Abp. Viganò gives ‘full support’ to SSPX consecrations, Bishop Eleganti calls them ‘schismatic'

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Archbishop Viganò gives ‘full support’ to SSPX consecrations, Bishop Eleganti calls them ‘schismatic’
Archbishop Viganò declared new SSPX consecrations necessary for the ‘good of souls’ while Bishop Eleganti believes the ‘salvation of souls’ is not an excuse.



Courtesy of Archbishop Viganò

Feb 3, 2026
(LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks from original included below; emphasis mine]) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò expressed his “full support” for the upcoming Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) episcopal consecrations, as Bishop Marian Eleganti has condemned the plans as a “schismatic act.”

“When the Hierarchy becomes complicit in the demolition of the Church, the only solution is to appeal to the state of necessity and guarantee that Apostolic Succession continues for the good of souls,” Viganò wrote in a X post. “Nothing has changed since 1988, and we can even say that the situation has dramatically worsened.”

“I therefore express my full support for the decision taken by the Society of Saint Pius X,” he concluded.

Viganò had highlighted the “double standard” demonstrated by the Vatican’s “refusal to comply with” the requests of an orthodox Society as it promotes “synodality” that “opens to the way to schism,” something admitted by Bishop Eleganti himself.

According to Viganò, the Vatican has denied the SSPX permission to consecrate new bishops “precisely because it has not compromised with the conciliar revolution, the highest expression of which is synodality.”

By contrast, Bishop Eleganti, who has defended the Catholic faith from post-conciliar innovations such as synodality, denounced the SSPX’s plans for episcopal consecrations as “schismatic.”

The General House of the SSPX announced Monday that it plans to proceed with new episcopal consecrations without Vatican approval on July 1:

“After having long matured his reflection in prayer, and having received from the Holy See, in recent days, a letter which does not in any way respond to our requests, Father Pagliarani, in harmony with the unanimous advice of his Council, judges that the objective state of grave necessity in which souls find themselves requires such a decision,” read an SSPX communiqué dated February 2, 2026.

Bishop Eleganti maintained in a statement received by LifeSiteNews that the SSPX’s appeal to a state of emergency and prioritizing “the salvation of souls” “cannot in any way legitimize” episcopal consecrations without papal approval. The Catholic Church, he said, is “visibly realized in unity with the pope,” and this unity must be realized “canonically by refraining from obvious acts of canonical disobedience.”

“Popes adhere to tradition and do not contradict their predecessors on the Chair of St. Peter,” Bishop Eleganti said.

The SSPX and other orthodox clergy and Catholics have maintained, on the contrary, that popes have demonstrably contradicted their predecessors, particularly Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV. For example, Francis’ document Traditionis Custodes, which directly touches on a key part of the SSPX’s mission, the preservation of the TLM, contradicts Summorum Pontificum as well as Quo Primum by declaring that bishops have the right to restrict the traditional Latin Mass in their dioceses.

Quo Primum, by contrast, specifically states that the traditional missal “is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used … We likewise declare and ordain … that this present document cannot be revoked or modified but remains always valid and retains its full force.”

In another example of papal contradiction to predecessors, Pope Leo XIV recently declared that different Christian churches are “already” “one,” contrary to Catholic catechisms, as well as  Pope Leo XIII’s teaching in the encyclical Satis Cognitum that Christian unity is grounded in shared faith, the sacraments, and governance.

[Read the rest of the article here.]