Bishop Marian Eleganti has rejected claims that any Vatican excommunication imposed on the Society of St Pius X over its planned episcopal consecrations on July 1 could be invalid, telling the Catholic Herald in an exclusive comment that such arguments misunderstand the nature of schism.
His intervention comes in direct response to remarks by Bishop Athanasius Schneider suggesting excommunications against the SSPX would not be valid because the Society does not intend to separate from Rome.
It was reported by Pelican+ that Bishop Schneider made the remarks during a recent private meeting of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima. According to an account of the meeting, the auxiliary bishop of Astana argued that the Society’s intentions were decisive when considering the canonical implications of the July 1 consecrations.
“There is no intention from the leadership of the SSPX to separate themselves from Rome,” Bishop Schneider said.
He added that the absence of such an intention would call into question whether the Church could legitimately impose the most severe canonical penalties on the Society should the consecrations proceed.
“Therefore, I think that, if the excommunication were applied, it would in some way not be valid because there is no intention to commit a schismatic act on the side of the Society of Pius X, and you cannot be punished when you have not the intention to do it, according to canon law,” he said.
During the pontificate of Pope Francis, Bishop Schneider served as the Holy See’s official visitor to the SSPX, giving him unusual insight into the internal life of the movement during a period when Rome was attempting to assess its position more closely. He has also publicly appealed to Pope Leo XIV to consider approving the Society’s planned episcopal consecrations rather than condemning them, presenting such a step as a possible bridge towards reconciliation between the Vatican and the SSPX.
However, Bishop Eleganti, the retired auxiliary bishop of Chur in Switzerland, dismissed the argument, insisting that the absence of a declared intention to break with Rome would not alter the objective nature of the act.
“To declare a questionable intention doesn’t help,” Bishop Eleganti said. “It’s a way, saying that they don’t intend schism, to deceive people about the objective schismatic nature and effect of such an act of disobedience.
“That’s a ploy to practise total autonomy while pretending to be in union with the Pope. It is in fact not the case so long as the Pope does not accept or authorise these consecrations,” Bishop Eleganti said.
The Swiss bishop expanded on his concerns in further comments to the Catholic Herald, arguing that the question must be judged by the concrete actions of the Society rather than by the intentions its leaders claim to hold.
“It’s not about what they claim or declare, but about the facts they create,” Bishop Eleganti said. “It’s not primarily about intentions but about objective facts and behaviour.”
The bishop continued by outlining four points which he believes demonstrate a pattern of independence from the authority of the Church.
“Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and the episcopal college; thirdly, maintaining hundreds of priests who are not incardinated; and finally, existing in a kind of jurisdictional nirvana through self-authorisation, considering themselves the only true Catholics, with the only true sacraments, at least without defects, and the only true doctrine,” he said.
Bishop Eleganti argued that these developments highlight a deeper ecclesiological problem within the movement, suggesting that its structures increasingly resemble those of a parallel Church.
“They claim not to want a Church beside the Church while creating one and behaving in a way that corresponds exactly to that,” he said, describing the position as fundamentally inconsistent.
He also questioned whether the Society genuinely seeks canonical reconciliation with Rome, suggesting that full regularisation would undermine the independence it currently enjoys.
“It is insincere because, to be truthful about it, they don’t want any regularisation,” he said. “That would mean losing their autonomy and submitting themselves to what they consider an erroneous universal Church. And that is in effect exactly a schismatic mindset and behaviour.”
Relations between the SSPX and the Holy See have fluctuated over the decades. In the 1970s and 1980s relations deteriorated significantly. The crisis reached its climax in 1988 when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal permission, arguing that the survival of the traditional priesthood required it.
Two decades later, Pope Benedict XVI attempted to reopen dialogue by lifting the excommunications of the surviving bishops in 2009, although the Society maintained that the excommunications had been invalid. The move removed the most visible canonical penalty but did not fully regularise the Society’s status within the Church.
Under Pope Francis, further limited concessions were made in a pastoral spirit. SSPX priests were granted the faculty to hear confessions during the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015, a permission later extended indefinitely. The Vatican also authorised local bishops to allow SSPX priests to witness marriages under certain conditions.
Bishop Fellay, former superior general of the SSPX, also claimed to have received a letter from Rome saying that the SSPX could “freely ordain your priests without the permission of the local ordinary”, thus bypassing the regular steps of incardination.
Despite these steps, negotiations aimed at reaching a permanent canonical solution have repeatedly stalled, largely over questions concerning the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council and the extent of papal authority over the Society’s internal life.
The Society of St Pius X has now published a communiqué and the full text of a letter from its Superior General rejecting a proposal from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for renewed doctrinal talks under the proposed conditions and declining to suspend episcopal consecrations scheduled for July 1.
