SCHISM??
in this day and age?
okay SO four bishops have been ordained without approval of the pope in the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)(also sometimes known as Lefebrvistes after SSPX's founder Marcel Lefebvre)
How does the catholic church usually ordain a bishop?
You need at least three bishops to do the ordaining AND you need to have approval of the pope.
This Society is conservative and rejects more modern reforms of the church, like holding Mass in other languages than Latin (which was implemented in the 60s and 70s). The Society is originally from Switzerland but now has a large following in the US. The bishops who were ordained consisted of 2 American, 1 Swiss and 1 French bishop.
Correction: 1 American and 2 French! Thanks @atlasblue85 (source: https://share.google/EfZ4gi7JOAA2KzoLy (Vatican News))
The pope never approved those bishops to be ordained and warned the Society that ordaining them anyway would be a 'schismic act'
The last time the Society ordained bishops was in 1988, they were immediately excommunicated by the church, but this was rectified two decades later in hopes of repairing the relationships with the Society.
It is expected that these bishops will also be excommunicated, since going against the Pope's wishes is obviously a big deal.
Fun things (FUN I SAY) the Society insists on
Not recognising freedom of religion
Making priests face the altar and not the people like they did in medieval times when they're doing the mass
Mass in Latin only
Married women generally do not work
one of the former bishops (who got expulsed for being a Holocaust denier) said that women wearing trousers was 'an assault on their womanhood and a revolt against the prder willed by God'
Sources:
BBC news article
Wikipedia of the Society
















