A breakaway faction of rebel Catholics is poised to consecrate four of its bishops in a dramatic break from the Vatican.
The Society of Saint Pius X, which is at odds with the Holy See, will converge on the Swiss town of Écône for a live-streamed event on Wednesday.
The rogue consecration is expected to result in the bishops’ immediate excommunication.
A conservative French bishop founded the society in Écône in 1970.
The deeply conservative rebel group has been at loggerheads with the Vatican for decades.
It trenchantly opposes the liberal reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
The society clings to the old-style Latin Mass, rather than having it read out in a modern vernacular.
The acrimonious rift will come to a head when priests, bishops and thousands of followers descend on Écône for what promises to be a slickly organised gathering.
“It’s an earthquake for the Church – but not a surprise. It was predictable,” Massimo Faggioli, a Vatican expert and professor of theology at Trinity College, Dublin, told The Telegraph.
“Everyone knew they never had any intention of changing their views on the Second Vatican Council, which they regard as heresy. It solidifies a rupture that began decades ago.”
The event reads more like a corporate convention than a revolt against the Pope, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
It has its own dedicated website which advises participants that they can choose from a wide range of accommodation options, from home stays to hotels, and informs them that meals can be prepaid with festival-style wristbands.
For those who are keen to take away a memory of the event, there is a 75-Swiss-franc (£67) gift box of four bottles of wine, one for each of the rebel bishops who will be consecrated.
The bottles of Syrah and Pinot Noir are decorated with emblems of a bishop’s authority: a ring, a cross, a crozier and a pointed white mitre hat.
Beyond the event’s businesslike appearance, the consecration of the four bishops is a direct challenge to the authority of Pope Leo XIV because Catholic doctrine says such an act is his prerogative.
In a last-ditch attempt to avert the rift, Leo published an open letter on Tuesday in which he implored the society not to consecrate the new bishops.
Warning the traditionalists that they were about to commit a “schismatic act”, he called the move a “sin of extreme gravity”.
“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Pope Leo wrote in a letter to Father Davide Pagliarani, the Italian head of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX).
Despite the entreaties, the SSPX is fully expected to continue its rebellion. “We’d need a miracle to stop them,” a senior Vatican prelate told an Italian newspaper.
In a document that was released in May titled A Declaration of Catholic Faith Addressed to Pope Leo XIV, Father Pagliarani set out the society’s objections to the teachings of the Church.
The Vatican is making “errors that are destroying Catholic faith and morals”, he wrote, identifying modernism and liberalism.
Listing what the rebel faction regards as the fundamental tenets of Catholicism, he wrote: “We would rather die than renounce them.”
The rebels know what they are getting themselves into.
In 1988, the founder of the SSPX, Marcel Lefebvre, a French bishop, consecrated four bishops without papal consent. He and the bishops were swiftly excommunicated by the Holy See.
History is about to repeat itself – only this time, the society is more powerful than it was in the 1980s.
It boasts more than 750 priests, 250 nuns and a following of around 600,000 people.
“It’s complicated because they’re putting Pope Leo in a difficult position,” said Martin Dumont, the general secretary of Sorbonne University’s Institute for Research into Religious Studies in Paris. “He’s concerned about not making things worse, about healing wounds – but he’s also obliged to take action.”
The society has six seminaries for the training of priests and runs schools, tertiary education facilities, missions and charitable projects. The SSPX amounts to a parallel, ultra-conservative Catholic Church.
In an attempt to bring the rebels back into the fold, a succession of popes made a series of compromises and concessions, but to no avail.
“From the Vatican, there has been a policy of détente,” said Prof Faggioli. “But the SSPX are now doubling down, saying there are fundamental differences with Rome. They argue that they are the true Church. Their position has become even harder, despite the overtures by the Vatican.”
‘Woodstock for traditionalists’
As the confrontation loomed, final preparations were under way for the gathering in Switzerland. It is shaping up to be a “Woodstock for traditionalists, a schism festival”, one Italian newspaper commented.
“It will be the first schism in the Catholic Church that will be live-streamed,” said La Repubblica.
Relations between Catholic traditionalists and the Vatican worsened under Pope Francis, whom many conservatives regarded as far too liberal. Pope Leo had been hoping to pacify the situation. But it is too late.
What’s more, the rebellion may embolden conservatives within the established Catholic Church.
“SSPX is not really the problem. The problem is the mainstream Catholics who sympathise with SSPX,” said Prof Faggioli.
“We will see how conservative Catholics react after July 1. I think it may make some of them more critical of Pope Leo.”