SSPX claims Pope Francis’s authorizations on confessions, marriages still in force

July 17, 2026

In a statement published on July 16, the Society of Saint Pius X asserted that “Pope Francis’s grants of confessional faculties and for the ability of the SSPX priests to obtain marriage delegation remain in force”—two weeks after the Vatican stated they were no longer in force.

In an explanatory note issued July 2, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that “the holy People of God are warned that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are illicitly administering the sacraments and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and the marriages they assist at are invalid.”

In doing so, the dicastery implicitly revoked Pope Francis’s decision that penitents “can validly and licitly receive” receive sacramental absolution from SSPX priests (Misericordia et Misera, 2016, n. 12). In 2017 the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei allowed local bishops the possibility of granting SSPX priests the faculties that would allow them to receive matrimonial consent, so as to ensure the validity of marriages.

In its July 16 statement, the SSPX also asserted that

• “The priests and deacons of the Society are not bound by any latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication, since such an excommunication is neither based in fact nor declared in the Decree.”
• “The lay faithful associated with the Society are not bound by any latae sententiae excommunication, since such an excommunication is neither based in fact nor declared in the Decree.”

The SSPX statement emphasized the distinction between dicastery’s July 2 decree and the July 2 explanatory note:

• In the decree, the dicastery declared that the Society of Saint Pius X’s four new bishops, along with the prelates who consecrated them, incurred the penalty of automatic excommunication under the Code of Canon Law.
• In the explanatory note, the dicastery stated that “the sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Society of St. Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatics being subject to the excommunication provided for by law” (canon 1364). The dicastery also said the laity who adhere to the schism incur automatic excommunication.

In discussing what formal adherence to schism entails, the dicastery made its own the provisions of a 1996 explanatory note issued by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. In that note, the pontifical council stated:

It is obvious that an occasional participation in liturgical acts or activities of the Lefebvrist movement, without adopting the attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunity of that movement, is not sufficient for one to speak of formal adherence to the movement. In pastoral practice it can be more difficult to judge their situation. Above all, the intention of the person must be taken into account, and the translation of this interior disposition into acts. The various situations must therefore be judged on a case-by-case basis, in the competent forums of the external and internal forums.

 

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Further information:

• Hundreds of Thousands of Catholics Purportedly Excommunicated: How Should We See This? (SSPX, 7/16/26)
• DDF: SSPX bishops, priests excommunicated; SSPX priests’ confessions henceforth invalid (CWN, 7/2/26)