Leo XIV: From the Appeal for Unity to the Decree of Excommunication
What Pope Leo XIV most wanted to avoid has nevertheless taken place, and very soon, under his authority: a solemn decree of excommunication. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 with the aim of restoring within the Catholic Church the tradition that, in his view, had been broken by the Second Vatican Council, had been warned: if, as they had announced, one of their bishops were to consecrate a new bishop, both the consecrating bishop and the one being consecrated would automatically incur excommunication.
But neither the traditionalist Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X was intimidated by the threat, nor did the Vatican hesitate to act: the Holy See immediately issued the decree of excommunication against the two “consecrating” bishops and the four newly “consecrated” bishops, as well as against all “lay faithful” who formally adhere to the new “schism” (I use here the current canonical terminology, as anachronistic as this entire affair, one more among many). And all of this barely one year after his election.
I began these lines by pointing out that what Pope Leo most wanted to avoid has happened. He was elected and accepted the election precisely in order to avert the schismatic threat posed by the most traditionalist sectors. Let us recall his first intervention, carefully weighed, drafted and read aloud: we want to be a “missionary Church open to all”, “to build bridges through dialogue”, “uniting all of us to be one people, always in peace”. He was elected and accepted the election in order to make room for both some and others. “Everyone, everyone, everyone”, he later said, making the words of Pope Francis his own.
It sounded promising, but at the first test the Code of Canon Law once again prevails with its unquestionable authority, establishing borders and customs posts, creeds and canons, requirements and permissions. A single person, always a man “chosen by God”, once again has the final word, the supreme power to close or to open, to impose excommunication or to lift it. The Church that calls itself Catholic, that is, universal, once again becomes identified with an inevitably particular form (historical, cultural, theological, dogmatic, canonical), and all of this in the name of the Infinite or of the Breath that has no form or boundaries.
We thus find th a pope, deeply driven by the desire to safeguard communion, very siding with the logic and interests of the system and issues the decree of excommunication. With the added circumstance that Canon Law — the voice of the system, not of communion — exempts him from all personal responsibility, since it concerns what in canonical jargon is called excommunication latae sententiae, that is, a penalty incurred automatically by anyone who commits a specific canonical offence, such as the episcopal consecration of a priest without papal authorization. Thus, it is neither the Catholic institution nor the pope who excommunicates the offender; rather, it is the offender who carries out a “schismatic act” and excommunicates himself. The cynicism of the system.
With this — a historical irony that has gone unnoticed — Leo XIV joins the list of three of its predecessors with the same name who played leading roles in the most significant episodes of rupture in the history of the Churches. The first was Leo the Great, in the fifth century, the first bishop of Rome to claim jurisdictional authority over all the Churches. He condemned the bishops who, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), refused to accept the dogmatic formula he had proposed, according to which Jesus Christ is one divine person (the eternal incarnate Word) possessing two complete natures (divine and human), each with its own properties. The condemnation did not affect only the recalcitrant bishops, but also the Churches that supported them, and which remain today “outside communion” with the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, namely: the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East (or Nestorian Church).
Later, exactly five hundred years afterwards, in 1054, Leo IX excommunicated Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, because he refused to submit to Roman papal authority, giving rise to the schism that still persists between the Roman Catholic Church and all the Orthodox Churches that remained attached to their patriarch. Finally, another five hundred years later, in 1521, Leo X excommunicated Luther and brought about the division that still endures between the Roman Catholic Church and all Protestant Churches.
It is entirely unthinkable that the schism between the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and the Roman Catholic Church could have the historical impact and the temporal extent of the great schisms mentioned above. Yet the reasons invoked are the same and, ultimately, they can be reduced to a single one: Rome’s claim to possess the keys of Christ and of communion, and to impose its doctrine and authority upon the other Churches.
In 2026, five centuries after Luther and the Council of Trent, as the internet of all humanity and of all things advances relentlessly, while three political dictators and a handful of technology magnates compete to impose upon the world their destructive project through the power of money, weapons and AI assistants, Lefebvre’s ideas and those of his followers seem to me to be genuine absurdities. But it seems to me no less absurd that a pope should respond with a sentence of excommunication, just as 1,500 years ago, just as 1,000 years ago and just as 500 years ago. I do not believe in any kind of communion or excommunication decreed from the heights of a sacred hierarchy, least of all when, as in this case, the issue concerns whether the memory of Jesus the liberating prophet should be celebrated in Latin or in the language of each people, with one’s back turned or facing the assembly, according to the rite of Trent or that of Vatican II.
Let us move forward. If Leo XIV’s desire to avoid this excommunication was so clear, why did he decree it? He could simply have authorized the episcopal consecrations, or repealed the penal canonical provision in this particular case, or decreed that the ecclesiastical norm that had been violated was not a matter of “divine law”. He had the authority to do so. Why did he not exercise it? Perhaps because he believed he should not, or that he could not. Most likely out of fear: fear of relaxing the demands of communion too much, fear of setting dangerous precedents, fear of betraying his mission and diminishing his sacred authority. These are the same reasons, or the same fears, that will prevent the pope from lifting the excommunication immediately — even if he wished to do so and even though he possesses the power to do so. Here lies the contradiction inherent in every supposedly absolute power, and specifically in absolute papal authority. All popes, past and present, are hopelessly trapped in the contradiction of the absolute system of which they are both guardians and victims. This hierarchical clerical system appears today more absurd than ever. Does anyone truly believe that, with such credentials, the Church can present itself as the sacrament of peace and communion for a humanity torn apart?
What, then, would the alternative be? It would require inventing another model of communion within another model of Church, one in which everyone, everyone, everyone truly has a place, and not merely in words. The alternative would not mean giving free rein to whim or chaos. It would mean completely abandoning the sacred pyramidal model imposed from above and returning to the universal community and to each local community the power of speech and decision. It would mean ceasing to identify unity with uniformity and ceasing to measure communion by the degree of submission. It would mean choosing unconditional and permanent dialogue. It would mean refusing to absolutize any belief, rite or norm, while still recognizing the need for a minimum common institutional framework, always provisional and relative, based not on an unquestionable divine will revealed from above, but on our fundamental social condition. It would mean allowing those who wish to leave a particular framework to do so without anyone condemning or excommunicating them, and without anyone ceasing to recognize them as brothers and sisters in communion within a wider and more open community.
How can a Church that preaches urbi et orbi the Gospel of love, tolerance and magnanimity be credible if, at the same time, it proves incapable of embodying it within its own particular and open community?
But is all this merely a pure illusion, detached from reality and practice? It depends on whether we still retain a minimum of common sense and an elementary trust in the human species. Is it illusory to think that a couple with a shared life project, or a political party with a programme, or any human group with a common commitment to action, when coexistence or joint action within a given framework is no longer possible for multiple reasons, may separate “humanely”, live in peace, remain faithful to their social commitment and continue to recognize, respect and even love one another? Is there any other realistic and possible way forward for social coexistence in general? And even if this might seem fanciful, should we not hope that it could be possible among those who claim to breathe the spirit of freedom and of the universal fraternity-sorority that Jesus proclaimed?
Is it illusory to think that different people or groups who do not profess the same Christological dogmas, or who do not understand them in the same way, who are not subject to the same legal and doctrinal framework and who do not obey the same bishop or the same pope, might nevertheless feel and recognize themselves to be in deep communion, insofar as all are inspired by the spirit of Jesus’ liberating freedom and healing compassion?
Is it illusory to aspire to a universal, free and pluralistic ecumenism of this kind among all the Churches that exist or will exist, including, of course, the Roman Catholic Church with its particular pope, but also the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and any community of Christian men and women detached from every patriarchal, clerical and hierarchical framework? Is it illusory to believe that another form of ecumenism, real and lasting, can exist? Should we not therefore conceive and shape the Church as a universal communion of all the communities that wish to be part of it, without condemnations or excommunications, however great their theological, ritual or institutional differences may be? Is this not the horizon that inspires the World Council of Churches, of which, incidentally, the Roman Catholic Church is not a member?
Is this not what every living organism on Earth invites us to understand, since life always emerges, and only emerges, from a network of creative relationships? Would it not be possible to embody within the Church that foundational mystery of life which arose on our planet 4.4 billion years ago? It would be enough to breathe the Spirit, the fresh breath that animates the entire universe from the infinitely small to the infinitely great. It would require only will, conviction and wisdom.
José Arregi
Aizarna, 14 July 2026