VATICAN CITY (RNS) — After an organization of traditionalist Catholic priests announced plans earlier this month to appoint new bishops without the approval of the pope, the Vatican’s doctrine department met with the head of the group on Thursday (Feb. 12) and later issued a statement warning against schism.

The appointment of bishops has long been a point of friction between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded in 1970 by the conservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a conservative French prelate who objected to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, the society consecrated four bishops without the approval of the Vatican, which then declared them automatically excommunicated. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications in 2009, and dialogue has been ongoing with the Vatican since then.

Today, the society, with nearly 1,500 members, is not in full communion with the church, but its priests’ ability to hear confessions and conduct marriages was recognized in 2017. According to the society, its following is growing, particularly in France, where most of its members live. But of the society’s 264 seminarians, 84 hail from the United States.

In an interview posted on the SSPX website, the group’s superior general, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, said he first wrote to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, last summer to request an audience with the Holy Father to discuss the society’s intentions. Pagliarani said he never received a reply. After writing again a few months later, he said, the dicastery responded but did not address the issue of bishops. 

“It was deemed necessary first that we approach the Holy See — which we did — and wait for a reasonable period for a response,” Pagliarani said.

The Vatican’s statement on Thursday said the meeting took place “with the blessing of Pope Leo XIV” and addressed the letters SSPX has sent to the doctrinal department going back to 2017. Fernandez “proposed a path of dialogue” centered on theological issues, the statement added. “The purpose of this process would be to highlight, in the topics discussed, the minimum requirements necessary for full communion with the Catholic Church,” it read, and “outline a canonical statute.” 

The statement made clear that this dialogue rests on the condition “that the Fraternity suspend the decision to carry out the announced episcopal ordinations.”

Fernandez asked that the entire church accompany this journey in prayer.

In his interview, Pagliarani said that the urgency of the episcopal appointments was due to the growth of the society, especially in the past decade. “In this critical context, our bishops are growing older, and, as the apostolate continues to expand, they are no longer sufficient to meet the demands of the faithful worldwide,” he said.

The society is named after Pope Pius X, known for his anti-modernist stance. It retains the Tridentine Mass in Latin, which was greatly restricted under Pope Francis.

“They’ve always been very careful to have it both ways — never quite fully breaking away, while also insisting they’re not in schism,” said Stephen Bullivant, co-author of the forthcoming book “Catholic Traditionalism in the United States,” which found that an estimated 100,000 to 110,000 Catholics attend a traditional Latin Mass on a typical Sunday in the U.S., constituting a small but highly visible minority.

Bullivant said that while the Vatican has been “remarkably patient” in allowing SSPX to retain some kind of bond with the official church, “it’s very hard to imagine Rome doing that again, because if it did, that situation would just go on forever.”

A dialogue with the Vatican would be on “Rome’s terms,” he said, which means the acceptance of the validity of the Second Vatican Council. “This feels like the last throw of the dice — an attempt to pull Rome’s bluff,” he added.