A 21st-century schism?
The highly controversial Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Holy Office and a Pope Francis holdover, has issued a decree on behalf of leftist Pope Leo XIV saying that priests and lay Catholics from a traditionalist Catholic group that the bishops ordained with Leo’s approval are in a schism with the wider Church, and are now excommunicated.
Reuters reported:
“In a strong decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the top watchdog authority for the 1.4-billion-member Church, also warned Catholics globally that the Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X now celebrated the sacraments illicitly.”
The group cannot officially officiate marriages or hear confessions validly, the decree says.
“It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops, in order to maintain the Church’s ties to Jesus’ 12 apostles, who are considered the first priests and bishops.
Hellbound and Down 