Pope's Final SSPX Appeal Squeezed by a Crowded Week

The last full week of June sees the Pontiff undertake a busy schedule, meeting Synod teams, leading the consistory and presumably making his final “appeal” to prevent the SSPX episcopal consecrations.

Monday morning saw Leo XIV host a number of audiences at the Vatican, before departing to the United Nations for his speech at the World Food Program office. The schedule of the morning set the tone for the week to come, a week marked by a great many key events including the second consistory of the pontificate.

First on his appointment list for Monday was a joint audience between Cardinals Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; and George Jacob Koovakad, Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue. Leo had met with Fernández most recently on Friday, and the joint audience he held today with Koch and Koovakad suggests a discussion relating to some points of ecumenical unity – a topic which Leo has prioritized since the start of his papacy.

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Of those three, Fernández is the prelate whom one would expect Leo to spend time with this week, given that last Tuesday the Pope announced he would make a “another appeal” to the SSPX attempting to convince them away from the episcopal consecrations.

“Don’t do this, let’s try to live the communion of the Church,” Leo summarized his intended message. Fernández has thus far led the ill-fated Holy See negotiations with the Society – a decision deemed questionable in its wisdom given that he is behind a number of documents that the SSPX (and many others) have highlighted as presenting immense doctrinal concerns.

The planned episcopal consecrations are just over a week away and the logistical preparations by the SSPX suggest no anticipation of them being cancelled.

But the Pope will not have much time to focus on this issue. Already on Monday morning he met with youth at the Vatican’s annual summer camp and then the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation.

Tuesday is his official dies non, perhaps the best opportunity to address his appeal to the SSPX. Wednesday is heavily dominated by the General Audience, and Thursday sees him meet with Synod officials and bishops. Friday and Saturday are given entirely to the consistory, while on Monday he celebrates the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul with Mass in the Vatican and blessing the new palliums. In short, between now and July 1 the Pope has ensured that his diary is busy.

During his Monday morning audience with the Foundation – named after Venerable Jérôme Lejeune who served as the first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life at direct request of John Paul II – Leo decried the facilitation of anti-life practices in the medical profession.

“The value of the person does not depend on what they achieve or produce,” he stated, adding that “this is why a doctor should never allow himself, on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide the life of a particular embryo or an elderly person. Medicine will never be able to become the servant of planned death.”

Bioethicists and moral theologians have increasingly lamented that, due to Pope Francis’ revolution, the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) and its sister body the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, have betrayed the intentions of its founder. Such has been the assessment of Monsignor Livio Melina. Issuing a new treatise in response to an interview by former PAV president Archbishop Paglia, Melina commented how Paglia’s leadership was “aimed at a radical paradigm shift, which for the first time is recognized as being located not only at the pastoral but also at the doctrinal level.”