SSPX accused of abuse cover-up

April 05, 2017

The traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has been accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests, in a new television documentary.

A Swedish television program, Uppdrag Granskning, reported that four different clerics of the SSPX—three priests and a former semiarian—had molested at least a dozen young people in several different countries. The evidence of abuse was kept secret by the SSPX, the program charged, and the priests were allowed to continue in ministry.

The program was broadcast just after the Vatican announced that priests of the SSPX could officiate at Catholic marriage ceremonies. That ruling, approved by Pope Francis was the latest in a series of steps toward regularizing the status of the traditionalist group. Pope Francis reportedly met last Saturday with Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior of the SSPX, amid reports that the Vatican would offer the group the status of a personal prelature.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the same Swedish television program, Uppdrag Granskning, had broadcast an explosive interview with Bishop Richard Williamson in 2009, just after Pope Benedict XVI had lifted the excommunication of SSPX prelates. In that interview Bishop Williamson (who has since split with the SSPX) voiced his doubts about the reality of the Holocaust.

 

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Further information:

• Report charges cover-up of sexual abuse by traditionalist society (Crux)
• Vatican rules SSPX priests may officiate at marriages (CWN, 4/4)