We’re taking a little break from the series I’ve been working on—don’t worry, I’m still on it, and the third post is in progress. But I wanted to talk about something that’s kind of related. I came across a news story about something called The Society of Saint Pius X. Apparently, it’s connected to the Catholic Church—or at least it was—but now it seems it’s not, because its priests have been excommunicated. It’s a bit of a mess, but it ties into what we’ve been discussing: do we really need an organized church or religion? What happens when different groups or branches of a religion break off to do their own thing?

Read more: Do We Need Organized Religion? Insights from SSPX’s Split

Traditional or Modernist

So, here’s what I’ve found so far. The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) has been around since 1970, and they’re all about sticking to pre-Vatican II teachings, traditions, and doctrines. For example, they still celebrate their masses in Latin and have issues with some of the other changes from Vatican II, which they’re calling contrary to the original teachings of the church. I think that’s pretty interesting because it connects to the bigger questions we’ve been exploring. According to their website, they consider themselves Catholics, and everyone else is a modernist. Modernists, it seems, consider that people can decide what is right or wrong, leaving God out of the process. This might be overly simplified, and I will do more research. For now, we can say society is more traditionalist than the main church.

They’ve got parishes worldwide, and they have priests and bishops. But what’s making headlines is that they recently ordained bishops without papal approval, and Pope Leo XIV said, “Nope, not allowed” (okay, that’s not a direct quote) and excommunicated them. Apparently, in the Catholic Church, bishops need papal authority to be legit, and these ordinations didn’t have that. What’s weird, though, is that if you look back, Pope Benedict XVI had actually approved them at one point. Their sacraments were considered valid, and they were allowed to practice. So, what changed? Why was it okay before and now it’s not? I’m going to dig into this more because it’s pretty fascinating.

I’ve heard bits and pieces about this group over the years, so I’ll need to go back and do more research. Like any group, they seem to have internal splits too—some more radical, some more conservative. Right now, I don’t have a solid opinion on them or whether they’re worth following. If it’s just about sticking to the old Latin Mass, I don’t really see why that’s such a big deal. But there’s probably more to it, and I’ll need to figure out what’s going on.

This whole thing ties back to the bigger questions I’ve been asking in my series: do we need a church or organized religion to interpret right and wrong? In Catholicism, we believe the pope is the direct successor of Saint Peter, the first leader of the church, whom Jesus chose. Cardinals are direct successors to the twelve apostles, as are archbishops, bishops, and priests. It is one long continuous line of succession. If the founder of the SSPX was ordained by the Catholic Church (he was), then he is part of this succession. This means that those he has ordained are also, no?

Questions, Questions Questions

So, who gets to decide what changes are okay and which aren’t? The more I think about it, the more it fits into the series I’m working on. These questions just lead to more questions, and I feel like that’s going to be the case here too. Anyway, I’ll keep researching and writing about this because it’s definitely something worth exploring.