In some sense this is an “after the fact” rewrite of my recent return to canon law and Catholic commentary. I am attempting to reflect and write as I grapple with an event overshadowing my celebration of Canada Day with friends and family.

Early this morning I woke up to the following news: Against the clearly expressed will of Pope Leo XIV, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) had just consecrated four bishops.

I’m sitting at the desk of a simple bedroom next to the chapel of Halifax’s Barat Spirituality Centre — a center named after French sister St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart. I fell asleep last night praying the Holy See and the SSPX would come to a last-minute agreement.

Boring Legal Recap

There are several conflicting emotions swirling about my head and my heart this morning. I spent my late teens and early adulthood as an SSPX adherent before Bishop Richard Williamson’s antisemitism and Holocaust denial repulsed me into leaving. I then spent more than a decade in Catholic academia and popular apologetics as an expert on the SSPX’s 1988 consecrations and subsequent excommunication.

Please permit me to summarize the canonical essentials: In 2026 like in 1988, the Catholic Church considers the SSPX’s episcopal consecrations valid but unlawful (illicit).

By valid each bishop consecrated truly received the episcopal character indelibly marked on his soul. Yet because the mark was received unlawfully, the two bishops performing the consecrations (Bernard Fellay and Alfonso de Galarreta) and the four bishops who received consecration (Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier) incurred automatic excommunication on two counts.

The first count is for their direct participation in episcopal consecrations without papal mandate (canon 1387). The second is for schism (canon 1364, par. 1). Superior General Fr. Davide Pagliarani and other priests among the SSPX’s leadership team also incur automatic excommunication for schism.

(July 2, 2026 update: The Holy See has just released an official decree confirming the automatic excommunications incurred by the SSPX following their July 1 consecrations, which now permits Catholics to act upon the excommunications. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith also published an explanatory note clarifying the extent of the repercussions under canon law. A separate piece providing canonical commentary is forthcoming once I have reviewed the DDF’s decree and explanatory note.)

Beyond this technical summary, I have no idea what direction this personal reflection will take. It’s Canada Day. I would rather be sitting on the harbor front with my adult children and their friends listening to folk music, sampling local craft ciders, and watching fireworks to the warm aroma of saltwater breeze. Yet I stayed behind at the retreat center because my heart is grieving the loss of communion, albeit imperfect and irregular, with my SSPX sisters and brothers.

Popes Francis vs. Leo?

Which brings me to my first hard realization: Like many Catholics on both sides of the issue, I feel angry and disappointed. Though surprising to most who reached out to me privately — and to myself — my anger and disappointment is directed neither to the Holy See nor to the SSPX leadership.

Rather I am angry and disappointed with Catholic clergy and professional laity — apologists, celebrities, politicians, social media influencers — who spent the bulk of Francis’ papacy covertly undermining his leadership of the Catholic Church. By doing so we fostered a hermeneutic of suspicion toward our successor of St. Peter. It is this same hermeneutic of suspicion upon which the SSPX alleges a canonical “state of necessity”.

I say “we” because I include myself in this accusation. I recognized the emerging pattern about a decade ago and I retired from Catholic apologetics and canon law rather than stand and call it out among my own.

Among Catholics many clergy, influencers, and apologists act aghast that the SSPX disobeyed Pope Leo XIV. His Holiness is still in his honeymoon stage with the Catholic faithful. Yet two years ago we would be quietly cheering (or in my case remained quiet while others cheered) had the SSPX carried out the same consecrations under Pope Francis.

Before pointing the finger at the SSPX’s leadership, we clerical and lay leaders within the institutional Church must examine our own consciences. At least in Canada and the United States. Then we must repent.

A Real Loss of Communion

This leads to my second hard realization, namely, my feelings toward the SSPX and the loss of communion.

The schism is real. It causes me deep sadness.

For the past 15 years, despite having spent the 15 years prior as one of the SSPX’s harshest critics, I was hopeful rapprochement between the SSPX and the Holy See would lead to restoration of full communion, followed by canonical regularization. All that was needed was prayer, patience, and pastoral presence on both sides.

This hope was predicated on three events: (1) Pope Benedict XVI lifting the excommunications against SSPX bishops; (2) Pope Francis extending to the SSPX limited jurisdiction to validly confect the sacraments; and (3) the SSPX expelling Bishop Williamson and other extremist elements from the SSPX.

For nearly a decade we seemed on the cusp of the Holy See and the SSPX announcing jointly they had signed an agreement formally regularizing the SSPX.

Regrettably, this opportunity is now lost with the consecration of four new bishops. The Holy See has little choice but to declare the SSPX excommunicated and schismatic. To not follow through risks episcopal chaos as every dissident group would seek to consecrate its own bishops.

Barring Divine providence or a miraculous softening of hearts, the schism is unlikely to be resolved in my lifetime. Many traditionalists of my generation assume the aftermath to the 2026 consecrations will parallel that of the 1988 consecrations. They may think tempers just need to cool over the summer, then the SSPX and the Holy See will approach 2026 post-excommunication negotiations with the same urgency that they did in 1988.

While I no longer have the same contacts in Rome or Écône that I did following the 1988 consecrations, none of the top officials for either the Holy See or the SSPX seem angry. In the place of anger and the fighting spirit that followed the 1988 consecrations, I now find sadness, resignation, and — most tellingly — relief.

“It’s finally over,” is the reaction I hear across the ideological faith spectrum from Catholic clergy, laity, bishops, and theologians. “We have done everything at our end to bring about the SSPX’s reconciliation. It is time to let the SSPX go because they will never be happy in a Catholic Church that accepts the Second Vatican Council, and the Catholic Church will never renounce or go back upon one of her ecumenical councils.”

This response feels much more final than that following the 1988 consecrations, where in their anger and passion most felt an agreement between Rome and Écône was still attainable. In 1988 the marriage between SSPX and Rome was worth fighting for.

Hence schism feels much more real to me in 2026 than it did in the early nineties. I no longer feel others are interested in fighting for a canonically regular relationship between the SSPX and Rome. In fact, is the average adherent on either side interested in preserving any formal relationship?

Cultural Marxism vs. Schismatic Traditionalism vs. White Christian Nationalism

My third hard realization arising from the SSPX’s 2026 episcopal consecrations is that orthodox Catholics can face multiple ideological threats at the same time. The “enemy of my enemy” is not necessarily my friend. Yet neither is he necessarily my worst enemy.

As a threat to the Catholic unity, I still place the SSPX’s post-Williamson traditionalism a distant third to Cultural Marxism and White Christian Nationalism. On the latter I am particularly wary of clergy and Catholic influencers (and evangelists, apologists, or celebrity exorcists who are both) who damn our most recent popes’ social teaching through faint praise, while praising their favorite political partisans through faint damn.

I am a sinner by temperament and an orthodox Catholic through God’s mercy. In striving to live my life according to God’s grace, I rely heavily upon Christ’s Real Eucharistic Presence. He is the source and summit of my Catholic faith. Without the Eucharistic Mysteries as understood and experienced through the Church’s doctrine of transubstantiation, I would be an atheist. Or at least an agnostic. Perhaps even a Pastafarian pirate given my personal propensity toward science, sarcastic swashbuckling, and savoury spaghetti sauces.

In short, I view my Catholic faith through the prism of the Eucharist. Not through any political ideology or philosophy. As a Catholic I have witnessed all three aforementioned ideologies undermine or impede orthodox Catholic teaching and practice centered around Our Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Cultural Marxism through its underlying atheism in which the Eucharist is stripped of its supernatural acknowledgment and misrepresented as a mere vegetative symbol of human oppression. Reactionary Traditionalism through a superstition of scrupulosity that constrains the Holy Spirit to ritual Donatism.   And White Christian Nationalism by denying God’s image in my neighbor, denying God’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, and impeding my neighbor’s access to the Holy Mysteries. For the same God who makes himself really present in the Eucharist has created my neighbor lovingly in his image. While the Devil does not care why one avoids or undermines the Eucharist.

And this is the paradox that most saddens me about the SSPX’s return to schism. In the aftermath of the Council of Trent, the Traditional Latin Mass was codified and universally promulgated as an insurmountable barrier against heresy. Especially heresy toward the traditional Eucharistic theology.

In the name of upholding Catholic Tradition and reverence toward Christ’s Real Presence, the SSPX now inadvertently — and I believe unintentionally — allies itself with Cultural Marxism and White Christian Nationalism in undermining Catholic belief in the Real Presence. And yet, unlike Cultural Marxism and White Christian Nationalism, the SSPX does so from a position of overzealous piety, possessing valid priests and bishops who confect the Eucharist validly.

The SSPX eschew the sacramental iconoclasm of the cultural Marxists and white Christian nationalists. I consider the SSPX antiheroes rather than villains by comparison. I pray they can work past their opposition to the Second Vatican Council and recognize its renewal in the Eucharist as the source and summit of our Catholic faith. I pray the SSPX rediscover their yearning to restore full communion with Rome.

May God’s love through his Eucharistic Mysteries soften the hearts of all who profess belief in Christ’s Real Presence and bring about our miraculous reconciliation.

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Image: Exterior of July 1, 2026, SSPX consecrations. YouTube screenshot.