The ultratraditionalist Society of St. Pius X is planning to defy Pope Leo XIV by consecrating four bishops without his consent. The move incurs an automatic excommunication for the bishops involved, and amounts to a “schismatic act” — or a willful rupture of unity in the Catholic Church.
The ceremony marks the first major crisis for Leo, who has prioritized church unity and healing tensions with traditionalists that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate.
