Pope pleads with breakaway group to call off plan to consecrate new bishops

Leo issued the letter a day before the society planned to consecrate four new bishops at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland

Pope Leo XIV waves as he arrives at the Gran Canaria Gando airbase, in Gando, Gran Canaria, Spain, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV has begged a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics to call off plan to consecrate new bishops without his consent, calling the move a schismatic act and a “sin of extreme gravity”.

“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Leo wrote in a letter to the Rev Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St Pius X.