Canonical situation of the Society of St. Pius X

The canonical situation of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a group founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, is unresolved. It has been described as "both complex and fluid."

The SSPX has been the subject of much controversy since 1988, when Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta were illicitly consecrated at the Ecône, Switzerland, International Seminary of Saint Pius X as bishops in violation of Latin Church canon law. Lefebvre and the four other SSPX bishops individually incurred a disciplinary latae sententiae excommunication for the schismatic act; the excommunications of the four living SSPX bishops were remitted in 2009.

Talks between the Society and the Holy See are at an impasse, and the Holy See considers that the Society has broken away from communion with the Catholic Church. Although the Holy See has granted to all priest members of the Society the faculty to give sacramental absolution validly to those who attend its churches and has authorised local ordinaries to grant permission for celebrating marriages of followers of the Society (see sections on faculties below), the Holy See has declared in a letter to the Society dated 26 June 2017 and approved by Pope Francis on 20 May 2017 that full re-establishment of communion is conditional on its members making the 1998 profession of faith, accepting explicitly, with the degree of adhesion due to them, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent Church teachings, and recognising not only the validity but also the legitimacy of the rite of Mass and the other sacraments celebrated according to the liturgical books promulgated after that council.

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