The SSPX’s New Bishops and Europe’s Religious Crisis

On May 26, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) announced the names of the four priests (not five, as was initially said) who will be consecrated July 1. Despite the threat of excommunication for a schismatic act raised by the Holy See, the society remained firm in its intentions while at the same time claiming the “necessity” of proceeding in light of a widespread situation within the Catholic Church consisting not merely of doctrinal, liturgical, and moral confusion but of a grave crisis concerning the very concept of authority itself and consequently of law, a crisis that has dragged on for the past seventy years and now permeates the ecclesial fabric even into its highest hierarchies, including the pope.

europeanconservative.com has already explored the history of the Society of Saint Pius X and the significance it holds not only for Catholics but for the entire conservative milieu.

Despite the accusations of schism—and perhaps precisely to demonstrate their groundlessness—Fr. Davide Pagliarani, superior general of SSPX, sent Leo XIV the dossiers of the episcopal candidates as a gesture of full recognition of Roman authority, an authority which, plausibly (judging from several recent acts of his pontificate), even Leo himself no longer seems to recognize for himself.

Pagliarani thus made it understood that the society does not desire the transgression of canon law for its own sake but finds itself compelled to do so in the awareness that, if it does not proceed with the consecration of new bishops, the society itself will be destined to disappear. Many enemies of Catholicism, especially within the Vatican, hope for such an outcome, fully aware that the Society represents the only institution in which the Tradition of the Catholic Church survives not merely liturgically but also doctrinally and morally.

Compliance with the supreme law of the Church—the eternal salvation of souls—fully justifies the act that is about to take place, which can be considered, in its innermost essence, even a supreme gesture of obedience to the pope, understood as servant of the Church of Christ, even if the pope is unable to recognize himself as such.

Paradoxically, the Society now finds itself in the diametrically opposite condition to that of the novatores of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Whereas for Karl Rahner and other progressive theologians, disobedience to the pope of the time was justified as anticipated fidelity to the “Pope of the future”—that is, as an act of “prophetic obedience” toward an authority that did not yet exist but that would eventually recognize their rebellion as reform—the Society today lives the inverse situation.

It obeys all the popes from St. Peter onward, that is, the perennial principle of apostolic authority, and precisely for this reason, it appears disobedient to the pope of the present in the hope of finally rediscovering itself obedient to the pope of the future, when he returns to being fully Catholic. In other words, while Rahner and his contemporaries transgressed in order to innovate, the Society transgresses in order to preserve: not to replace Tradition, but to prevent its dissolution.

The sending of the dossiers to Rome was preceded by the publication of a Declaration of Catholic Faith by the Superior of the Society, Fr. Davide Pagliarani. Today, within the Church, there exists no institution capable—or willing—to draft a text equally clear, complete, and concise.

The society’s declaration was certainly a strategic move: a list of the Catholic dogmas currently most at risk, many of which are now openly denied by bishops and cardinals (and popes), without which, however, no one could strictly speaking call himself Catholic. This gesture, performed before the communication of the episcopal candidates, effectively places Rome in an embarrassing position before its own conscience.

Cardinal Fernández, the current and official guardian of the faith, could hardly read through that list and affirm for each point: ‘Credo.’ His disbelief toward what he is supposed to defend reveals the hypocrisy of a hierarchy that has replaced truth with servility. Canon law and excommunication are now the only weapons remaining, used not to save souls but to preserve personal power.

The affair of the Society, however, is not merely a peripheral ecclesiastical matter. It concerns the survival of the Catholic Church, certainly, but it also concerns the survival of Europe’s identity. The latter, in fact, is founded upon and finds its raison d’être in the former. There are four points, in particular, that this affair teaches the Church and the West.

Catholic Tradition is not dead

When Bishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated bishops without pontifical mandate in 1988, provoking Rome’s wrath and excommunication, many opponents were convinced that the ‘New Pentecost’ initiated with the Second Vatican Council would lead to the natural decline of traditional realities until their complete extinction. Tradition, from this perspective, would survive only as symbolic material to be continually reinterpreted in light of modern consciousness. 

Yet history unfolded differently. Traditional Catholic realities are thriving, although they still remain overall a minority; ordinary Catholic realities are declining disastrously. 

Not only that. Catholic Tradition generates vocations, priests, large families, stable communities, schools, monasteries, and faithful willing to endure marginalization and persecution in order to preserve it integrally. In other words, Tradition not only is not dead but is fertile, because it possesses an intrinsic force, both supernatural and rational. 

It corresponds to the real structure of man, to his metaphysical and moral nature. This is why it continues to attract even young people raised in the digital and postmodern world: despite decades of progressive ecclesial propaganda, they perceive that only Tradition offers a coherent vision of man, truth, sacrifice, authority, and salvation.

The Church does not need updating

The idea of an ecclesial aggiornamento almost always presupposes an evolutionary conception of truth. In other words, it is believed that the modern world represents a superior stage of human consciousness and that the Church must consequently modify language, doctrine, morality, and liturgy in order to remain ‘credible.’

History has here, too, amply demonstrated the contrary. Today, moreover, we are no longer dealing with mere suppositions. That Francis and his epigones intend to revolutionize the Church from within is by now evidence admitted by the very protagonists of the transformation, such as Archbishop Paglia, who in a long interview in Italian calmly admitted: “The opponents [of Francis] understood correctly: a very profound reform was at stake.”

If the Church and the world preach the same message, man in search of truth will end up turning to the world, which at least knows what it is talking about. The Church that ‘updates’ is a Church that commits suicide. The Church does not exist to reflect the spirit of the world but rather to judge it in the light of revelation. If revealed truth comes from God, it cannot be historically surpassed. It may be deepened, explained with greater precision, defended against new errors, but not transformed in its substance.

Bishops should be guardians of Truth, not the world

The four priests chosen by the Society are neither media agitators nor rebellious ideologues but seminary rectors, directors of Catholic schools, district superiors, professors of metaphysics and of the Magisterium. They have spent their lives forming priests, educating families, restoring churches, governing Catholic institutions, and safeguarding discipline. In the past, this would have been the normal profile of a bishop.

Among the gravest aspects of the pontificate of Leo XIV is the episcopate. Since Leo ascended the throne of St. Peter, the profiles of bishops appointed throughout the world appear aligned with the progressive ones of the Pope Francis era. In effect, the future hierarchy will no longer be Catholic (at least in the sense in which it has always been understood), nor even of ‘mixed orientation’ as has occurred since the time of Paul VI.

The contrast is striking. While Rome threatens priests who teach Aquinas’ metaphysics, it promotes men associated with homosexual blessings, who advocate female ordination despite recent pronouncements of the Holy See, who participate in ‘Pride Masses’ and normalize homosexual couples, who promote radical synodalism and moral adaptation to the dominant culture. When the hierarchy seeks above all the approval of the media, public opinion, or ideological lobbies, ecclesiastical authority degrades into an administrative function and loses its supernatural foundation.

Europe’s survival depends on the Church’s Tradition.

Before the Church, there was no Europe as a unified civilization, but only a plurality of peoples lacking a common spiritual principle. Without the Church, Europe is destined either to return divided or to become a satellite regime of foreign powers, such as China or the Muslim countries.

It was not the so-called Enlightenment values that forged Europe, nor democracy. The Enlightenment, on the contrary, progressively consumed the Christian spiritual capital accumulated over the centuries. Modern ideologies—radical liberalism, relativism, positivism, materialism, socialism—have not generated enduring civilizations but atomization, demographic nihilism, consumerism, and dissolution on every front.

The affair of the SSPX, ultimately, reveals this as well. The contemporary European crisis is above all a religious crisis. A civilization that no longer knows whether God exists, what man is, what the family is, what the purpose of life is, and what relationship should exist between freedom and truth, is a civilization destined for disintegration. 

This is exactly why Europe’s survival depends upon the survival of Catholic Tradition. Not merely of ‘cultural Christianity,’ nor of generic ‘Western values,’ but of the concrete, dogmatic, sacramental, hierarchical, and public Catholic faith. The Society, beyond every contingent canonical judgment, reminds Europe today of a Truth it desperately seeks to forget: without Catholic Rome, Europe has no future.