The door is open; all you have to do is enter

Saturday Post

Feb 21, 2026

Good morning and happy Saturday,

It has been about a month since I published a Saturday Post, and for that I apologize. There have been several moving things in my life that I will be able to share more details on in a future post.

I wanted to spend some time this morning commenting on the apparent act of schism that the Society of St. Pius X seems determined to do on July 1st.

As I reported over the past few weeks on Ave Maria Radio News, the SSPX, after meeting with Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, decided they did not want to continue dialogue with the Church of Rome. In a letter dated Ash Wednesday, Father Davide Pagliarani, the superior general of the fraternity, informed Cardinal Fernández that the society believed further dialogue would be fruitless and that they would not postpone an episcopal ordination scheduled for July 1st.

On July 1st, the SSPX will ordain new bishops, without authorization from Rome, by bishops who themselves were ordained without authorization from Rome. The original ordination in 1988 sparked a declaration of excommunication by then Pope St. John Paul II.

The fraternity was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who, along with the other early leadership of the fraternity, opposed certain prescribed outcomes of the Second Vatican Council, including changes to the liturgy, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, and the document Dignitas humanae, which is the declaration on religious freedom and how the Church should relate to modern nation-states.

In 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre was 81 and realized that if he died, the seminarians training under him, although at this point illicitly due to repeated demands to stop by the competent authorities in Rome, could only be ordained by bishops outside his fraternity. When Archbishop Lefebvre ordained the bishops without the approval of Pope St. John Paul II, the Holy Father published the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, declaring Archbishop Lefebvre’s actions illicit and schismatic.

Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991. Only in 2009 was the excommunication lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, but the decree made clear the fraternity had no status in the Church. During the Year of Mercy in 2016, Pope Francis allowed SSPX priests to validly hear confessions. Currently, two of the original four bishops ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 are still alive.

So, with all of that history, here we are today. The SSPX has once again found itself in a situation where it will need to ordain new bishops in order to keep its fraternity going. It appears, publicly at least, that Rome has not said no. I would speculate that the competent authorities are expecting something in return from the fraternity, something like a reunification and submission to the Bishop of Rome.

The SSPX is claiming that their act is not schismatic because they can ordain bishops without a papal mandate due to grave necessity. Now, I am not a canon lawyer, but I would suspect the grave necessity would be something along the lines of an impossibility of the Bishop of Rome being able to approve an ordination, and a new bishop was absolutely necessary.

But because of the fraternity’s rejection of Vatican II and the Mass of Paul VI, they see that their congregations have nowhere else to go; a fact you and I both know isn’t true.

Reconciliation has been done before. Upon Pope St. John Paul II’s declaration of excommunication, twelve SSPX priests left the fraternity, reunited with Rome, and sought permission to found the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. They are still active today, still celebrate the Mass of John XXIII, and maintain rights and privileges in the Church.

In his letter to Cardinal Fernández, Father Davide Pagliarani said that the reality of the SSPX is something the Church needs to deal with. What a way to try convince someone of your plight. The Church will continue to deal with the SSPX as it has since 1988. The door is open if you want to come in.

But that requires admission of wrongdoing; it requires repentance.

You and I have to do that every day. We constantly have to return to our Lord and say, “I was wrong, and I put myself outside of your commands.” We do the same with our Church, which Jesus gave to shepherd and guard us. Even if we don’t understand, even if we don’t always agree, the Church and the Holy Father are there to say to the world, “This is where you can find salvation through Jesus.”

If the SSPX wants to remain outside of that looking in, that is their decision. But I hope their followers know that the Church is here for them and desires their salvation in communion with eachother, the bishops, and the pope.

This week on UP North Catholic:

Matthew speaks with the Diocese of Marquette’s new Vice Chancellor, Gannon Foley.

You can also find the show on Sundays here on PurpleCatholic.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Travelling for Thanksgiving or Christmas? Book with Expedia using this link and support the Purple Catholic.

First Sunday of Lent

This Sunday at Mass we will hear from Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Palm 51; Romans 5:12-19; and Matthew 4:1-11.

Here is a calendar for the rest of the week:

Monday, 23 February - Commemoration of St. Polycarp, bishop and martyr
Friday, 27 February - Commemoration of St. Gregory of Narek, abbot and doctor

During Lent, all memorials are optional and are labeled in the Liturgy of the Hours as “commemorations.” The process for celebrating these commemorations is the same as during the privileged time I described from December 17 to December 24, which you can read about here.

Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:4

Have a good weekend,

Matthew

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The door is open; all you have to do is enter

Saturday Post

This week on UP North Catholic:

First Sunday of Lent

In the news:

The United States

The Vatican

The World

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