The Vatican’s top doctrinal authority will hold a meeting in Rome Feb. 12 with the superior general of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in light of the society’s recent announcement that new SSPX bishops will be consecrated this summer with or without the permission of Pope Leo XIV. 

After the SSPX made the announcement Feb. 2, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Cardinal Victor Fernández, wrote to the superior general, Father Davide Pagliarani, “to propose a meeting in Rome.” 

Fr. Pagliarani accepted, the SSPX announced in a Feb. 5 press release. “We invite the members and faithful of the Society to offer their prayers for the good outcome of this meeting,” the release stated. 

Vatican News reported Feb. 5 that Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told journalists about the forthcoming exchange. 

“The meeting will be an opportunity for an informal and personal dialogue, which will help identify effective tools for discussion that can lead to positive results,” Bruni said. 

The same day, the SSPX published a lengthy interview with Fr. Pagliarani regarding the announcement about episcopal consecrations. 

Fr. Pagliarani said that in the summer of 2025 he wrote to Pope Leo requesting an audience. 

“Having received no reply, I wrote to him again a few months later, in a filial and straightforward manner, without concealing any of our needs,” Fr. Pagliarani said. “I mentioned our doctrinal divergences, but also our sincere desire to serve the Catholic Church without respite, for we are servants of the Church despite our irregular canonical status.”

He said that Cardinal Fernández wrote a reply to this letter, but complained that it “took no account whatsoever of the proposal we put forward, and offers nothing that responds to our requests.”

Fr. Pagliarani said the SSPX finds itself in “very particular circumstances” and its proposal asked “that the Holy See agree to allow us to continue our work — temporarily, in our exceptional situation — for the good of the souls who turn to us.” 

“We promised the Pope to devote all our energy to the safeguarding of Tradition, and to make of our faithful true sons of the Church,” Fr. Pagliarani added.

When asked why he considers it necessary to move forward with the consecrations despite still having no approval from the Vatican, Fr. Pagliarani said the decision “is an extreme means, proportionate to a real and likewise extreme necessity.”

According to a Nov. 1, 2025, press release from the SSPX, there are two SSPX bishops, 733 priests, and 264 seminarians. 

Continuing his explanation as to why he thinks moving forward with the episcopal consecrations is necessary, Fr. Pagliarani said, “With the legacy left to us by Pope Francis, the fundamental reasons that justified the consecrations of 1988 still exist and, in many respects, impel us with renewed urgency.”

Fr. Pagliarani argued that the Second Vatican Council is now “more than ever” the guiding factor for most of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy. That status quo will likely continue under Pope Leo’s leadership, the superior general said, noting what he called an “explicit determination to preserve the line of Pope Francis as an irreversible trajectory for the entire Church.”

“It is sad to acknowledge, but it is a fact that, in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation,” Fr. Pagliarani claimed, adding later that “our bishops are growing older, and, as the apostolate continues to expand, they are no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the faithful worldwide.” 

Fr. Pagliarani also emphasized that the SSPX does not see itself as “the Church” but rather a society in service of it.

“In no way does the Society claim to take the place of the Church or to assume her mission,” he said. “On the contrary, it retains a deep awareness that it exists solely to serve her, relying exclusively on what the Church herself has always and everywhere preached, believed, and practised.” 

As Zeale News has reported, some commentators have warned that illicitly consecrating the bishops would incur an automatic excommunication for all clergy involved in the matter. SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre incurred that penalty when he illicitly consecrated four SSPX bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II in 1980. Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1990 without having had the excommunication lifted. In 2009, Pope Benedict XIV lifted the excommunications of the surviving SSPX bishops in hopes of fostering unity.

Fr. Pagliarani later in the interview expressed hope that he might still meet with Pope Leo, saying it is “extremely important.” 

“There are many things I would like to share with him that I was not able to include in my letters,” he said. “Unfortunately, Cardinal Fernández's response does not address the possibility of an audience with the Pope. It also evokes the possibility of new sanctions.”

Fr. Pagliarani was then asked what the SSPX will do “if the Holy See decides to condemn it,” to which he replied that “in such circumstances any canonical penalties would have no real effect.

“Nevertheless, should they be pronounced, the Society would certainly accept this new suffering without bitterness, as it has accepted past sufferings, and would sincerely offer it for the good of the Church.”

Pope Benedict XVI wrote in a March 2009 letter about the SSPX’s situation and his decision to lift the excommunication of its bishops that an “episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the College of Bishops with the Pope.”

“Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment – excommunication – with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity,” he explained. “Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return.”

Pope Benedict wrote with mixed sentiments about the Society – and not without warmth. 

"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things – arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc,” he said. “Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her?"

Pope Benedict’s full letter can be read here.