Bp. Eleganti blasts SSPX ‘schismatic mindset’ as Bp. Schneider says excommunication would be invalid

(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Marian Eleganti has opposed Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s view that an excommunication imposed on the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) following their planned episcopal consecrations would be invalid.

Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, and former apostolic visitor of the Holy See to the Society of Saint Pius X, stated earlier this week that a possible excommunication of the Society following its planned consecrations on July 1 would be invalid because the SSPX leadership does not intend to perform a schismatic act.

Eleganti, emeritus bishop of Chur in Switzerland, responded to Schneider’s view in comments given to the Catholic Herald. He argued that the absence of a declared intention to separate from Rome would not alter the act’s objective schismatic nature.

“To declare a questionable intention doesn’t help,” Eleganti said. “It’s a way, saying that they don’t intend schism, to deceive people about the objective schismatic nature and effect of such an act of disobedience.”

“That’s a ploy to practice total autonomy while pretending to be in union with the Pope. It is in fact not the case so long as the Pope does not accept or authorise these consecrations,” Eleganti continued, adding, “It’s not about what they [SSPX leadership] claim or declare, but about the facts they create.” “It’s not primarily about intentions but about objective facts and behaviour.”

Eleganti outlined four points that he believes demonstrate that the SSPX acts independently from the authority of the Church.

“Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and the episcopal college; thirdly, maintaining hundreds of priests who are not incardinated; and finally, existing in a kind of jurisdictional nirvana through self-authorization, considering themselves the only true Catholics, with the only true sacraments, at least without defects, and the only true doctrine,” he stated.

Eleganti argued that the SSPX’s structures resemble a parallel church that has separated itself from the Catholic Church.

“They claim not to want a Church beside the Church while creating one and behaving in a way that corresponds exactly to that,” he noted.

WATCH: Bishop Schneider says SSPX excommunication would be invalid – Eleganti rejects

Schneider had argued during a recent private gathering of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima that, “if the excommunication would be applied, it would be in some way not valid because there is no intention to do a schismatic act on the side of the Society of Pius X, and you cannot be punished when you have not the intention to do it, according to the canon law.”

According to Schneider, the decisive factor in judging the canonical situation of the planned consecrations concerns the intention of the bishops involved. “There is no intention from the leadership of the SSPX to separate themselves from Rome,” Schneider said.

Against this, Eleganti claimed that the Society may not genuinely seek canonical unity with Rome, as doing so would undermine its independence.

“It is insincere because, to be truthful about it, they don’t want any regularization,” he argued. “That would mean losing their autonomy and submitting themselves to what they consider an erroneous universal Church. And that is in effect exactly a schismatic mindset and behaviour.”