Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said that marriages and Confessions administered by the SSPX following its excommunication are valid but illicit, appearing to contradict the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith's (DDF) recent explanatory note.

In a July 6 German-language interview with the platform K-TV, Cardinal Müller said the authority to forgive or retain sins is conferred through the sacrament of Holy Orders, and in canon law, can only be restricted by the bishop or the Pope.

Though he stated that Catholics should avoid having their marriages witnessed within the SSPX, his stance appears to differ from the recent Vatican explanatory note published by the DDF, headed by Cardinal Fernández.

It stated that the sacred ministers of the SSPX “administer the sacraments illicitly, and that the sacrament of Penance administered by them and marriages assisted by them are invalid."

Cardinal Müller, who served as cardinal-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 until 2017, said: “In the case of marriages, it is somewhat more difficult, because marriage is concluded before God by the consent of the spouses.”

He stated the Church “has also formulated the formal obligation for very good reasons”, however under certain circumstances dispensations from the ordinary requirements can be granted.

“People in China who get married and want to be good Catholics but who cannot reach a priest to do so without the risk of being sent to prison: of course they can conclude an indissoluble marriage before God, according to their conscience, and it is valid,” he said.

However, in the case of the SSPX, he strongly advised against having marriages celebrated by priests who are not in full communion with Rome “because the priest is, after all, the witness who represents the Church.”

“There is no Catholic unity that can be achieved apart from the Pope,” he said.

The Superior General of the Society of St Pius X, Fr Davide Pagliarani, reacted to the excommunications of the Society by calling it “objectively unjust and invalid”.

In a letter to Pope Leo XIV, he denied that the society was substituting itself for the Church, stating: “In conscience, we did not believe we could evade the moral duty we owe to souls, as we have already explained, both privately and publicly, to Your Holiness.”

The July 1 consecrations followed Vatican warnings that the Society would incur automatic excommunication, which was then decreed on July 2.