Two excommunicated traditionalist bishops plan to consecrate a new generation of bishops to spread their movement which is dubbed “The Resistance”.
According to Reuters, French Bishop Jean-Michel Faure said the new group rejected Pope Francis and what it called his “new religion”.
Bishop Faure and Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson both incurred automatic excommunications last month after the latter consecrated the former without Rome’s approval.
Bishop Faure also said the new group would not engage in dialogue with Rome until the Vatican turned back the clock.
“We follow the popes of the past, not the current one,” Bishop Faure, 73, told reporters at Santa Cruz Monastery near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
“It is likely that in maybe one or two years we will have more consecrations,” he said, adding there were two candidates ready to become bishops.
Bishop Williamson and Fr Faure had both been expelled from the Society of St Pius X.
Bishop Williamson has said he does not wish to start a new movement.
Bishop Faure said the Resistance group would not engage in dialogue with Rome, as the SSPX has done.
“We resist capitulation, we resist conciliation of St Pius X with Rome,” he said.
Bishop Faure said he was not sure what it would take for Rome to return to its old traditions but conflict could be a catalyst.
“If there is another World War . . . maybe the Church will go back to the way it was before,” he said.
Bishop Faure told the Guardian the Vatican was smashing tradition, and going against the teachings of Pius X.
“We do not follow that revolution. The current pope is preaching doctrine denied by Pius X. He is less Catholic than us,” Bishop Faure said.
The Vatican’s response to the ordination was unequivocal.
“Excommunication is automatic,” a spokesman said.
He added: “For the Holy See, the diocese of Santa Cruz in Nova Friburgo does not exist. Faure can say what he wants, but a Catholic, and even more so a bishop, obeys and respects the Pope.”
Sources