Pope Leo pleads with ultra-conservative sect not to ordain own bishops

Pontiff warns that defiance by Society of Saint Pius X would be ‘schismatic act’ Pope Leo has made a last-ditch attempt to persuade a rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics to abandon plans to ordain its own bishops without Vatican approval, calling the “schismatic act” a “sin of extreme gravity”. The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded in the Swiss village of Ecône in 1970 to oppose liberalising reforms in the Catholic church, plans to ordain four new bishops at its seminary there...

By Angela Giuffrida in Rome and agencies