Lefebvrists Consecrate Four Bishops Without Papal Mandate Despite Vatican Warnings

Vatican City, July 2, 2026: Ignoring repeated warnings from Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four new bishops without papal approval at its headquarters in Écône, Switzerland, reopening tensions between Rome and the traditionalist group founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The consecrations took place on July 1 at the SSPX seminary in Écône, where Bishops Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay presided over the ceremony attended by thousands of faithful, priests and religious. According to Catholic canon law, episcopal consecrations carried out without a papal mandate incur automatic excommunication.

The Vatican had strongly urged the group not to proceed. In a letter issued on June 29, Pope Leo XIV appealed to the society not to “tear apart” the seamless garment of Christ and warned that the consecrations would amount to “a schismatic act.” Similar warnings were also issued by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Despite the warnings, the four priests answered affirmatively to the liturgical question, “Habetis mandatum apostolicum?” (“Do you have the Apostolic Mandate?”), even though no papal mandate had been granted.

The bishops consecrated were Pascal Schreiber, a Swiss priest ordained at Écône in 1998; Fr. Michael Goldade from the United States; Michel Poinsinet de Sivry; and Marc Happier. Organisers said more than 15,000 people attended the outdoor Mass beside the society’s international seminary in the Swiss Alps, which was livestreamed in six languages on the SSPX website.

At the beginning of the liturgy, Fr. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, defended the move, saying, “We are prepared to pay any price to save the Church.”

According to Fr. Pagliarani, it was “a most serious duty” to “hand on the grace of the episcopate to these priests.”

“We consider that any penalties or censures imposed for this act have no value whatsoever,” he added.

At the point in the liturgy where the papal mandate is traditionally read aloud, an assisting priest instead delivered a statement defending the consecrations.

“From the Second Vatican Council to the present day, the authorities of the church have been animated by a spirit that is contrary to that of the faith and have been acting against holy tradition,” the priest said. “Therefore before God we consider it a sacred duty toward the holy church, toward souls, to proceed with the consecration of bishops who are entirely faithful to her holy tradition and to her constant magisterium.”

Responding to Pope Leo XIV’s appeal shortly before the consecrations, Fr. Pagliarani said the Vatican had presented a “false dilemma” between the society’s vision of the faith and its adherence to the Church.

“No one can choose between faith and the church,” he said. “We want the faith of the church in order to remain in the church, and we want the church within the faith, even if those opposed to us refuse to understand this.”

Bishop de Galarreta and Bishop Fellay are among the surviving bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 without papal approval, an act that led to excommunications later lifted by Pope Benedict XVI.

For the Vatican, the consecrations marked the reopening of a decades-old wound of division within the Church, while the SSPX insisted the act was necessary to preserve what it described as fidelity to Catholic tradition.

News Credits : Vatican News