EWTN News portal reports that on June 30, 2026, the eve of planned episcopal consecrations by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in Écône, Switzerland, the individual occupying the Vatican under the name “Pope Leo XIV” issued a written appeal to Fr. Davide Pagliarani, the superior general of the SSPX, begging him to halt what the conciliar apparatus calls a “schismatic act.” The letter, published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, warns that these consecrations would result in automatic excommunication and deprive the faithful of “licit” sacraments. This desperate plea from the antipope reveals the profound spiritual chaos of the post-conciliar structure, which, having destroyed the Faith through Modernism, now attempts to claim authority over those who merely simulate Catholicism while remaining in communion with the very architects of the revolution.

---

The Usurper’s Appeal: A Masterclass in Modernist Hypocrisy

The letter from “Pope Leo XIV” to the SSPX is a document dripping with the characteristic duplicity of the conciliar sect. The antipope writes: “I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” He further warns: “I urge you to consider the spiritual good of the faithful carefully, because the schismatic act you are about to undertake would deprive them of the licit and, in some cases, even valid reception of the Sacraments.”

This language is not that of a successor of St. Peter, but of a bureaucrat defending a corporate brand. The concept of “licit” sacraments is deployed here as a weapon of control, entirely divorced from the supernatural reality of the sacraments themselves. For the conciliar sect, the validity and liceity of the sacraments depend not on the unchanging intention of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the proper form and matter, but on the permission of the post-conciliar hierarchy. This is the logic of the New Church, where the “spiritual good of the faithful” is equated with submission to the very authorities who have poisoned the wells of the Faith with heresy.

The antipope’s plea is fundamentally incoherent. He claims to act out of “Christian affection” while simultaneously threatening the faithful with deprivation of the sacraments. This is the tactic of a kidnapper, not a shepherd. The true Church, founded by Christ, guarantees the faithful the means of salvation; she does not hold them hostage to the whims of a modernist usurper. As Pope Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, it is an error to believe that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). The antipope Leo XIV is the living embodiment of this condemned proposition, and his plea to the SSPX is merely an attempt to consolidate the ruins of the revolution he represents.

The SSPX: Schismatics in Service of the Revolution

While the antipope’s letter is an exercise in modernist tyranny, the SSPX’s planned response—and their very existence—exposes the tragic futility of their position. The SSPX, under the late Archbishop Lefebvre, was ordained by the Freemason Bishop Liénart, rendering their ordinations and sacraments gravely suspect and likely invalid. Furthermore, the SSPX has consistently recognized the authority of the very usurpers they now claim to resist. Archbishop Lefebvre himself infamously declared: “give us the old Mass, that is enough for us,” a statement that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the Catholic Faith. The Faith is not a liturgical aesthetic; it is the submission of the intellect and will to the revealed truths of God, including the social reign of Christ the King and the condemnation of error.

The SSPX’s rejection of certain teachings of the Second Vatican Council—particularly religious liberty and ecumenism—is a selective and incoherent resistance. They reject the fruits while clinging to the poisoned root. By maintaining communion with the conciarist sect and recognizing the authority of antipopes like Leo XIV, they implicitly validate the very system that produced the errors they claim to combat. Their planned episcopal consecrations, even if performed with the traditional rite, are an act of schism not because they lack the antipope’s permission, but because they are performed by men who have no authority in the Church and who operate outside the visible hierarchy of the true Church, which endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith without compromise.

The SSPX is, in reality, a controlled opposition, a safety valve for Catholic discontent that prevents the faithful from returning to the true Church. Their “resistance” is carefully managed to ensure that it never threatens the fundamental structures of the conciliar revolution. As the Defense of Sedevacantism file demonstrates, a manifest heretic loses his office automatically (ipso facto), and the post-conciliar usurpers are manifest heretics. Therefore, the SSPX’s recognition of their authority is a grave sin against the Faith, and their episcopal consecrations are not a solution but a deepening of the schism.

The Theological Bankruptcy of the Conciliar Concept of “Schism”

The Vatican’s statement on May 13, declaring that the SSPX consecrations would be a “schismatic act” resulting in automatic excommunication, is a perfect example of the conciliar sect’s inversion of Catholic theology. In the true Church, schism is defined as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff, or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him” (1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1325 §2). But this definition presupposes that the individual claiming papal authority is, in fact, the Supreme Pontiff. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, a manifest heretic ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church. The post-conciliar usurpers, having publicly and manifestly embraced the heresies of Modernism as condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi Dominici gregis, have lost any claim to authority. They are not the Church; they are the “synagogue of Satan” described by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus.

Therefore, the SSPX’s consecrations are not schismatic in the Catholic sense, because there is no true Pope to whom they owe submission. However, they are schismatic in a broader sense, as they are performed by men who have separated themselves from the true Church by their recognition of the conciliar sect and their refusal to fully embrace the integral Catholic faith. The antipope’s threat of excommunication is a paper tiger, a disciplinary measure from a pseudo-authority that has no power in the eyes of God. As Pope Paul IV declared in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, any promotion or elevation of a heretic is “null, void, and of no effect.” The antipope Leo XIV is a manifest heretic, and his excommunications are spiritually meaningless.

The Root of the Crisis: The Rejection of Christ the King

The entire drama between the antipope and the SSPX is a symptom of the fundamental crisis of the post-conciliar era: the rejection of the social reign of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Quas Primas, established the feast of Christ the King to remind the world that “the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” and that “it matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” The conciliar sect, by embracing religious liberty, ecumenism, and the separation of Church and State, has explicitly rejected this royal dignity of Our Lord. The antipope Leo XIV is not the King’s vicar; he is the servant of the revolution.

The SSPX, for all its talk of tradition, has never fully embraced the integral Catholic doctrine of Christ the King. Their resistance is limited to liturgical and disciplinary matters, never touching the fundamental dogmatic errors of the conciliar sect. They want the old Mass without the old Faith, the old sacraments without the old authority. This is an impossibility. As Pope Pius XI taught, the Kingdom of Christ “is opposed only to the kingdom of Satan and the powers of darkness.” The conciliar sect, by its embrace of naturalistic humanism and religious indifferentism, has aligned itself with the kingdom of Satan. The SSPX, by its communion with this sect, shares in its guilt.

The true solution to the crisis is not the SSPX’s episcopal consecrations, nor the antipope’s pleas, but a return to the integral Catholic faith, including the recognition that the See of Peter is vacant and that the post-conciliar usurpers are manifest heretics who have lost their authority. The faithful must seek out bishops and priests who are truly Catholic, who reject the conciarist revolution in its entirety, and who profess the unchanging Faith of the Church. Only in this way can the seamless garment of Christ be preserved and the faithful receive the sacraments with certainty of their validity and liceity.

Conclusion: The Antipope’s Plea is a Sign of the Times

The letter from “Pope Leo XIV” to the SSPX is not a sign of hope but a confirmation of the depth of the apostasy. It is the plea of a usurper who knows his authority is illegitimate, who sees the remnants of Catholic resistance crumbling, and who fears the loss of control over the last vestiges of Catholic identity. The SSPX, for its part, is a tragic figure, clinging to the forms of tradition while rejecting its substance. Both are products of the conciliar revolution, and both are incapable of restoring the true Church.

The faithful must not be deceived by this drama. The true Church endures, not in the structures of the Vatican, not in the chapels of the SSPX, but in the hearts of those who profess the integral Catholic faith, who reject the modernist heresies, and who await the restoration of the true papacy. As Pope Pius IX warned, “the condition of Catholics in the regions of Europe” is “sad and full of perils,” and the “present misfortune must mainly be imputed to the frauds and machinations of these sects” — the Masonic and modernist forces that have infiltrated the highest levels of the Church’s visible structure. The antipope’s plea is a desperate attempt to hold together a structure that is already spiritually dead. The faithful must look beyond the ruins and cling to the unchanging truth of the Catholic Faith, which alone can save their souls.

---

Source:
Pope Leo XIV pleads with SSPX to halt episcopal consecrations   (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 30.06.2026