Excommunication not the end for traditionalist sect, Vatican expert says

Parishioners from nine ultra-conservative Catholic churches in Minnesota are facing potential sanctions from the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV on Thursday officially excluded the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X from official sacraments, including officiating marriage and confession. The official term is excommunication.

Excommunication is a rare and serious penalty in Catholicism. It does not mean a person is no longer Catholic, but it does bar them from receiving the sacraments and from certain forms of participation in church life until they are reconciled with the church.

Parishioners from Our Lady of the Visitation in St. Paul are among those facing potential sanctions. Our Lady of the Visitation parishioner Vincent Hernandez said he chose to continue attending because the society is following what he considers more traditional Catholic practices.

“Modernism, this idea, this heresy that you can do, you can do anything, you can live your life anyway, and you're totally fine, you're going to be able to go to heaven,” he said. “So, this newer side of Catholicism is like, yeah, it's okay, like, we can, we can just get along, but it's, like traditional Catholicism, we're trying to maintain, like, simply what the church has taught"

Hernandez said he felt terrible when he first heard about the excommunication. While he understands why the Vatican excommunicated the clergy, he said he does not believe it was fair because “we believe the Society of St. Pius X is the Catholic Church.”

Vatican historian and scholar Massimo Faggioli said the Vatican issued steps for St. Pius X churches to reenter the Catholic Church, it just depends on whether they’ll follow suit.

“Excommunication is not a definitive penalty, it is a medicinal penalty,” Faggioli, a Villanova University professor who taught previously at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, told MPR News.

The Society of St. Pius X was founded in 1970 after a refusal to accept the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, in the 1960s, which acknowledged other religions like Christianity and Judaism as legitimate faiths. Since then, it has been excommunicated twice, including the most recent occurrence.

Theresa Stadheim said she has attended Our Lady of Visitation for six years. Sunday’s Mass was the first she had attended in a couple of weeks. She said questions about the validity of marriages and confessions involving SSPX clergy worry her.

“I hope I'm not wrong, because there's a pope — I worry that what if there's something really there that I should not be coming here, but I think I should be,” she said. “So, I feel like in my soul, I should be going to Latin Mass.”

Stadheim said going against the pope feels scary, but she remains confident in her decision to support the society.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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