“Through exclusive testimonies and previously unseen images, the film revisits the reasons for these episcopal consecrations, their preparations, the unfolding of the ceremony and the reactions it aroused,” FSSPX News announced Tuesday.
The consecrations of four new SSPX bishops on July 1 triggered the Vatican’s declaration of automatic excommunications of its new total of six bishops. The SSPX has defended the consecrations as necessary to preserve the essential work of the Society, in service of the salvation souls.
The film is titled Salus Animarum in honor of this “principle to which the SSPX intends to remain faithful: the salvation of souls is the supreme law,” the Society explained.
The documentary will air on November 1, All Saints Day, on the SSPX’s official YouTube channel.
The SSPX is rejected canonical regularization by the Vatican because it insists it has a duty to clearly call out Vatican II’s apparent contradictions of perennial Church teaching such as its statement that “the human person has a right to religious freedom.”
Canon lawyer Father Gerald Murray has pointed out that the Vatican’s document pronouncing the excommunications does not have legal effect in excommunicating any SSPX priests or laypeople attending their Masses.
In addition, the SSPX has filed a preliminary canonical appeal against the Vatican decree of excommunication issued on July 2, suspending its force under canon law.