In a recent podcast, Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Vatican’s Prefect for Promoting Christian Unity, said of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), “I’m not entirely sure one can already speak of schism.” The interview was conducted on July 2, 2026, and published that day on the website of the German edition of Communio — the same day that the official excommunication decree and explanatory note were published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
The two documents were published in response to the SSPX’s illicit July 1 episcopal consecrations, and assert that the six bishops of the Society had incurred excommunication for their participation in “an act of a schismatic nature.” The note stated clearly that the consecrations were “the canonical crime of schism” and said that all SSPX clergy (bishops, priests, and deacons) “are in schism and must therefore be regarded as schismatics.” The decree also potentially impacts the laity, warning that they should not “adhere to the schism of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, lest they themselves incur ipso facto the penalty of latae sententiae excommunication.”
Traditionalist pundits and SSPX supporters immediately pounced on the Koch interview as evidence that the decree and especially the explanatory note were not authoritative — an argument that was already being put forward by commentators such as New York canonist Fr. Gerald Murray and Canadian pro-SSPX YouTuber Kennedy Hall.
In response to the Koch interview, Murray Rundus — a former Disney child star who is now an online advocate for the SSPX — posted on X, “Now you have Cardinal Koch saying he is not sure if there is a schism at all. There is absolute pandemonium in the Curia over this decree+note from the DDF and anyone telling you that there is absolute clarity is simply not aware of the facts.”
Traditionalist pundit Peter Kwasniewski posted on Facebook that Koch “doesn’t think there is a schism full stop, and believes it would be premature to transfer the SSPX dossier to his dicastery as if they were Protestants or Orthodox. That’s intriguing coming from this figure.”
Traditionalist blogs went further, with one asserting that Koch’s comments were “The most damaging criticism of Rome’s treatment of the episcopal consecrations at Écône.” The same blog also interpreted Koch as indicating a major division in the Roman Curia, saying, “The contradiction could hardly be clearer. Rome’s doctrinal dicastery declared collectively what a senior cardinal of the Roman Curia acknowledged had not yet been established.”
The traditionalist AdVaticanum website wrote that, based on the interview, “in Koch’s view, the canonical consequences of the recent consecrations should not automatically be understood as creating a separate ecclesial body.”
It is easy to see why the theory spread so fast. It told SSPX sympathizers exactly what they wanted to hear — that Rome is divided over the excommunications and the schismatic situation of the Society. For a curial cardinal to openly contradict such a direct and clearly written decree from another dicastery suggests that the sanctions against the SSPX are on shakier ground than they look.
But that interpretation depends on a basic assumption: that Koch had read the DDF decree and explanatory note before he gave the interview.
The missing context
On X, I asked whether Cardinal Koch had actually read the DDF’s decree and explanatory note before he sat down with Jan-Heiner Tück for this interview. Koch never mentions either document by name anywhere in the transcript — an odd omission if he had spent the morning reading them.
A reader, Nelson Sarmento, wrote directly to Professor Tück to ask. Tück answered in a series of emails.
“The interview with Cardinal Koch took place at noon on July 2 in Altötting, where the Forum Benedict XVI conference was held. It was posted online as a podcast on communio.de that very same day.”
Sarmento wrote back to point out that the DDF’s decree had been released that same morning, at nine o’clock Italian time — meaning the interview came after the document, not before it. Tück replied:
“Kardinal Koch und ich waren zwischen 9 und 12:00 Uhr Teilnehmer der Tagung über die Theologie von Benedikt XVI., Kardinal Koch kann das Dokument von Kardinal Fernández nicht gelesen haben. Insofern ist es aufgrund der Umstände verfehlt, einen Widerspruch zu konstruieren.”
In English:
“Cardinal Koch and I were, between 9 and 12:00, participants in the conference on the theology of Benedict XVI. Cardinal Koch cannot have read the document of Cardinal Fernández. Given the circumstances, it is therefore mistaken to construct a contradiction here.”
Sarmento shared the exchange with WPI.
Tück points out that he and Koch were participating in a theology conference from nine o’clock until noon, the first three hours following the publication of the decree and explanatory note. In Tück’s judgment, Koch “cannot have read” Cardinal Fernández’s document before the noon interview.
The “contradiction” theory is based on the idea that Koch was responding to a document he could not have read. Based on Tück’s account, there is no good reason to treat Koch’s comments as a response to Fernández’s decree and explanatory note. The most likely explanation is that Koch was describing the SSPX in the same framework he has used for years: a distinction between a “schismatic act” and a group that is fully in schism. This is a common distinction that dates back to John Paul II’s 1988 response to Lefebvre.
The rest of the interview does not support the contradiction thesis either. Koch does not sound like he is defending the SSPX. Asked about the Society’s justification for consecrating bishops without a papal mandate, he said it moved in the direction of “self-authorization.” He compared the SSPX to progressive groups that decide to “take everything into their own hands” when Church authority does not approve what they want to do.
Koch said their position gives the impression of “an abstract recognition of the Petrine primacy,” rather than “the concrete recognition of the now-existing pope and all the popes since the Second Vatican Council.” He added, “I simply see a contradiction there.”
In other words, Koch’s caution about the word “schism” should not be construed as a defense of the SSPX, and it certainly isn’t a sign of “absolute pandemonium” in the Curia. overall, the Cardinal provided a very sharp critique of the SSPX, while hoping that someday the division could be healed.
Cardinal Koch himself has not addressed the matter publicly, so there is still a limit to what can be said with certainty. But the evidence now available points strongly in one direction: Koch’s interview is not proof that a senior cardinal knowingly contradicted the DDF’s decree and explanatory note.
It is much more likely that Cardinal Koch simply had not read the decree he was accused of contradicting.
Image: Vatican Media
Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. In addition to his work for the site, his writing has appeared in America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, US Catholic, The Irish Catholic, Catholic Outlook, The Synodal Times, and other Catholic publications. He has been quoted in The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New York Post, and other mainstream outlets on Catholic affairs. He previously co-hosted the Field Hospital podcast with Jeannie Gaffigan and The Debrief podcast. Before founding Where Peter Is, he worked in communications at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Climate Covenant. He is married with four children.
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