Planned consecrations could trigger automatic excommunication and deepen rupture with Rome.

The Vatican will receive representatives of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) following the traditionalist group’s announcement that it plans to consecrate new bishops without permission from Rome — a move that could incur automatic excommunication of all bishops involved and deepen the group’s rupture with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican meeting will take place Feb. 12 at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and will be led by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the dicastery. The SSPX delegation will be led by its superior general, Father Davide Pagliarani, 55.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said “the meeting will be an opportunity for an informal and personal dialogue, which may help identify effective instruments of dialogue that could lead to positive outcomes,” according to the official outlet Vatican News.

At present, only a meeting with the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is planned, and it is not known whether Pope Leo XIV will also receive the SSPX superior general.

In a Feb. 5 communiqué, the SSPX encouraged members and faithful to accompany the upcoming meeting with prayer.

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970 in opposition to some teachings of the Second Vatican Council, including those on religious freedom and the Church’s relations with other faiths. The society celebrates exclusively the traditional Latin Mass, using the liturgical books in force prior to the postconciliar reforms.

In 1988, Lefebvre ordained four bishops in defiance of an explicit order from St. John Paul II, resulting in the excommunication of all those involved. Lefebvre died in 1991 without having reconciled with Rome. Twenty-one years later, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the surviving bishops.

Pope Francis later authorized SSPX priests to hear confessions and witness marriages in a further attempt to foster reconciliation with the group. The society remains in an irregular canonical situation. 

The SSPX has announced that the planned consecrations will take place on July 1, the anniversary of the 1988 decree signed by John Paul II excommunicating Archbishop Lefebvre.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.