13 May: Statement by Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith about the 1 July SSPX consecration of bishops. Fr. Z makes a plea.

In today’s Bollettino there is “Declaration” from the one named as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Statement by His Eminence Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, 13.05.2026

Regarding the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, we reiterate what has already been communicated. The episcopal ordinations announced by the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X do not have the corresponding pontifical mandate. This gesture will constitute “a schismatic act” (John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei, n. 3), and “formal adherence to the schism constitutes a grave offense against God and entails the excommunication established by Church law” (ibid., 5c; cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Explanatory Note, August 24, 1996).

The Holy Father continues in his prayers to ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten the leaders of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X so that they retrace their steps regarding the very serious decision they have taken.

From the Vatican, May 13, 2026

A couple of points of Holy Writ pop into my mind.  But here is one we recently heard in church on Sunday from the Letter of James 1:

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴ for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.

²⁶ If any one thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is vain. ²⁷ Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

The “doer” goes to visit the orphans and widows.

As for “unstained”… what is that Synod Report but precisely a “stain”, which calls millennially settled moral teaching “emerging”, which seeks to wipe out the entirety of what the Church has held “everywhere, always, and by all”.

The 2nd Sunday after Easter in the Vetus Ordo is “Good Shepherd Sunday” and our minds go to John 10 but also the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18 and Luke 15.  The shepherd goes to the sheep.   In John 10 the shepherd knows his sheep.

Were Leo to call the leadership of the SSPX to come to meet with him, they would come, though perhaps the pattern might be closer to the Biblical ideal were he to extend himself to them.

In this time of the greatest novena from Ascension to Pentecost, we can ask the Holy Spirit concretely in this case of the Holy Father and the leadership of the SSPX to do what we pray for by singing the Pentecost Sequence:

Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.

Bend what is inflexible,
warm what is chilled,
correct what has gone astray.