Vatican publishes decree to excommunicate bishops and declares schism

According to the official Vatican News agency, bishops Afonso de Galarreta and Bernardo Fellay were excommunicated, respectively, main consecrator and co-consecrator of the SSPX, and bishops Pascal Schreiber, Miguel Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier, ordained by the traditionalist fraternity in a ceremony held yesterday in Switzerland.

The decree signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, states that “an act of a schismatic nature” was carried out: the “episcopal consecration of four priests, without a pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff”.

The document added that “the sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatics.”

“As for the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius

Before Wednesday’s ceremony, the SSPX, a fraternity that rejects some principles of the Second Vatican Council, had been warned by the Holy See not to carry out the consecrations of bishops without papal authorization, which would entail mathematical excommunication.