The Society of St. Pius X—the group that the Vatican declared to be in schism on July 2—has begun the process of appealing the Vatican’s declaration. It claims that beginning the appeal process “has the effect of suspending” the execution of the Vatican decree.

In a statement released Monday, July 13, the SSPX revealed that on July 11 it had submitted a “preliminary recourse” to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that had issued the schism decree.

The schism decree was the strongest action the Vatican has taken to date against the SSPX since its founding in 1970. In 1988, the SSPX illicitly ordained four bishops, and all were automatically excommunicated. In the decades since, the group’s status within the church has been uncertain, with the Vatican periodically extending offers to grant it official canonical status in return for its acceptance of certain teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The society rejected all of these offers.

[Analysis: SSPX excommunications show what Pope Leo means by church ‘unity’]

The July 2 decree from the dicastery said that six bishops of the SSPX had been automatically excommunicated due to their involvement in a new round of illicit ordinations that had taken place in Écône, Switzerland, the previous day. This was based on Canon 1387, which says bishops ordained and those who ordain bishops without a papal mandate incur automatic excommunication, and is similar to the 1988 decree. Further, the July 2 decree said any priests and lay members of SSPX who “adhere” to the schism were also to be considered schismatics and automatically excommunicated. The accompanying note from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith clarifies that the priests belonging to the SSPX are to be considered schismatic and have incurred automatic excommunication, which is a step beyond the 1988 decree.

In a statement from the SSPX General House on Monday, the group implied it would pursue a formal appeal process against the Vatican. The complaint filed Saturday was, it said, “the mandatory preliminary step before the possible introduction of a hierarchical recourse.” The Vatican is expected to respond within 30 days, a response that will almost certainly be negative, if it arrives at all.

There is some question about the strength of the legal argument being made by SSPX, Dr. Kurt Martens, the Stephan Kuttner Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America, explained to America. While it is true, he said, that lodging this type of preliminary complaint has the effect of suspending the decision being appealed, that appeal will not have much of an effect on the latae sententiae excommunications placed on the SSPX bishops. These types of “automatic” excommunications happen as soon as the excommunicable offense is committed; they are not a result of the Vatican’s decree, and the underlying action that triggered the automatic excommunication is not erased. Dr. Martens said the appeal is “akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.” 

Even if the dicastery denies what SSPX calls its “preliminary recourse,” the Society still has the right to pursue a formal appeal process. While one outlet reported that the next step would be an appeal to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the church’s highest legal authority outside of the pope, Dr. Martens said that the relevant process would actually be to appeal to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, Art. 24). That process does not require the initial appeal that the SSPX made this week, but such an appeal can still be made.

One option for the Vatican, Dr. Martens pointed out, could be for Pope Leo simply to sign the dicastery’s decree, making the decision his own and thus making it “un-appealable.”

The SSPX wrote that by submitting the complaint, it “intends to exercise the right which the Church recognizes to any person who considers himself harmed by an administrative act to seek its correction, in a spirit of respect for ecclesiastical authority and of faithful attachment to justice, truth and the good of the Church.”

In the meantime, the Vatican has put in place protocols for SSPX priests and lay members who want to officially re-enter communion with Rome to do so.

Correction 07/14/2026 10:27 p.m.: This article has been updated to clarify that the next step in the appeal process would be an appeal to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith rather than the Apostolic Signatura.