When Law Breaks Down

The SSPX, episcopal consecrations, and a Church struggling to govern itself coherently

More pressure on Pope Leo. Another difficult situation. How will the new pope resolve it?

The Society of St Pius X has announced its intention to consecrate new bishops on 1 July. According to its Superior General, Fr Davide Pagliarani, this decision was not taken lightly. It followed prolonged prayer, consultation, and direct appeals to the Holy See which, by the Society’s own account, received no substantive response. The language used by the SSPX is careful and deliberate. It speaks of filial intention, of reflection matured in prayer, and of an objective state of grave necessity for the good of souls. Far from being the rhetoric of rebellion, this is the language of canon law and moral theology, and it signals that the Society understands precisely what is at stake.

What is striking is that this announcement is neither sudden nor improvised. Unlike the events of 1988, the Society has publicly fixed a date months in advance. This is not the gesture of a movement acting in haste or panic, but of one attempting to force clarity where prolonged engagement has yielded none. By naming a date, the SSPX is effectively signalling that episcopal succession is not an abstract or theoretical concern, but an immediate and concrete pastoral question that can no longer be deferred indefinitely.

It is also important to note that this decision has emerged in the context of ongoing contact with the Holy See. Discussions concerning episcopal succession within the Society have been taking place for some time, including exchanges with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The SSPX has not claimed that Rome was unaware of the problem, nor that no avenues were explored. On the contrary, its own statement insists that the decisive factor was receiving a reply that “did not in any way respond to our requests.” In other words, the issue was not refusal alone, but the absence of a substantive answer to a concrete and acknowledged need.

Under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the consecration of a bishop without a pontifical mandate is a grave offence. The canon traditionally cited states that both the consecrating bishop and the man consecrated incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. This much is uncontested. What is far more often ignored is that the same Code explicitly limits the application of penalties when moral culpability is absent or diminished. The law itself recognises that a person who acts out of necessity or to avoid grave harm is not subject to canonical penalties, provided the act is not intrinsically evil or gravely damaging to souls. Even where responsibility is only partially diminished, the Code excludes automatic penalties. The principle that the salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church is not a slogan but a governing norm.

The SSPX is therefore not arguing that the law does not exist. It is arguing that, in the present circumstances, the law does not bind in the way it ordinarily would. This is not an innovation. It belongs to the long Catholic tradition of epikeia, according to which the letter of the law cannot be applied when it would frustrate the very purpose for which the law exists.