Despite its opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist Catholic group founded in 1970, recognizes the pope as legitimate. The group does not consider him to be an antipope. However, because the group defied the pope’s authority in 1988 by consecrating its own bishops without papal approval, its actions were declared schismatic and its bishops were excommunicated. In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication, but in 2026 the group consecrated four new bishops without the church’s permission, which was deemed a schismatic act by the Vatican. The SSPX bishops were automatically excommunicated.
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