Responding to a ban on using the Shrine of Lourdes for its pilgrimage, the Society of Saint Pius X has stated that it will proceed with the event anyway, while just making private visits to the Shrine.

In a statement dated August 22, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) issued a firm response to Bishop Jean-Marc Micas’ prohibition on their usage of the Shrine of Lourdes for the annual pilgrimage.  

Sent from the French district house of the SSPX, the letter acknowledged “the authority of the local bishop” but noted the Society wished to “publicly express both its sorrow and its incomprehension in the face of such a decision.”

As the Catholic Herald reported, Micas had withdrawn the formerly annual permission for the pilgrimage in light of the July 1 episcopal consecrations and the Holy See’s subsequent decree regarding the automatic excommunication incurred by the six bishops.  

“Our sorrow is great at the sight of the tearing of Christ’s robe caused by our divisions,” wrote Micas in his decree. “They scandalise the little ones and hinder our evangelical witness.”

However, the SSPX pointed to a double standard in Micas’ logic, noting that others are granted use of the Shrine for official events despite rejecting many key points of Catholic dogma. The Society questioned:

“How can one not be astonished – or even offended – that those who recognise neither the divine Motherhood of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, nor the dogma of her Immaculate Conception, nor even the divinity of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ – have been permitted to enter a place where a ban has now been imposed on the faithful of the chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X in the District of France, preventing them from coming to pray publicly to the Most Holy Virgin Mary at her shrine in Lourdes.”

As the Herald has reported, the Shrine of Lourdes has welcomed official pilgrimages from non-Catholic groups, in a precedent which dates back many decades. Most notably in recent years, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams led several Anglican clergy in an Anglican Eucharist held in the upper basilica at the Shrine in 2008. Approved by the Shrine, the pilgrimage was also attended by Cardinal Walter Kasper, who at that time was president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Micas has banned official pilgrimages by the SSPX but noted that anyone remains open to visit the Shrine in a private capacity. This is what the Society now attests it intends to do, likening their modified Lourdes pilgrimage to those seen in Rome during the Jubilee years: “The French District of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X fully intends to heed this invitation and will therefore continue to make an annual pilgrimage to Lourdes, just as it makes a pilgrimage to Rome during Jubilee years.”

No clarification was given as to how the SSPX intended to emulate its Rome pilgrimage, given that the 2025 event involved a mass-participation procession into St. Peter’s Basilica which was featured on the official Jubilee calendar.

In pushing ahead with its plans for a Lourdes pilgrimage, the Society wrote to assure Micas of its “respect and prayers, without resentment, and with the hope that he may one day recognise in its members not rebels, but sons eager to live and serve within the Catholic Church.”

Following the July 2 Decree from the Holy See concerning the automatic excommunication of the six bishops, the SSPX began the first step of the canonical process in appealing the Decree. The preliminary recourse was sent to the Vatican on July 11, with the canonical process giving the Vatican having 30 “useful”, or working, days to reply.  

That time has come and gone without any public response from the Holy See. Such silence being taken canonically as a rejection of the initial appeal, this means that the Society thus continues with its appeal process.  

The Holy See’s Decree was accompanied by a Note which attested that the SSPX sacraments of Confession and Marriages would be invalid. However much debate has ensued over this passage, with numerous canonists – even those critical of the SSPX – attesting that the Note was erroneous in such an assertion. Since Pope Francis granted faculties to the SSPX for those sacraments, only Pope Leo himself can remove the faculties, the canonists argued.  

As such, the canonical debate surrounding the status of the Society as a whole continues, and will do so throughout its appeal to the Holy See.

Michael Haynes is an English journalist in the Holy See Press Corps. He serves as Vatican Correspondent for the Catholic Herald, while readers can follow him at Per Mariam and on X @MLJHaynes.