The small Swiss village of Écône, nestled in the Rhône Valley, has once again become the epicenter of a religious earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the Catholic Church. On a day marked by solemnity and defiance, the Society of Saint Pius X consecrated four new bishops, a movement that drew approximately 15.000 people to witness an act that Rome had previously labeled a complete break with papal authority.
The Vatican's response came within 24 hours, confirming the application of the most severe sanction provided for by canon law. Through an official decree signed by Cardinal VÃctor Manuel Fernández , Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith, immediate excommunication was declared for all those involved in this challenge, further warning that the validity of the sacraments administered by these clergy members is seriously called into question within the legal framework of the Church.
Disobedience in the Swiss Alps
The ceremony was conducted strictly according to the ancient rite, with Latin as the language of instruction and the priests officiating with their backs to the assembly—an image that clashes sharply with the modernization efforts of recent decades. During the rite, the new prelates took the anti-modernist oath and publicly swore to combat what they consider heresies , a declaration of intent that makes it clear that dialogue between the Society and Rome is, as of today, completely broken despite attempts at rapprochement in recent years.
Among the organization's new leaders are figures of various nationalities, including the Swiss Pascal Schreiber and the American Michael Goldade , along with two Frenchmen, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier. All of them accepted their new positions knowing that this meant leaving official communion with Pope Leo XIV, who, in a personal letter sent hours before the event, had earnestly asked them not to take this step so as not to fracture the unity of the Church.
The Spanish factor and the shadow of Belorado
Spain's leading role in this conflict is undeniable, embodied in the figure of the principal consecrator, the Cantabrian bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, who was already sanctioned by John Paul II back in 1988 for the same reason. Although Benedict XVI lifted that excommunication in a gesture of mercy to try to heal the rift, Galarreta has once again spearheaded the challenge, which has earned him another swift expulsion from the legal structure of the Holy See after acting against the express will of the Pope.
This situation bears certain parallels to what recently happened in our country with the former nuns of Belorado, a case that, although different in its legal nature, shares that feeling of rejection of Roman authority on the part of sectors that consider themselves the true guardians of the faith. It is no small matter that in both cases the break has been justified as a necessity in the face of what they perceive as a progressive drift within the Church, which has generated much debate both in ecclesiastical courts and in public opinion.
The roots of the conflict: Vatican Council II
The core of the discord remains the same as it was half a century ago: the rejection of the conclusions of the Second Vatican Council, which questioned points such as dialogue with other religions and freedom of worship—concepts that, for the Lefebvrists, represent a betrayal of millennia-old tradition. For this group, the Church today has yielded too much to the modern world, and they believe their mission is to keep alive a flame that, in their view, Rome is allowing to die out by permitting liturgical and theological changes they consider unacceptable.
In fact, the celebration of Mass in Latin has become a major point of contention, especially since Pope Francis imposed very strict limits on its use through the document Traditionis Custodes. Traditionalists see these restrictions as direct persecution, while the Vatican argues that it is necessary to ensure the unity of rite to prevent the Church from fragmenting into independent groups that do not recognize a common magisterium.
A congregation that continues to grow
The truth is that, despite the sanctions and operating outside the bounds of Roman law, the movement doesn't seem to be in decline; quite the contrary. Current statistics indicate that, despite the sanctions, the movement has more than 700 priests and hundreds of seminarians spread across the globe, a striking contrast to the vocation crisis affecting many conventional dioceses in Europe and America, where it is increasingly difficult to find young people committed to the clergy.
This official break highlights the fact that the unity of the Church is going through a period of great tension, where the bridges of dialogue that were attempted to be built over decades seem to have been definitively shattered. Ultimately, what happened in Écône is not just a matter of canon law or Latin, but a reflection of a deep fracture between two ways of understanding Catholicism that, to this day, appear irreconcilable and leave thousands of the faithful in a state of irregularity under the watchful eye of a Vatican unwilling to relinquish its hierarchical authority.