Pope Leo XIV faces crisis as a traditionalist group plans bishop consecrations without consent

Pope Leo XIV is facing his first major crisis with traditionalist Catholics, after a breakaway group attached to the traditional Latin Mass announced plans to consecrate new bishops without papal consent in a threatened revival of schism. The Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X, which has schools, chapels and seminaries around the world, has been a thorn in the side of the Holy See for four decades, opposed to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council. In 1988, the group’s founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops without papal consent, arguing that it was necessary for the survival of the church's tradition.