For traditionalist Catholics who worship at churches affiliated with the breakaway Society of St. Pius X, Sunday Mass now comes with an extraordinary question.
Their priests and bishops have been excommunicated after the fringe movement on the Catholic right committed what the Vatican considers one of the faith's gravest crimes: rupturing church unity by consecrating bishops without the pope’s consent. The Vatican says Catholics should stop going to the breakaway group's worship services and activities, and that some sacraments administered by the society's priests are illicit and invalid.
