A rebel Catholic group under the threat of excommunication for disobedience to Pope Leo has told the Vatican its members wish to remain in the Church, but would “rather die than renounce” thier ultra-traditionalist principles.
The Vatican warned the Society of St. Pius X’s (SSPX), which has repeatedly clashed with the papacy, on Wednesday that members risk excommunication if they carry out plans to ordain bishops without the pope’s approval.
SSPX Superior General Davide Pagliarani wrote the pope on Thursday, saying it had warned the Vatican for more than 50 years of modernist “errors that are destroying Catholic faith and morals” and lamenting that the only response has “appeared to be that of canonical sanctions.”
Members “have no other desire than that of living and being confirmed in the Roman Catholic Faith,” Thursday’s letter said, adding “we would rather die than renounce” our principles.
SSPX has protested modernist reforms since the priestly fraternity’s founding by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970. The group announced in February that it would ordain bishops without the pope’s approval in July.
On Wednesday the Vatican said such a move would constitute a “schismatic act,” requiring excommunication.
“The episcopal ordinations announced by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X do not have the corresponding papal mandate,” wrote the Vatican’s discipline chief Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.
“This act will constitute a schismatic act’ and ‘formal adherence to the schism constitutes a grave offense against God and entails the excommunication established by the law of the Church’,” he added.
This is a developing story; updates to follow..
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