A rebel Catholic group has announced the names of priests it plans to consecrate as bishops without Pope Leo’s approval, despite the Vatican warning that doing so will mean excommunication from the Church.
The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a breakaway ultra-conservative priestly fraternity, released the names for the first time on Tuesday ahead of their planned consecration on July 1.
The four are: American Father Michael Goldade, Swiss Father Pascal Schreiber, and French Fathers Michel Poinsinet de Sivry and Marc Hanappier.
The Vatican warned SSPX on May 14 that going ahead with consecrating its own bishops would constitute a “schismatic act,” requiring excommunication, the most severe punishment within the Catholic Church under which believers cannot receive sacraments, are banned from holding official ministry or positions of authority, and cannot officially perform liturgical functions.
In its announcement on Tuesday, SSPX insisted it is being faithful to the original values of the Roman Catholic Church.
“Our determination to serve the holy Catholic Church remains unwavering, in the consciousness of the imperative duty faithfully and integrally to hand on what we ourselves have received — namely, what the Church has always believed, taught, and practised,” the group wrote.
Who Is American Father Michael Goldade?
Father Michael Goldade, 45, is the only American priest among the four set to be consecrated bishops by SSPX on July 1.
He was born within a Catholic family of ten children in North Dakota and was raised in St. Marys, Kansas, according to the SSPX. Three of his siblings are now Sisters of the Society of Saint Pius X.
Goldade entered the seminary in Winona, Kansas, at the age of eighteen and was ordained priest in 2004.
In 2014, he was appointed Prior in Kansas City, where he oversaw the priory, a large parish, a school, and a community of religious sisters, according to SSPX, from St. Vincent de Paul church, which is not part of the local Cahtolic diocesan structure.
That same year he spoke out against "unjust discrimination towards" SSPX when he organised a pilgrimage to a shrine in Auriesville, New York, after he said members were banned from using a parking lot.
In 2021, he was made assistant to the district superior. His career moved a step ahead in the summer of 2023, when he was appointed as Rector of Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Virginia, the only English-speaking seminary for the SSPX, where he oversaw the formation of nearly 100 seminarians.
He was in Armada, Michigan, for five years before being called to direct St. Ignatius Retreat House in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
All four priests chosen to be appointed bishops by SSPX were born into relatively large Catholic families: Father Pascal Schreiber was one of five children; Father Michel Poinsinet de Sivry one of seven; and Father Marc Hanappier one of ten. Hanappier is the only other priest, besides Goldade, with a sibling within SSPX, a brother.
SSPX's Clash With the Vatican Explained
The SSPX was founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in opposition to many of the reforms, including wider use of vernacular languages in Mass instead of Latin, that followed the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965.
The ultra-conservative group, which still advocates for Mass to be held in Latin, has had a difficult relationship with the Vatican over the past fifty years, even as the pontiffs like Pope Benedict XVI tried to strike a more conciliatory approach.
In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal permission, and was immediately excommunicated. This was later lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 in an attempt to reconcile with the breakaway group.
That clash offers perhaps the closest parallel in recent history with the current situation, Kevin Ahern, professor of religious studies at Manhattan University, previously told Newsweek.
“Public warnings of this kind are usually meant to serve as a final opportunity for reconsideration and reconciliation, and I sincerely pray they choose another path,” he said.
In a letter to Pope Leo sent on May 14, SSPX Superior General Davide Pagliarani said that the group has warned the Vatican for more than 50 years of modernist “errors that are destroying Catholic faith and morals,” lamenting that the only response has “appeared to be that of canonical sanctions.”
Members “have no other desire than that of living and being confirmed in the Roman Catholic Faith,” the letter said, but added “we would rather die than renounce” our principles.
Michele Dillon, professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, previously told Newsweek that the clash reveals that Pope Leo is “not afraid to take a stand on significant theological and ecclesiological issues” when papal authority is being publicly disavowed, Dillon added, and that he has little choice, as the pope must approve the ordination of all bishops.
What Happens Next?
SSPX wrote in its announcement earlier this week that its decision to appoint the four priests as bishops “do not proceed from any desire to claim a power of jurisdiction or to establish a parallel authority within the Church.
“In no way do they constitute a denial of, refusal of, or challenge to the supreme, full, and immediate power of jurisdiction of the Vicar of Christ over the universal Church.”
The ceremony planned for July 1 “will have no other purpose than to ensure the continued administration of the sacraments of Holy Orders and Confirmation, together with those sacramentals reserved to bishops, according to the traditional rite of the Holy Roman Church and the immemorial Faith,” SSPX wrote.
“The episcopacy to be received by these priests is therefore conceived solely as a service rendered to souls and to the Church amid this unprecedented crisis of the Faith.”