May 15, 2026 AD
Why does the SSPX need to consecrate bishops?
It’s a reasonable question. After all, none of the other traddy groups have their own bishops, and they seem to get along just fine.
The mission of the SSPX is to preserve the traditional Catholic priesthood, including formation, discipline, philosophy, and pastoral practice.
Archbishop Lefebvre sold this mission to Paul VI as the experiment of tradition.
During a time when it seemed anything could (and would) be changed, why not keep a
little side chapel in the Church of the New Advent for the old stuff?
Now, the preservation of the priesthood obviously requires the ability to ordain priests, and to do this requires a bishop.
Unfortunately, the SSPX continues to be Church’s loudest critic of Vatican II — the council that somehow changed both nothing and everything at the same time, and by which the Church now seeks to define herself.
Consequently, the SSPX is the third rail of the entire conciliar milieu. Archbishop Lefebvre was forbidden to ordain priests in 1976, but continued doing so. No conciliar bishop in his right mind is stepping up to ordain SSPX priests today. Could you imagine the headlines?
The FSSP and similar groups rely on TLM-friendly prelates like Cardinal Burke and Bishop Bruskewitz to confer priestly ordination, but these men are known to denounce the SSPX publicly. The only outsider who might even consider ordaining SSPX priests is Bishop Schneider.
And since everyone must return in due time
to the Novus Ordo according to Traditionis
Custodes, there is presently very little reason to think that Rome would even allow such
ordinations to take place.
So, if the SSPX is to continue to exist, they will need bishops to continue ordaining priests from their ever-growing classes of seminarians.
The SSPX has hundreds of thousands of lay faithful requiring the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Because SSPX bishops have no ordinary jurisdiction, they cannot delegate the task of Confirmation to SSPX priests. (Of course, any priest can administer Confirmation to someone in danger of death.)
The SSPX has only two aging bishops, but hundreds of chapels across six continents. A huge portion of their bishops’ time is spent traveling the world and slapping kids with Sacred Chrism.
You might argue that those people could receive Confirmation from just about anyone else. Why do they need the SSPX to do it?
Well, for whatever reason, those people have chosen the SSPX for their spiritual home — and the faculties granted by Rome in recent years have not exactly discouraged them from doing that. If you think it’s easy to call up a random parish and schedule Confirmation, I encourage you to give it a try!
There are very few bishops remaining who were consecrated in the Old Rite.
The bishops currently providing ordination to the FSSP, ICKSP, etc. were consecrated using the Novus Ordo formula, and in the context of the Novus Ordo Missae.
I’m not here to argue about validity of the Novus Ordo episcopal consecrations — but there’s obvious value for a group like the SSPX to maintain continuity with the traditional episcopal rites for the bishops that serve them.
In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops to guarantee continuity of the traditional priesthood.
Of the four original bishops, two have recently gone to their eternal reward. The remaining two are approaching their 70s.
Since the original excommunications, the SSPX has steadily grown — thanks in part to the Society’s quasi-regularization by Rome over the years.
Now, they have:
And after witnessing the Francis pontificate and the death of half their bishops, the man to decide their fate within the structures of the Church is…Cardinal Tucho Fernandez.
Given the current state of the Church, accepting a future without SSPX bishops is
tantamount to informing all their priests and faithful that it’s over.
Do I wish they had tried harder
to negotiate this time? Yes.
Is there much reason to believe that the end result would be any different? No.
And if you think the situation is less dire now than it was in 1988, you may want to do some research on the Overton Window.