In the photo, the two clergymen in cassocks wore almost benevolent smiles, suggesting that the meeting they had just had, on Thursday, February 12, had been cordial. Yet, relations between Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the dicastery – the Vatican’s equivalent of a ministry – of the Doctrine of the Faith, whose mission is to uphold orthodoxy within the Catholic Church, and his guest, Don Davide Pagliarani, superior general of the Society of Saint Pius X (in Latin: Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X, FSSPX), a traditionalist and ultraconservative organization, remained extremely tense.

The two men met in Rome to discuss the Society of Saint Pius X’s intention, announced on February 2, to ordain new bishops without the approval of the Holy See. The Catholic Church, however, requires papal approval for an episcopal consecration to be valid. Defying this requirement would constitute a schismatic act that would separate the FSSPX from the Roman Catholic Church. If they carried out their plan, the FSSPX prelates would be automatically excommunicated.

This was confirmed by the Vatican’s response on Thursday. The pope holds “supreme, full, universal, immediate and direct ordinary power” in this matter, and episcopal ordinations without his approval “would entail a decisive break in ecclesial communion with grave consequences for the Society as a whole,” Cardinal Fernandez said in a statement following the meeting. Rome, he specified, is ready to engage in theological dialogue, but on the express condition that the Society “suspends the decision to proceed with the announced episcopal ordinations.”

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