comes a day after the traditionalist breakaway group consecrated four new bishops, defying a call from Pope Leo XIV not to do so.<\/p>\n
The decree called the ceremony “an act of schismatic nature”.<\/p>\n
Only the pope may authorise the consecration of new bishops, so as to maintain the Church’s ties to the 12 apostles, who are regarded as the first priests and bishops.<\/p>\n
The Vatican had \u200cwarned the ordination, which was broadcast on social media, would incur excommunication.<\/p>\n
The excommunication covers the newly-ordained bishops and the two existing bishops who presided over the ceremony in Econe in southwest Switzerland.<\/p>\n
The rite was attended by thousands of worshippers from around the world.<\/p>\n
\nThe Society of Saint Pius X was founded in 1970<\/p>\n
The society’s Superior General Davide Pagliarani called it a “historic” day during his homily.<\/p>\n
“Are we breaking with the Church in order to keep the faith? That is a false dilemma. We belong to the Church first through faith, through the integral profession of the Church’s faith,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Society of Saint Pius X, which has around 600,000 followers, comprises fundamentalist Catholics who strongly oppose the liberal reforms imposed by the Vatican II Council in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1970 by divisive French bishop Marcel Lefebvre, the group triggered a rift with the Vatican by consecrating four bishops in 1988 without permission from Pope John Paul II.<\/p>\n
The current leadership announced in February it planned to ordain new bishops in July, without Vatican approval, citing a need for more \u200cprelates to lead the society.<\/p>\n
“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Pope Leo wrote in a letter to the society on Monday, calling it a “schismatic act”.<\/p>\n
“To tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity,” the pontiff said.<\/p>\n
The Vatican’s number two Pietro Parolin said the Church felt “deep sorrow” over the ordinations.<\/p>\n
“An act of this kind deeply wounds the unity of the Church,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vatican has excommunicated six bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St Pius X and said any lay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-529058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}