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Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops
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- Title
- Vatican excommunicates schismatic bishops and priests, and warns their followers
- Published
- Jul 2 2026
- Word count
- 125 words
I heard there were excommunications once again, but the reasoning is unsurprising at this point. Strike three, and now there's a general schism. But SSPX hierarchs kind of brought this on themselves when they once again decided they could just ignore going through the Synod, right?
For those not familiar with high ecclesiastical traditions in orthodox Christianity (which includes both Catholicism and proper-noun Orthodoxy), this situation is basically like having a large company where one tiny (unofficial) department says that it doesn't need to convene with the rest of management, even though the company rules stipulate that the hiring of new managers must be approved by the board of directors first. And in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, both the board and the CEO must sign off on the hirings.
SSPX purposefully ignored those proper channels for a third time over the last 40 years. So the outcome is not too surprising, to be honest.
It'll be interesting to see how they fare by joining the list of independent Catholic denominations. The funny thing is that a lot of the more conservative independent churches among that list had already left after Vatican I, in rejection of things like Papal Infallibility and Immaculate Conception in Mariology. Especially because of the latter, I doubt that SSPX will be cozying up to the UoS or NAOCC any time soon.
Thank you for the analogy. It helps me understand the context!
To the Orthodox, the Catholics aren't heretics, they're schismatics. Both of them still follow apostolic succession though, and recognise each other as having properly descended from the apostles in one unbroken line.
Yeah, what Raistlin said, we're in schism but we would not say they were heretics, and last I heard (if I wanted to throwaway my Orthodoxy ) I could take their communion, but not the other way around for Catholics . The patriarchs / primates do not typically comment on current events.
I believe Catholics believe they could take Orthodox Communion because it's a valid sacrament but because it's not supposed to be offered to them per Orthodox rules, they should not. Unless something has changed
Oh now I'm totally not sure because what you said makes sense too .... Standard Orthodox answer: let me ask my priest
not that I've ever tried to line up at a Catholic church .... Hold on do they do line ups to the priest or is it passed at each pew like protestant wafers? It's also wafers as well too I think
Line up at the priest, deacon or an extraordinary minister (lay Catholics, often who offer wine for people who wish to have both, or who offer wafers to speed up the process).
Also no one would stop you, it's basically honor system if you're a stranger. But if you ever do find yourself attending a RCC Mass for some reason you can enter the communion line and cross your arms over your chest as you approach and receive a blessing instead of Communion if accepting it isn't ok for you (or anyone )
I don't take communion when i attend a funeral or wedding or something out of respect for their beliefs so I have practice.
Good to know ~ there's good similarities :) I hope we reunify some time hopefully this millenium
Wishing you both the best of luck.
(The Church is like an uncle who I have issues with and no relationship with but wish well and go "good for you" when the Pope says good stuff)
The wine might vary. Some places also dip the wafer in the wine too.
Yes I was definitely trying for a broad overview. But absolutely, not every church offers both species for every Mass and as long as the priest or EO dips intinction is allowed. (No self serve)
Not sure if the latter is more common outside the US, it wasn't something I ever recall actually seeing at our masses
Some protestants also queue up but that might just be Anglicans (and might be their love of queueing)
Suddenly I feel personally attacked in a topic I've just been enjoying from the sidelines.
Not sure you were going for a thinly veiled insult or not, but here we are ;)
Interesting! I'll ask my Lutheran uncles about their church if they also retained the custom
The only point in which this will matter is the relevance of the Catholic church in, say, 500-1000 years. That said, given the historical record back to Roman emperor Constantine, it might be surprisingly relevant.
I think the sticky wicket here is the specific undermining of mainstream Catholic authority, by not allowing/requiring the Pope to specifically ordain these new bishops.
I cannot wrap my head around the absurdity of the Latin mass. What’s the point of sitting there listening to some unintelligible noises?
I mean the use of a liturgical language that practitioners aren't fully or even partially fluent in is a pretty common practice. Islamic prayer is done in Arabic, even in regions where Arabic isn't spoken (Indonesia, Bosnia, Nigeria, etc.). Buddhist sutras are in Pali, which like Latin only exists as a liturgical language. We can go on: Jewish prayers in Aramaic, Sikhs in Gurmukhi, Hindu in Sanskrit, etc.
The reason for this varies across all these religions but it often has to do with trying to adhere as closely as possible to the original theological meanings, and by using a liturgical or "dead" language the holy meanings won't change over the centuries due to linguistic drift. For global religions like Catholicism and Islam, this also has the benefit of allowing believers in very different parts of the world to pray together identically, without the inherent shifts in meaning that come with translation.
Not to say that there aren't earthly reasons like reinforcing the authority of the priestly class or reinforcing communal identities against stuff like the Protestant reformation, but the theological reasoning for maintaining these liturgical languages is pretty interesting. Since I'm agnostic I won't pretend to fully understand it, but its common enough across many religions and so I wouldn't dismiss the practice as absurd out of hand.
Equally silly in all cases. Common doesn’t mean good.
If the speaker isn’t using a language the listener understands, there’s no meaning being transferred. The reason for Latin mass as far as I can tell is to insulate people from what their religion is actually about and maintain vibe based group identity. You can’t have doctrinal schism if nobody knows what the doctrine is.
I mean that's just an argument you can make about religiosity as a whole, which isn't a particularly productive line of discussion. My point isn't to make a claim whether this practice is good or bad, but the fact that the same phenomenon shows up independently across so many unrelated traditions suggests that a reductive explanation like "liturgical languages only exist to trick people and maintain control" doesn't tell nearly the whole story. Its not like the Buddhist monks are winning huge levels of societal control when someone alone in their house chants a sutra in a dead language.
As @stu2b50 points out, these are rituals, not university lectures. Even if a longtime Catholic churchgoer can't hold conversation in Latin, they know what words and phrases mean, so clearly some kind of meaning is being transferred. Besides, learning Catholic doctrine isn't necessarily going to happen during mass anyways, that's what catechesis is for. Joining the Catholic Church as an adult through the OCIA involves months of common-language instruction in scripture and doctrine specifically so people understand what they're doing before/while they participate in Latin rites. This isn't even Catholic-exclusive, Islamic madrasas are taught in the common language, as are explanations of Buddhist sutras, and so on.
I fully get where you're coming from, there's definitely historical cases of organized religion obfuscating theological meaning from the masses (there's a reason the Church resisted vernacular Bibles for so long). But like... this just isn't historically true? Not only has there been a number of schisms from the Latin mass, we're literally commenting on a post about a Latin-Mass-exclusive group being excommunicated over a doctrinal dispute. SSPX has celebrated "unintelligible noises" for 50+ years and somehow still managed to develop such a specific, deeply-held doctrinal position that Rome just declared them in schism over it. If Latin liturgy successfully prevented people from knowing what the doctrine was, this article wouldn't exist.
Can you expand on this a bit? My (limited) understanding of Buddhism makes me think that Buddhists who chant sutras know the general meaning of the sutra, if not the literal translation of the words they are saying. Much like I can go to an opera and read the subtitles to understand what the singers are saying, it's still conveying the meaning, but I don't get a word for word translation. But as far as I'm aware, there are no subtitles for Latin mass, which seems to be a big difference in your analogy comparing Latin mass to Buddhist sutras.
There's typically essentially a program you can follow along with, plus Catholics generally get education as a kid teaching them the different parts of Mass, and you learn from observing. The readings are ttpically repeated in vernacular during the homily. (But may not be everywhere idk)
If you know the bits of Mass in your primary language you know what each of those parts of the ritual are in the Latin Mass. Just like if I attended Mass in Spain I would be able to track what was happening.
Especially as the entire congregation stands/kneels/etc during certain parts of the Mass. Even if you lost track you'd catch up.
I'll defer entirely to @DefinitelyNotAFae's explanation as I'm not nor have ever been Catholic, but I'm pretty sure missals are translated into the common language. I think it is kind of like the libretto booklets sold at operas to translate the script into the local language (although I think screens with subtitles are more common in opera nowadays).
This deserves a more poetic response than I'm capable of now, on a phone and with a vague headache. However.
Putting aside the narrow misunderstanding of what a church service is for, or what it is for those present, should all communication be verbal? Do you find meaning in beauty? In dance? In inference or suggestion?
I'm not Christian of any persuasion but this attitude seems to me to deny much of what it is to be human and how we communicate. Let alone what we ascribe meaning to.
That’s definitely the historical Protestant point of view. Though that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the correct one for all of the rest of us who aren’t Protestant Christians.
There’s a very tedious aspect of modern Internet atheism where they reject belief in God (or the supernatural writ large) but still uncritically hold onto literally every aspect of the Protestant worldview; such as what constitutes virtue, what religion is, the nature of divinity, orthodoxy vs praxis, the function of ritual, the nature of belief, the importance of historicity, etc.
There’s just a complete inability to even acknowledge that all of these are culturally specific and grow out of a specifically Protestant perspective, but because they haven’t bothered to self-examine about any of it they just proceed to pompously lecture everyone else about how we’re all dummies.
I mean... The only defining feature of atheism is not having belief in God. It's not hypocritical to be an atheist but also have protestant worldviews about literally every other aspect of life. You're an atheist because you don't believe in God, not because you believe absolutely nothing that protestant churches do.
I don't agree. An atheist coming from Christianity is different from one in China, and again different from someone simply raised without religion. Both me and my wife are atheists, but I grew up Catholic and had to fight my way out, whereas she grew up in a society where belief in God just wasn't a thing.
This has practical consequences. She's able to go to a church or a mosque or whatever and sing choirs to God, or close her eyes when people pray to Mary, etc. it means absolutely nothing to her, a Greek pagan might as well be sacrificing a goat to Zeus. Whereas it took me a long time to get out of the Christian-atheist paradigm that grew up with, and start to become able to to go a Mass and not feel a bunch of resentment and arrogance about it. Our atheisms are different.
There's nothing wrong with being an atheist with a Protestant worldview. But what's frustrating is to see an atheist with a Protestant worldview pretend that liturgical languages (a practice going back to Sumer and Akkad) are obviously silly, and vernacular languages so obviously better. Neither is better than the other, it's just different religious traditions.
Oh, I don't disagree with you, that's not what I was trying to say. I think calling anyone's spiritual beliefs silly is pretty rude if they're not hurting anyone. I was just saying that an atheist can still have a worldview, ethics, culture and so on that is derived from Christianity and Christian societies and still be entirely logically consistent. You don't have to throw out all of Christianity to count as an atheist. Just the god parts.
ok, but the atheists in question get very angry with people who assert that religion and religious beliefs can be different than the narrow range of religious beliefs those atheists are aware of and want to refute. In protestantism, strict fundamentalists are aware of progressive/modernist churches and consider them heretics but atheists raised by fundamentalists frequently assert online that progressive christianity/progressive churches don't exist. Dealing with this type of discussion can be exhausting.
Did you notice I put a bunch of qualifiers on “atheism” to specify the types of people I was talking about? Why did you then remove all those qualifiers to “well ackshually” about what atheism technically means when used without these qualifiers?
I did notice the qualifiers, but they're not actually relevant to what you brought up. If you're criticizing atheists for "not believing in God while simultaneously doing X", it's already a flawed argument. Atheism isn't like Christianity. There's no inherent worldview associated with it beyond not believing in gods. You can be atheist but have all of the same views as a Protestant, minus belief in God. You can be an atheist and believe in bigfoot. There's no conflict there.
So an atheist agreeing with a Protestant about the nature of divinity, what constitutes virtue and so on isn't a problem for either atheism or protestantism, regardless of if they're a modern internet atheist or not.
The whole point is that it is like Christianity, because it is a specifically Christian perspective to think that belief or disbelief in the existence of “God” is the core thing to hang your spiritual worldview on. They’ve just accepted all the stuff downstream of the Christian belief in God without examination, deciding it’s how the world works because it’s the model of the world they were given being raised in a Protestant Christian culture.
They then proceed to insist that this must be how everyone else must view the world as working regardless of whether they share those cultural priors or not. And that that specific approach to religion is the most faithful one regardless of the tradition they’re approaching. It’s the exact same personality flaw as fundamentalist, utter lack of humility or intellectual curiosity, in a different coat of paint.
This is one things Christians, even formerly Christian atheists, do not understand. Belief in God is not the core determinant of your spiritual views in many (most?) cultures. There are millions (billions?) of Chinese, Japanese and Indians who pray at shrines, draw fortunes, honour the local gods. If you ask them if they believe in them, you'll get a gamut of answers, but mostly shrugs. Where does belief come into this? The important part is the ritual and practice. They might belheve in the god some days but not others, depending on things.
It is a uniquely Christian (and Muslim, and other universal religions) to define your religious position on whether or not you think gods literally exist or not.
I'm going to use a comparison that may or may not work.
There's the stereotype that Americans don't travel abroad and don't know a second language. They look at everything through this American-centric perspective. "This isn't the food we eat." "Why would you eat dinner so late." "Why aren't the stores open when I want to shop" "why do I have to dress like that, I have free speech!"
Some Americans do travel abroad and maybe even learn a second language, of course. But not everyone changes their behavior, their worldview remains firmly in this American-centric POV. They may move abroad but live in ex-pat communities and never really speak to most of the folks in that language they worked so hard on. They are still typically patronizing. But they may see themselves as so much more worldly and knowledgeable yet typically disrespectful. They at most learn how to navigate the world as an American abroad
And of course some Americans travel, learn a language (or try) and are super respectful to the culture. They made an effort to learn ahead of time, and their conversations about it are culturally knowledgeable and sensitive. They've done a lot to break up that American-centric world view. They don't just compare everything to the standard of home, they re-evaluate "home" compared to the world.
So this thread is talking about how many (American) atheists tend to have a protestant worldview, because of how they were raised in a culturally Christian, but particularly protestanta and even evangelical culture. Which leads to criticisms about any religion coming from a protestant angle, as if that's obvious and normal. And it's their norm (just like America is the norm for American tourists) but there is a lack of maybe intellectual curiosity but at least understanding of why these other faiths act as they do. And they tend to get things factually wrong like "Latin Mass is gibberish spoken by people who don't understand to people who don't understand it." Because they don't know what actually happens there and never looked it up.
And it's not that there shouldn't be criticisms or analysis. For example the issue with SSPX isn't that they do Latin Mass (though their fixation on it is a sign of their other beliefs) Theologically within the Roman Catholic Church the issue is that they didn't obey the Pope. There's a lot of space there for discussing the hierarchy of the RCC and whether the whole setup is a problem (probably yes given the abuse cover up) just for one example. Externally they're super misogynistic, like not just "you can't be a priest" but "you shouldn't work, you shouldn't wear pants" levels of misogyny. And they've had a serious antisemitism problem in their leadership - like Holocaust denier level.
But instead they repeat protestant criticisms of the Catholic church , or of Islam or whatever faith without often even realizing they're doing it. Like the "typical" Americans abroad the perspective seems off.
Idk if that helps; the tl;dr is to have some introspection, and understand the thing you're criticizing rather than just mocking it because it's always seemed dumb to you (while also IMO de-christianize/de-colonize your perspective as much as you can, but that's just my opinion)
this is an excellent summary of exactly the issue. thank you
I'm glad it came out as at least semi-coherent!
Hahaha, nice try! You're one of the few names I recognise here and stupid is not something I associate with you :)
Well that just means I fooled you so bad. You've been so bamboozled. Gaslight girlboss gatekeep.
If it's not hypocritical it is at least tone-deaf (and probably clueless) to disavow the existence of God without acknowledging that the philosophical standpoint it's being done from is one constructed by a lot of people very concerned with god's existence and equally certain of it.
I don't see how.
Theres a lot of philosophy that was first postulated by people who have extremely different world views from most people today. Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates all came from a society which was famously perfectly ok with slavery, and they defended the practice on philosophical grounds.
That doesn't mean that the basis all the philosophical work that rests on them is somehow invalid.
In the same way, you can rely on all the good scientific and philosophical work that the Catholic Church has done over the years while also disavowing God. There's nothing tone deaf about that at all.
You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No real argument from me. It is perhaps best to do so with awareness though.
What I and others are reacting to is a line of argument that takes a particular view of, say, the Latin liturgy, that is deeply protestant in origin and which is then espoused as self evident and obviously correct. All the while demonstrating no awareness of its subjective nature or its origin.
Thank you exactly for this. It is so exhausting.
what value do these meanings have if they are completely unintelligible?
Dead languages are still understood and intelligible, they just don’t have native speakers. People understand Latin
Indeed there are many isolated phrases that are still in use today. Caveat Emptor. Canis Canem. Et cetera, et cetera.
Yes but we're talking about a situation where the people listening and sometimes even the people speaking don't actually understand latin. If noone is around who can understand it, then they're literally spouting gibberish from the pulpit.
I'm not Catholic anymore, but it's really easy to understand Latin in a liturgy because it's repetitive. Also the person speaking does know what they're saying, even if they don't speak the language outside of the liturgy. Its part of seminary.
I didn't hear the Latin mass more than a couple of times but Latin is still used semi-frequently. I know Kyrie Eleison means Lord have Mercy. I know the Lord's Prayer, Dona Nobis Pacem, and I know all of Oh Come All Ye Faithful in Latin and I know what those words all mean (and that's just off the top of my head, see also the "I didn't attend Latin mass". )
Even if it was total nonsense, ritual means something to folks. Plenty of non religious folks have personal rituals that bring them comfort, or guarantee their team a win or any number of things. I find some comfort in the rituals of Catholicism even as I no longer partake in them. Certainly folks can find the whole thing silly, I find lots of stuff silly, but idk I've given up announcing my edge to the world. But it's just not true that it's "gibberish" especially today. (These days usually the readings are re-read in vernacular afterwards and the homily, the preaching, is also in vernacular.)
Ooo time to flex some knowledge from my weird trad catholic upbringing.
Fun fact, “Kyrie Eleison” is actually Greek. (And the only part of the Latin mass that is still said in Greek… which was Greek long before the switch to Latin.)
I’ve not been to mass in many years (I’m lapsed for a billion unoriginal reasons) but the Latin mass itself always felt kind of awe-inspiring and reverential to me personally in a way the English rite never quite did, and I still miss it from time to time. (Part of that is probably nostalgia, though...)
Anyway, it’s pretty common/encouraged for people attending the Latin mass to have a missal, which has the words written in both Latin and English side-by-side so you can follow along with the priest. (And yes a daily missal’s specific translation is a big ol’ can of worms for hardcore traditionalists, there’s a bunch of different versions and editions...)
My siblings and I also took Latin classes when we were kids because our mom reeeeeally wanted us to be able to understand it all (and she was lowkey hoping we’d become priests lol). I don’t remember much now but “Amo amas amat amamus amatis amant” will forever be ingrained in my memory…
So yeah, as someone who grew up with it, it’s not at all meaningless gibberish even if I never was more than terrible at Latin. If anything it was more engaging reading along instead of just listening passively to the prayers in English.
Man, unexpected trip down memory lane. Feeling old now.
I did forget that was Greek! See previous: not the Catholic anymore! Plus my Catholic school didn't have Latin as a class option.
Ty for the perspective.
Probably for similar reasons why people go to operas without knowing Italian, or why people listen to music sung by people that don't speak a language they understand.
I mention this in my other comment, but as I understand it new Catholics have to undergo instruction in understanding the rites, which is taught in common language. Also I'm pretty sure that Catholic priests have to have a M. Div degree, and somewhere in the ~8 years of schooling they're required to learn Latin, so I think we can safely assume that the priests speaking do actually understand Latin.
They're not. Mass doesn't really change, you pick these things up, or ask the priest or your school to explain later if you're interested. Or don't and just sit there and vibe.
It’s not like it’s a college lecture. No one is there to hear exactly the words spoken or to learn from the exact meaning. It’s a spiritual ritual.
It’s like asking why people in America would go to a concert for a Japanese artist. “ What’s the point of sitting there listening to some unintelligible noises?”
I like listening to Japanese music and going to concerts enough that I started learning Japanese. (Mostly because around 2018 Spotify stopped translating song titles and I needed to at least know kana to distinguish them better.)
English is also mostly "unintelligible noises" to a majority of the world, but apparently Americans expect that it's only natural that they should consume their movies and music.
I grew up Catholic and that was the focus where I lived. Continuous education about what all the words meant and why they're said. If you only showed up for the spiritual ritual, you were looked down upon. In some circles, it was worse than not showing up at all.
This is pretty much my point.
Music transcends language. I’ve been to Latin mass, and it is not art.
What is that point? Mass isn’t supposed to be a lecture. No one considers it as such. That it isn’t a lecture isn’t a failure of mass. It’s fundamentally a ritual.
I mean, it’s not like god exists to begin with, so no matter what you listen to you’re not going to be any closer to a nonexistent supernatural being. People are in mass for the vibe, English or Latin (or whatever native language).
If some people think the vibe is better being in Latin, seems about as fine as mass in the native language.
Who made you the art arbitrator? God?
Religion notoriously also transcends language. Music is part of culture, but like, so is religion. Religion has been a core part of culture since the dawn of history.
Yeah plus you do learn the church latin. Most of the Latin I know is from liturgical bits and songs. Add in dinosaurs and medical shows and I've got a fair bit of useless language.
It can be super beautiful, so can English or Spanish or whatever language Mass.
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi...
Sounds lovely to our ears, for what that's worth. This poem is a great example of why subjective aesthetic judgments regarding a language we don't understand are probably bad criteria by which to judge.
The poem is Catullus Carmen 16. I'll leave it to the reader to search up a translation. Fair warning, it's extremely NSFW.
Edit: look up a proper translation. I just used Google translate, and it bowdlerized it fiercely.
This should be a dramatic Latin chant in a video game or movie soundtrack.
Funny you should say that, as the first three words together are my Steam ID.
Did you look up a translation or use Google translate? Google absolutely does NOT do the line justice...
There are the dual challenges that the verbs and adjectives in the line can mostly only be translated into approximate and potentially obscure English slang, particularly irrumare, and even then, understanding the insult would need an understanding of differences in Roman views on sexuality.
The adjectives I'll give you. I've never seen good translations of those.
I'll argue about the verbs, though. Yes, you lose a bit by removing the Roman connotations around sexual passivity and the euphemistic metaphor, but I'd argue that "sodomize" and "face-fuck" do the job tolerably well. They certainly get the point across, at least.
All that's up for debate. What I got from Google translate on the other hand is just objectively bad:
"I will bite you and crush you, Aurelius, the pathetic and the scoundrel of Fury."
I'm not even mad about the confusion on the names. Those verbs tho–
So, 'face-fuck' was actually the 'potentially obscure' slang I was thinking of there. It does do a decent job of translating, yes.
But I didn't actually try Google Translate: that translation is impressively bad. It simply isn't a poem where one or two words can be changed to censor it, and Google Translate can't really do the more traditional thing of just deciding to translate that particular poem into, eg, Italian when the user asks for English.