In a July 25 letter to the faithful, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX)’s District of Canada offered its most extensive remarks on the Vatican’s sweeping July 2 excommunication decreed by Pope Leo XIV after the society was deemed in schism with the Catholic Church.  

Along with six bishops — two presiding and four consecrated — who participated in an unsanctioned July 1 ordination ceremony, priests and lay followers who formally adhere to the society were excommunicated from the Church.

Fr. Yves le Roux, the superior of the SSPX District of Canada, weighed in on why the society deemed it necessary to ordain four new bishops even without a papal mandate in Écône, Switzerland, in defiance of appeals from Pope Leo XIV and other Holy See officials.

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“In the tempest shaking the Church, our role is to continue to allow souls to receive this divine teaching, that has, to say the least, been sugar-coated today in the modernist conception of theology that is taking over before our eyes with this idea of a synodal Church,” said le Roux. “And we receive this teaching by the ministry of priests. And for that, we must be able to form and consecrate them. It is essential that we have seminaries that form them according to the tradition of the Church, but it is also necessary to have bishops to ordain the seminarians.”

The warning Pope Leo XIV issued in his June 30 letter to SSPX about its faithful being deprived “of the licit and, in some cases, even valid reception of the Sacraments, which they love and seek for their sanctification,” has manifested into concrete prohibitions in the weeks that followed.

For example, Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, the Archbishop of Quebec, detailed, in a July 20 letter to Quebec Catholics, that the exemptions granted to the SSPX “in the hope of full, effective and emotional communion... no longer have any reason to exist.”

Lacroix declared SSPX priests and faithful — known as Lefebvrists in homage to the society’s founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre — cannot celebrate any of its liturgies in archdiocesan churches or chapels. He ruled that the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Marriage performed by this fraternity are invalid and outlined that lay faithful who follow SSPX “must be considered schismatic and excommunicated.” He also advised that every member of this archdiocesan flock should avoid participating in SSPX activities.

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Le Roux suggested that the decree of excommunication is not unexpected as “Rome is acting in 2026 the same way she acted in 1988 after the consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre.” He then pointed out how the 1988 action against the society was ultimately reversed by Pope Benedict XVI 21 years later.

“But faced with the evidence of the fruits, Rome then took back what she had done,” said le Roux. “The accusation of schism was ignored by Rome when the excommunication of the consecrated bishops was lifted in 2009 without anything being demanded from them in return.”

On July 11, the Lefebvrists filed a preliminary canonical appeal with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith against the decree declaring the group is in schism. The society contended that filing the appeal, an act of preliminary recourse, should suspend the implementation of the excommunication decree while the matter is under review according to Canon 1353.

A response from the Vatican is expected within 30 days of July 11.

Questions have abounded on the potential impacts that the excommunication of SSPX may have on the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) debate. Marc Alfred of Montreal adheres to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). He said he does not anticipate any repercussions from the SSPX excommunications landing on other societies espousing the preconciliar form of the Holy Mass.

“I think that there will be no fallout due to the SSPX, as bishops would be a bit worried about shutting down Masses which would drive people to the SSPX,” said Alfred.

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Pope Leo’s most recent sentiments about the TLM were expressed in a letter issued by the Vatican's secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin to the French bishops. Parolin acknowledged in a March letter that regarding the “delicate theme of the Liturgy, to which the Holy Father is particularly attentive,” it’s troubling that "a painful wound continues to open in the Church concerning the celebration of the Mass, the very sacrament of unity.”

With aid from the Holy Spirit, French bishops were encouraged to devise “concrete solutions that would generously include those sincerely attached to the Vetus Ordo, while respecting the orientations set forth by the Second Vatican Council regarding the Liturgy.”