Vatican issues final warning to breakaway traditionalist group attached to the old Latin Mass

ROME (AP) — With Pope Leo XIV's first big crisis looming, the Vatican on Wednesday issued a final warning to a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics that their planned consecration of bishops without papal consent constitutes a schismatic act that incurs automatic excommunication.

Leo is praying for enlightenment so that the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X “may reconsider the extremely grave decision they have made,” said a statement from the Vatican’s doctrine czar, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.

The statement appeared to be a last-ditch effort to head off the group’s planned July 1 consecrations of four new bishops. If they go ahead, they will amount to the gravest challenge to Leo’s authority to date, as he seeks to heal divisions with traditionalist Catholics that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The SSPX, as the group is known, was founded in Écône, Switzerland in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which among other things allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

The group, which celebrates the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, first broke with Rome in 1988, after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the Catholic Church.

Yet the group has continued to grow in the decades since that original schismatic act, with schools, seminaries and parishes around the world and branches of priests, nuns and lay Catholics who are attached to the traditional Latin Mass.

The growth poses a real threat to Rome since it amounts to a parallel Catholic church. Today it counts two bishops, 733 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

The current SSPX superior, Rev. Davide Pagliarani, announced earlier this year that new bishops would be consecrated July 1 to tend to the faithful, arguing that the SSPX's two remaining aging bishops can no longer minister to such a global reality.

The Vatican invited Pagliarini for talks, but the same theological and practical problems that have prevented rapprochement for 50 years seemingly left the two sides at an impasse.

In recent comments on the SSPX website, Pagliarani reiterated the need for the new bishops. He expressed satisfaction that his announcement had triggered debate about what the SSPX considers to be a crisis afflicting the church, including religious pluralism and confusion about the faith.

“Now, what is at stake today is not an opinion, nor a sensibility, nor a preferential option, nor a particular nuance in the interpretation of a text, but the faith and morals that a Catholic must know, profess, and practice in order to save his soul and reach paradise,” he said.

The looming consecrations, which would incur automatic excommunications, have created the first tangible crisis for Leo, who has sought to pacify relations with Catholic traditionalists that worsened under Francis after the Argentine pope cracked down on the spread of the old Latin Mass.

Francis in 2021 reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Pope Benedict XVI had relaxed in 2007. Francis said he was reversing his predecessor because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by conservative Catholics opposed to Vatican II.

But the move riled Francis’ conservative critics and it became one of the most divisive acts of his 12-year papacy, such that Leo began his pontificate promising to heal divisions.

While the SSPX is out of communion with the Holy See, plenty of Catholic traditionalists who are loyal to Rome and opposed Francis' crackdown are sympathetic to the SSPX plight and are watching how Leo handles the challenge.

Rorate Caeli, a traditionalist blog that has closely followed the issue, said Francis' crackdown, known by the Latin name of the document, Traditionis Custodes, actually created the “crisis” that the SSPX today laments.

“Traditionalists fully understand the need for respect for authority; but we cannot have both at the same time: a stated will to destroy the traditional Roman Liturgy forever (Traditionis custodes) and a complete prohibition of means to salvage that,” Rorate Caeli wrote Wednesday about the threatened SSPX excommunications.

“If the Holy and Apostolic See really wants to show the world its peaceful and loving purpose, it cannot just punish: it has to make clear that Traditional Catholics are once again welcomed and loved in the church,” by going back to the status quo before Francis' crackdown.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

A Swiss Guard stands as dark clouds hang over, during Pope Leo XIV's weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV, flanked by his secretary Edgard Ivan Rimaycuna Inga, delivers his blessing at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV blesses a little girl as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares traded mixed early Wednesday, as fading enthusiasm over AI and other technology stocks gradually put the brakes on Wall Street’s record-setting run.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 edged up less than 0.1% to 62,774.94. South Korea's Kospi index gained 0.9% to 7,708.05, recouping some of its recent losses. The Kospi sank 2.3% earlier in the week from an all-time high after a senior figure in the administration suggested the government may redistribute windfall AI profits from companies to citizens.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.3% to 8,645.80. The Hang Seng slipped 0.4% to 26,246.29, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, down less than 0.1% at 4,213.86.

“Corporate earnings and AI momentum are acting as the market’s primary shock absorbers, but the road is getting significantly rougher,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade.

“With oil prices becoming entrenched at elevated levels and a diplomatic breakthrough between the U.S. and Iran remaining elusive, the easy bullish narrative is becoming much harder to maintain.”

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 58 cents to $101.60 a barrel. Brent crude lost 66 cents to $107.11 a barrel.

Those prices are still way above what they were before the war with Iran, which threatens to drag on, the ceasefire looking more tenuous. Brent has surged from roughly $70 per barrel before the war. The war has essentially shut the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.2% from its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 56 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite sank 0.7% from its own record.

Some of the sharpest drops hit chip companies and stocks that have been on electric runs because of the artificial-intelligence boom. Intel slumped 6.8% after seeing its stock more than triple so far this year. Micron Technology dropped 3.6%.

Treasury yields rose in the bond market following an initial zigzag, suggesting traders suspect the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to combat inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.45% Tuesday from 4.42% late Monday and remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war. Traders expect the Fed Reserve to keep its main interest rate steady.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 11.88 points to 7,400.96. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 56.09 to 49,760.56, and the Nasdaq composite sank 185.92 to 26,088.20.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 157.70 Japanese yen from 157.59 yen. The euro cost $1.1741, inching down from $1.1744.

AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

Specialist Michael Pistillo. Left, and trader Fred's Demarco work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Edward McCarthy works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

President Donald Trump gestures from the stairs of Air Force One as he boards upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Tuesday, May 12, 2026, for a trip to China to meet President Xi Jinping. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

Options trader Steven Rodriguez, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A dealer walks past near the screens showing the foreign exchange rates at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A dealer talks on the phone at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)