Comparing Vatican Treatment of Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and Roman Catholic Women Priests by Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP

 

Even after repeated schismatic acts, the Vatican continued to engage SSPX in dialogue for nearly forty years, whereas RCWP has never been granted a formal dialogue despite repeatedly requesting one!

Comparing Vatican Treatment of SSPX and RCWP

The Vatican’s response to the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in July 2026 highlights both its willingness to enforce canon law and its longstanding commitment to dialogue with traditionalist groups. On July 2, 2026, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that Bishops Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay, together with the four bishops they illicitly consecrated—Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier—had incurred latae sententiae excommunication for proceeding with episcopal consecrations without a pontifical mandate. The decree further warned clergy and lay faithful against formally adhering to what it described as the SSPX’s schism.¹

Yet the decree also acknowledged a remarkable fact: despite decades of doctrinal disagreement, the Holy See had engaged in sustained discussions with the SSPX “since the time of St. Paul VI” in an effort to restore full communion. Before the July 1 consecrations, Pope Leo XIV personally appealed to the society not to proceed, writing, “In this spirit, and filled with Christian affection, I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: Please turn back.” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin likewise characterized the consecrations as a schismatic act while continuing to frame the relationship in terms of reconciliation rather than permanent rupture.²

The Vatican’s commitment to dialogue with SSPX spans nearly four decades. Following Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s illicit episcopal consecrations in 1988, Pope John Paul II declared that the bishops involved had incurred automatic excommunication but simultaneously established the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to foster reconciliation with those wishing to remain in communion with Rome. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the surviving bishops in 2009 as a gesture toward reconciliation. Pope Francis continued this pastoral outreach by granting SSPX priests faculties to validly hear confessions during the Jubilee Year of Mercy and later extending those faculties indefinitely, as well as permitting SSPX priests to witness marriages under specified conditions. Even after the new illicit episcopal consecrations in 2026, the Vatican’s own explanatory note recognized the long history of dialogue that has characterized its relationship with the SSPX.

The experience of the Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP) movement stands in marked contrast. Since the ordination of the Danube Seven in 2002, RCWP has consistently sought respectful dialogue with the Vatican concerning women’s vocation to ordained ministry and the lived experience of inclusive Catholic communities. Those requests have never resulted in a formal conversation.

Instead, the Vatican has responded almost exclusively through canonical sanctions. Women who attempt to receive ordination, together with those who attempt to ordain them, incur automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See under Canon 1379 §3.³ Unlike the Vatican’s decades-long engagement with the SSPX, no comparable process of theological dialogue, canonical negotiation, or pastoral reconciliation has been extended to RCWP.

This contrast raises an important ecclesiological question. Why has the institutional Church devoted decades to dialogue with a movement that rejects significant teachings of the Second Vatican Council while declining even a single official dialogue with women who seek to serve the Church through ordained ministry? RCWP does not seek separation from the Catholic Church. Rather, it seeks recognition that the Holy Spirit continues to call women to priestly ministry and that the gifts of women belong at the heart of the Church’s sacramental life.

Notes

1. Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei adflicta (1988); the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was established to foster reconciliation with those associated with the SSPX. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four surviving SSPX bishops in 2009 as a gesture toward reconciliation, and dialogue continued under subsequent pontificates.
2. Code of Canon Law (2021 revision), Canon 1379 §3: “Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.”
3. See Normae de gravioribus delictis (2010) and the 2021 revision of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law. The offenses are grouped procedurally under the authority of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; this juridical classification does not necessarily imply moral equivalence, although it has been widely criticized by advocates of women’s ordination.