While you might think that the Roman Catholic Church is a behemoth where everyone is kept on a very tight leash under the watchful all-seeing eye of the pontiff in charge, that’s not the reality. All around the edges of the organization there are groups pushing the limits to see if the holy ship of state can be nudged in a different direction.
For example, there are groups and people on the religious left who want to make the church more inclusive. The most well-known person is Fr. James J. Martin. Fr. Martin is not gay but he founded Outreach, an online space which advocates for the greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the church. It also includes a section which refutes the so-called “clobber passages” which some Christians incorrectly use to condemn LGBTQ+ people. Both Pope Francis and Pope Leo have been supportive of his work.
The current problem in Catholicism, you will not be surprised to learn, is on the right. There is a group that insists that it be allowed to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass, in opposition to the liturgy reforms of Vatican II, which Pope Leo has taken a slightly less oppositional stance to in comparison to Popes Francis and John Paul II. There is also the Opus Dei group, which largely made up of lay people, and which currently has an outsized role in American right wing politics.
But the group currently on the hot seat is the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) named after the pope who opposed change and modernity. They are a society strictly for priests and they have been an issue since Vatican II, when they were founded in 1970 and led by Fr. Marcel Lefebrve. I’m not going to do a history of the group because the salient point here is that Lefebrve wanted to start an ultra-conservative seminary and did an end run around all of the Vatican requirements to start one.
You know how that was going to end up. Lefebrve was told over and over that he had to stop, he refused to stop training would-be priests, and Pope John Paul II told him he was suspended. So in 1988 Lefebrve instead raised 4 priests to the level of bishop and JPII excomunnicated all of them. End of story, right? Nope. Pope Benedict reinstated everyone as before. But once Lefebrve died the Vatican and SSPX began talks to see how they could resolve their differences.
Now we all know extremists don’t change their spots and that leads us to July 2, when 2 SSPX bishops consecrated 4 new bishops in Switzerland. Here’s a useful summary:
sospx: so anyway you're not the boss of ussospx: you can't tell us what to dosospx: i mean ha ha like what are you even going to dosospx: like excommunicate us or something ha haPope Leo: yeah, you're excommunicatedsospx: [surprised pikachu face]
— The Midnight Society (@midnightpals.bsky.social) 2026-07-05T15:04:32.234Z
Yep. We got a schism right here in Vatican City, and that begins with S, and that that rhymes duress, and that stands for excommunication. The more things change the more we get schism and excommunication. And I am so here for it.
I am an ex-Catholic, yes, but the vast majority of problems I had with the church came from people like Lefebvre and SSPX and Opus Dei. These are the weirdo extremists who think it is their job to turn the Catholic church into just another hate group, and they almost got their wish with Pope Benedict.
But the American pope is not going to put up with any of their crap, and the excommunication extends not just the 6 bishops involved in the Swiss ordination, but also all SSPX priests and any lay members who knew what was going on was wrong. To be let back in as members Because to get back into full communion they will need to find another priest or bishop who will vouch that they understand what they did and that they have sincerely repented, and they must write a handwritten letter to the Pope apologizing for what they did. (Notice how the AI option was removed from their acts of contrition.) Oh and they have to formally accept that Vatican II happened and that they will stop their shit. (I’m paraphrasing.)
So far the SSPX leadership is resisting. But reality is soon going to set in for them, because they no longer have parishes, so they no longer have funding, salaries, or pulpits. And some of their parishioners are finding out that some of their marriages are now invalid. And because these are devout religious people, this does mean something to them.
All of this is pretty amazing from a church and world history point of view. But what I am interested in is how the American Pope goes forward with other right wing Catholic groups, like Opus Dei which is much too involved with the GOP. So far Pope Leo has had no problem calling out Trump and has been remarkably restrained about the extended insubordination of JD Vance. I hope Leo’s not done swinging for the fences yet.
I’ll leave you with this:
