Leo XIV, absorbing crises

There was much anticipation surrounding the announced meeting between the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, and the Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, Fr. Davide Pagliarani.

Heading into the meeting, however, the parties understood their conversation would be the first of many. It remains to be seen how Leo XIV intends to address one of the first crises of his pontificate.

There is plenty of unfinished business from the Francis pontificate – think only of the case of Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik or the ongoing Vatican City courtroom saga over the management of the Secretariat of State’s funds – but the business with the SSPX is the first “fresh” ecclesiastical crisis of the Leonine era.

The traditionalist crisis is nothing new.

Every Pope since the Vatican Council II has inherited it, and its general plan is a holdover from a debate that has been outdated for many generations.

Paul VI found himself in a dramatic dialogue with the founder of the SSPX, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, then Pope St. John Paul II had to confront the question of the schism created by illegitimate ordinations, and Benedict XVI offered a liturgical opening but asked the Society to sign a doctrinal preamble the SSPX couldn’t accept (or at any rate, didn’t). Francis granted faculties and other accommodations to the priests of the Society, but never really took any steps toward the resolution of the underlying issues.

Leo XIV will have to find his approach.

The February 12 meeting concluded as expected, with a promise of dialogue and a threat of non-dialogue. The promise of dialogue is that of a doctrinal journey that clarifies certain issues of the Second Vatican Council, including those of the SSPX, in order to define the minimum fundamental requirements for full communion.

Upon reflection, this is somewhat less than the doctrinal preamble that Benedict XVI asked to be signed.

Benedict XVI could not accept the SSPX’s version that the Council was a historical event, but merely pastoral, and that its developments could therefore be contested or disregarded. And this was not because Benedict XVI was a progressivist, but because he understood “the council of the Fathers,” its difference from the “Council of the media,” and the need to defend it despite published opinion.

The threat of non-dialogue stems from the fact that the Holy See has officially asked the Society to desist from new episcopal ordinations and explained – in words – that any such ordination would cause a schism, and that schism would cause all dialogue to cease.

Leo XIV decided, as was natural, that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith should address the issue.

The absence of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, responsible for the dialogue with the SSPX since the original SSPX episcopal ordinations, is something Vatican insiders feel keenly, or ought to feel.

Francis suppressed the Ecclesia Dei commission and folded its responsibilities into the Doctrine dicastery (then styled the CDF) in 2019.

And perhaps a natural consequence will be to reinstate a commission like Ecclesia Dei, or at least a permanent dialogue committee, precisely to delicately foster dialogue. A commission like Ecclesia Dei, however, also opens the possibility of reinstating other commissions.

During the Francis pontificate, many internal commissions had been abolished or abandoned, while the Pope formed new and provisional ones (the CRIOR on the IOR, the COSEA on administration, the committee and commission for the reform of Vatican communications, the Council of Cardinals itself) and abandoned those that had remained active in the past.

For example, there was no further news of a meeting of the Commission on China called by Benedict XVI, and Ecclesia Dei was suppressed ahead of Francis’s crackdown on the traditionalist movement with the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes and its subsequent application, which effectively repealed the liberalization of the ancient rite authorized by Benedict XVI.

So, maybe we will get a new (old) Commission.

Then again, maybe the SSPX will decide to proceed with the threatened ordinations anyway, basing its decision on what it considers a loophole in canon law, according to which one cannot incur an excommunication if the person committing an act potentially subject to the penalty did so in the face of a grave situation.

This is a completely subjective assessment, even within the Code, which is why it has been repeatedly stated that the excommunication of the Lefebvrian bishops, later revoked by Benedict XVI amid much controversy, was never valid in the first place.

The fact is that, beyond subjective facts and interpretations, when the Pope formalizes the excommunication, it’s done, and there’s nothing to be done. The goal today is to avoid reaching that breaking point, to find some form of dialogue, even if that means dragging out the debate and waiting for it to be absorbed.

This isn’t a decisive crisis for the pontificate, that’s for sure, but it is a crisis that may tell voluminously about Leo’s governing style.

Leo proceeds through institutional channels—the competent Dicastery—and doesn’t personally engage in dialogue because he doesn’t feel the necessary charisma to move things forward. He demands that everyone act according to justice.

Above all, Leo XIV waits.

He makes decisions when they are inevitable and irrevocable, and for this reason, he thinks carefully before deciding.

Whether this is the best strategy for the traditionalist world remains to be seen. It’s also true, however, that the followers of the ancient rite are growing, and they’re young—just think of the annual traditionalist pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, which brings together thousands of young traditionalists. It’s a segment of the Church that cannot be ignored. In a time of crisis in vocations, the traditionalist world can be a reservoir of new faith or the cause of schism and division.

The Pope will have to decide how to proceed, and every decision will be a revelation.