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The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905–1991), has announced new episcopal consecrations scheduled for 1 July 2026. Georges-Henri Ruyssen S.J., Belgian canon lawyer – whose work focuses on ecumenism, matrimonial law, and the history of the Eastern Churches – and professor at the Pontificio Istituto Orientale (Rome) and at the Loyola Faculties Paris, answers our questions.
From the perspective of Church law, how should we assess the legitimacy of the “state of necessity” argument put forward by the Society of Saint Pius X to justify episcopal ordinations without a papal mandate?
The main difficulty lies in the claim to establish an alternative legitimacy. The decision to consecrate bishops without a papal mandate in the name of a need for fidelity to Tradition amounts to separating Tradition from the concrete Church, within which this Tradition lives: fidelity becomes a self-assigned criterion.
The Priestly Society of St. Pius X presented this choice as a response to a “grave need” concerning the good of souls and the preservation of Tradition, and insisted that it was not merely a measure of self-preservation for the institute. It is in this self-justification that the decisive point lies, for the argument does not merely ask for tolerance of disobedience, but claims to have established an alternative—or at least competing—legitimacy, which would rest on a morally very high category, “the state of necessity,” and on an even higher reference, fidelity to perpetual Tradition.
However, the canonical framework, taken on its own, is clear and requires no interpretive artifices. Church law classifies episcopal consecration without a papal mandate as an offense punishable by excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See, affecting both the consecrator and the person consecrated (cf. CIC 1387). The norm in this area protects the visible form of communion, since the papal mandate is not a “garland” placed “after” the sacrament, but the legal sign of the fact that the episcopate, in the Catholic Church, is intrinsically ordered to the unity of the ecclesial body and its hierarchical structure.
When a group decides that “necessity” permits it to generate an episcopal line without a mandate, it does not merely commit an irregular act; it commits an act that undermines the principle of unity, making communion de facto dependent on a subsequent, contingent, and reversible consensus. This is precisely what the Church, drawing on a long historical experience, has always recognized as an objective dynamic of rupture, regardless of declared subjective intentions.
A historical event must be clearly recalled to avoid misunderstandings. The lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops consecrated in 1988 took place in 2009 by decree of the Congregation for Bishops—as that Curial body was then called—within a framework desired by Benedict XVI. This lifting, however, did not signify a complete regularization, and the Holy See made it clear that the canonical status of the Fraternity remained unresolved and that the ministry exercised remained devoid of legality. The distinction between the lifting of the penalty and the reconstitution of the Fraternity is not a legal quibble, for it shows that the issue cannot be reduced to a disciplinary incident that can be resolved by a unilateral act, but concerns the coherence between the form of the community and the acts that constitute it.
In light of these considerations, one can therefore understand why the argument of “necessity” must be dismantled on the very ground it claims for itself, that is, on the theoretical plane. In classical thought, and particularly in Thomistic thought, necessity is not a catch-all capable of transforming the illicit into the licit. Necessity signifies the actual impossibility of attaining a due good without a specific means and implies a criterion of objectivity, a criterion of proportion, and a criterion of non-contradiction with respect to the good pursued. If the necessity is objective, it cannot be certified by the agent benefiting from the exception. If it is proportionate, it cannot authorize a means that undermines the structure of the good invoked. If it is not contradictory, it cannot claim to save Tradition by dissolving the ecclesial form of Tradition.
More specifically, how can one objectively discern such a state of “necessity”? In what ways do the current conditions of sacramental life in the Church allow—or not allow—for it to be invoked in a well-founded manner?
When the Fraternity asserts that the act is not for its own survival, but for an “ecclesial” necessity, the assertion, precisely because it is lofty, exposes the subject to its most severe judgment. Necessity, in the strictest sense, would require that, within the Church, it had become impossible to guarantee sacramental and apostolic continuity without independently producing a line of bishops of its own. Such a claim is untenable, for the Church possesses a universal apostolic succession, and there is no lack—in principle or in fact—of the possibility of transmitting the faith and the sacraments.
There therefore remains a need of another kind, namely the necessity to guarantee, in a stable and consistent manner, a specific formative and liturgical tradition. This good may be great; it may also be meritorious; it may be the object of a legitimate spiritual preference; but it does not coincide with a necessity that authorizes the formal principle of hierarchical unity to be undermined. Here, the argument shifts from the level of the objective to that of the desired, from the level of the necessary to that of the expedient, and then rises in an abusive manner, cloaking itself in a sacredness that does not belong to it.
The most insidious objection then arises: necessity, it is said, is not arbitrary, for it is guided by fidelity to the living and enduring Tradition of the Church. The objection strikes the imagination; it does not affect logic. Tradition is not merely a content to be preserved; it is also a form to be received, and this form includes visible communion, hierarchy, and primacy as a principle of unity.
If one maintains that, in the name of the grave crisis the Church is undergoing—and are we referring only to the period following the Second Vatican Council? —the “state of necessity” legitimizes the ordination of bishops without a mandate, Tradition is separated from the concrete Church where Tradition lives and where fidelity becomes a self-assigned criterion. The result is a paradox: it is proclaimed to serve what is perpetual, yet a principle is introduced which, if generalized, would turn the Church into a constellation of competing “loyalties,” each legitimized by its own perception of the crisis. This is a logic that does not defend Tradition; it privatizes it.
Does the crisis concern only discipline?
The contemporary ecclesial crisis may be profound and not merely disciplinary, and precisely for this reason it cannot be healed by a gesture that implicitly assumes the inadequacy of the Catholic form of communion. The necessity invoked, devoid of objective determination and proportional measure, becomes a vague concept. It follows that consecration without a mandate, while affirming a desire to remain “in” the Church, is an act that crosses the threshold of mere irregularity and takes on an intrinsically divisive quality, for it establishes a practical principle of ecclesial autonomy.
Fidelity to the Church of Christ does not consist in selectively retaining what one likes of Tradition, but in receiving it in its entirety, and the whole of Tradition also includes obedience as a form of ecclesial truth, which binds all the more when crisis makes it more difficult to distinguish it from one’s own reasons.
From an ecclesiological perspective, how should we understand the possible consequences of such ordinations on communion within the Church? Can we speak of a real risk of formal schism, or must we distinguish between a juridical rupture, a sacramental rupture, and a rupture of lived communion?
The canonical consequences of the consecration of the new Lefebvrist bishops are clear; they are described in canon 1387 of the CIC:
A bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates someone as a bishop, and likewise one who receives consecration from such a bishop, incurs latæ sententiæ excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.
Episcopal consecrations, although valid, nevertheless constitute serious canonical offenses punishable by excommunication latae sententiae (automatic, ex delicto commisso), that is, by the very act of the laying on of hands by the consecrating bishops upon the candidate and the candidate’s acceptance of this laying on of hands. If, in addition, the latae sententiae sentence is subsequently declared (here by the Holy See), canon 1331/CIC also applies:
§1. It is forbidden for the excommunicated person: 1° to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and the other sacraments; 2° to receive the sacraments; 3° to administer the sacramentals and to celebrate the other ceremonies of liturgical worship; 4° to take an active part in the celebrations mentioned above; 5° to exercise ecclesiastical offices, charges, ministries, and functions; 6° to perform acts of governance.
§2. If […] excommunication latae sententiae has been declared, the guilty party:1° if he intends to act contrary to the provisions of § 1, nos. 1–4, must be removed, or the liturgical action must be interrupted, unless a grave reason prevents it; 2° invalidly performs acts of governance which, according to § 1, n. 6, are not permitted to him […].
This implies that all acts of governance performed by these bishops will be invalid. Note that this applies only to acts of governance, i.e., those arising from the munus regendi. Everything that stems from the munus sanctificanti, namely the Eucharist and priestly ordinations, is valid. However, all sacraments involving governmental aspects (i.e., involving faculties, such as hearing confessions and celebrating marriages) are invalid. Therefore, the celebration of confessions or marriages (involving faculties) is invalid, since all acts of governance in the case of a declared latae sententiae excommunication are invalid.
Jurisdictional authority can indeed be exercised only within the hierarchical communion of the newly ordained Bishop with the Roman Pontiff, who presides over the communion in faith and charity by virtue of his Petrine ministry. This would therefore indeed constitute a confirmation of the Lefebvrian schism. As for embarking on paths of reconciliation or mediation, it seems we are unfortunately not there yet.
N.B. For further study, readers may consult the pages dedicated to Lefebvrism on the Italian website La Nuova Bussola, from which the above reflections are inspired.