Écône consecrations

The consecrations, performed against the explicit orders of Pope John Paul II, represented a milestone in the troubled relationship of Lefebvre and the SSPX with the Church leadership.

On 24 January 2009, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four bishops Lefebvre had consecrated in 1988, but the SSPX has not returned into full communion with the Holy See.

The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts rejected this argument, stating in a 1996 explanatory note that "there is never a necessity to ordain Bishops contrary to the will of the Roman Pontiff".

[4] Consecrating a bishop without papal approval was also condemned by Pope Pius XII after the Chinese government set up the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association in 1957.

Pius XII stated in Ad Apostolorum principis that the sacramental activity of illicitly consecrated bishops was "gravely" so, "that is, criminal and sacrilegious", and rejected the defence of necessity put forward by those involved.

Lefebvre was now promised that the Pope would appoint a bishop from among the members of the SSPX, chosen according to the normal procedures and that the consecration would take place on 15 August, at the close of the Marian year.

On the Pope's instructions, Ratzinger replied on 30 May to Lefebvre concerning these requests, "[O]n the question of the commission, whose purpose was to favour reconciliation, not to make decisions, the Holy Father [i.e., the Pope] thought it best to keep to the agreement that Lefebvre had signed on 5 May"; on the question of the ordination of bishops, the Pope reiterated his readiness to speed up the usual process so as to nominate a member of the Society to be consecrated on 15 August, and Lefebvre was asked to provide the necessary information on candidates for this purpose, but, Ratzinger added, "Since you have announced again recently your intention to ordain three bishops on 30 June with or without the agreement of Rome, you must state clearly that you entrust yourself to the Holy Father's decision in full obedience".

Accordingly, when Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy presented a revised edition of the Vatican's Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, he stated that "[t]he situation of the members of [the SSPX] is an internal matter of the Catholic Church".

[33] Fellay, superior general of SSPX, issued a statement in which the society expressed its "filial gratitude to the Holy Father for this gesture which, beyond the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, will benefit the whole Church", and that the "[SSPX] wishes always to be more able to help the pope to remedy the unprecedented crisis which presently shakes the Catholic world, and which Pope John Paul II had designated as a state of 'silent apostasy'".

The inclusion of this bishop presented problems for Catholic-Jewish relations, culminating in the Chief Rabbinate of Israel temporarily severing ties with the Vatican in protest.

[35] On 19 March 2015 Williamson was excommunicated latae sententiae following his unauthorized ordination of Jean-Michel Faure as a bishop in Nova Friburgo, Brazil.