The society has since expanded to an estimated 600,000 adherents worldwide.
The current rift mirrors a 1988 incident where Archbishop Lefebvre similarly consecrated four bishops without papal authority, triggering automatic excommunications that Pope Benedict XVI later lifted in 2009 during an unresolved reconciliation effort.
The SSPX operates multiple seminaries, schools, and hundreds of chapels globally.
It maintains its American headquarters in Kansas and runs the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Dillwyn, Virginia, serving an estimated 25,000 adherents across the United States.
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While expressing deep sorrow over the formal rupture, the Holy See continues to pray that members of the breakaway society will one day be restored to full communion with the Catholic Church, according to CBS News.
