By the Canon of Shaftesbury, a judicial vicar in a major archdiocese.
The question is whether the Decree and Explanatory Note issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) on July 2, 2026 actually accomplished what many have said, namely, the excommunication of six bishops, over seven hundred priests, and an unspecified number of the faithful. The short answer, reading the documents against the Code of Canon Law, is that they did not.
The Decree itself names six individuals: four newly consecrated bishops, the principal consecrator (Bishop de Galarreta), and a co-consecrator (Bishop Fellay). The charge against the first five rests on CIC can. 1387, which imposes a latae sententiae excommunication on any bishop who consecrates without a pontifical mandate, and on the one receiving such consecration.
It is noteworthy that Bishop Fellay is charged not under can. 1387 but under can. 1364 §1, the general schism provision. This is a legally significant divergence. The Code does not automatically treat unauthorized episcopal consecration as schism. Cardinal Fernández's invocation of Ecclesia Dei Adflicta (1988) to characterize the act as schismatic relies on a logical leap (from an act of disobedience to a wholesale rejection of papal primacy, but it is not a true leap, since they have reaffirmed their fidelity to the Holy Father) that the text of can. 751 does not support. Canon 751 defines schism as a withdrawal of submission: a total, wilful repudiation of authority, not a single act of disobedience. Disobedience and schism are distinct offenses. One can say ‘I cannot do this’ while still acknowledging an authority; that is not the same as saying ‘You have no authority over me.’
Also there has to be a distinction between incurring a penalty and declaring a penalty. Latae sententiae penalties are automatic in the internal forum; they attach at the moment the offense is committed, assuming all conditions of imputability are met. However, this is not the same as a declared penalty. Can. 1720 requires that before any penalty is declared, the accused must be: 1) informed of the charge and the evidence; 2) given an opportunity to defend himself; and 3) judged in a decree that states the reasons in law and in fact. Can. 1341 further requires that all pastoral remedies (correction, rebuke, dialogue) be exhausted before penal process begins.
None of this was done for the priests of the Society. It seems that there is an air of bad faith in the way the whole decree was written and presented. No priest was named individually. No accusation was communicated. No opportunity for defense was offered. The practical consequence of this omission is decisive: Can. 1335 §2 provides that where a latae sententiae censure has not been declared, a member of the faithful may request sacraments or sacramental acts for any just reason, and the minister is not barred from providing them. The desire for valid sacraments, orthodox doctrine, and reverent worship (which even John Paul II acknowledged as ‘rightful aspirations’ in Ecclesia Dei §5) plainly constitutes just cause.
There are also challenges with the Explanatory Note. An Explanatory Note accompanying a Decree is not a law, not a decree, not a penal precept, and not a judicial sentence. It is a doctrinal commentary. Can. 7 states that a law must be promulgated. Can. 8 §1, universal laws are promulgated through the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, with a standard vacatio legis (waiting period, usually three months) before taking effect. The Note was published in a PDF document and meets none of these requirements.
Can. 18 demands strict interpretation of any instrument that imposes a penalty or restricts rights. Strict interpretation here means the instrument means exactly what it says; no more, no less, and ambiguity must be resolved in favour of the accused. The Note cannot extend the Decree's penalties by assertion, and it cannot convert a warning into a declaration.
Can 29 and Can. 30 further foreclose the note's reach: a general decree binding a community requires legislative authority, which the DDF, as an executive dicastery, does not possess without an express papal grant. No such grant is cited in the Note. The DDF's claim to ‘make its own’ a 1996 opinion of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts does not cure these defects. That 1996 text was never submitted for authentic interpretation under Can. 16 §1, was never promulgated in the Acta, and remains a non-binding doctrinal opinion. Adopting an opinion by reference does not convert it into law.
Furthermore the Decree's own grammar/text defeats broad application. The Decree, addressing priests and faithful beyond the six named bishops, does not state that they are excommunicated. It warns that they would incur excommunication by adhering to the schism. This is a conditional warning about future conduct, not a declaration of present censure. The Note then shifts, without explanation, into the present indicative, asserting that Society ministers are in schism and are subject to censure. The two documents, issued the same day over the same signatures, are grammatically and legally inconsistent.
Under Can. 18, where two penal texts conflict, the narrower, less punitive reading must prevail and be applied. The conditional language of the Decree controls; the Note's indicative assertions cannot retroactively transform a warning into a verdict.
Also procedurally/legally, a group excommunication is not possible in this way. It violates canonical praxis. Can. 1321 §1 requires that any penalty presuppose a gravely imputable external violation: one committed with malice or culpability in the particular case. Canons 1323–1324 enumerate circumstances (including inculpable ignorance of the law or of the attached penalty, grave fear, and necessity) that eliminate or reduce imputability. These are not optional considerations; under the principle of strict interpretation (lex odiosa restringida sunt), excusing circumstances are presumed operative unless positively proven otherwise. No such proof was offered or addressed for any individual priest or lay person.
The requirement of individual accusation, individual defense, and a case-specific finding under Can. 1720 cannot be satisfied by a single document addressed to a collective. The attempt to do so is not merely procedurally defective; it inverts the canonical praxis and presumption. The burden falls on the accuser to prove that excusing circumstances do not apply and not on the accused to demonstrate that they do.
There is also a double standard at play here. This also deserves canonical grounding. The strict procedural requirements of canons 1341, 1720, and 1321 exist precisely to ensure that no one is penalized without due process. These requirements have been rigorously enforced here in their breach. A dicastery that 1) issues collective condemnations without individual accusation, 2) applies a doctrinal text as though it were promulgated law, 3) ignores mandatory excusing clauses, and 4) contradicts its own Decree in the same breath cannot credibly claim fidelity to the law it invokes.
Whatever one's view of the positions that have drawn no comparable penal response in recent decades, the disparity in treatment is a matter of observable record. The Code demands the same procedural rigor regardless of the subject matter. Where that rigor is selectively applied, the law's authority is undermined, not by those who resist the penalty, but by those who impose it improperly.
Finally, the it is noteworthy that the sacramental validity of sacraments offered by the SSPX is unaffected. The validity of SSPX confessions and marriages does not rest on the excommunication question at all.
Confessional faculties were granted by papal act in Misericordia et Misera §12 (2016) of Pope Francis; marriage delegation was confirmed by an Ecclesia Dei letter in 2017. The note revokes neither by name. Under Can. 21, repeal of a prior law is never presumed. A dicastery cannot derogate a papal act without specific papal authorization, and none is cited. Even in the event of future revocation, Can 144 supplies jurisdiction in cases of common error or positive and probable doubt. Given the decades of contradictory statements from authoritative curial sources about the Society's legal status, both positive doubt and common error are readily available to priests and faithful acting in good faith.
Conclusion
The Decree of July 2, 2026 accomplished one thing: it named six bishops as having incurred latae sententiae excommunication, consistent with the Church's practice since 1988. It did not declare the excommunication of any priest, and the note that purports to extend that condemnation is not a legally operative instrument. Three pontificates have consistently treated Society priests as canonically irregular but not excommunicated; a non-binding Explanatory Note does not change that situation.
The faithful who attend SSPX Masses and seek the Society's sacraments have not been excommunicated. The censure against the named bishops, even if valid, has not been declared against the priests; an undeclared censure does not impede the faithful from seeking sacraments for just cause under can. 1335 §2; and the confessional and matrimonial faculties previously granted by papal act remain in effect. Nothing in the July 2 documents changes the practical canonical situation for the faithful.
