Gibson wrote a letter addressed to Viganò on the blog of traditionalist publicist Aldo Maria Valli.

In his letter Gibson referred to Pope Francis by his birth name, Jorge Bergoglio, and commended Viganò as a "courageous hero".

"I'm sure you expected nothing else from Jorge Bergoglio.

"I know that you know he has no authority whatsoever - so I'm not sure how this will effect you going forward - I hope you will continue to say mass and receive the sacraments yourself - it really is a badge of honour to be shunned by the false, post-conciliar church" Gibson wrote.

"Of course being called a schismatic and being excommunicated by Jorge Bergoglio is like a badge of honour when you consider he is a total apostate and expels you from a false institution."

Gibson went on to say that the current pope is the schismatic.

"Remember that true schism requires innovation, something you have not done but something that Bergoglio does with every breath.

"He, therefore, is the schismatic!

"However he already ipso facto excommunicated himself by his many public heresies."

Gibson also mentioned that he had built a church where only traditional prayers are held and invited Viganò to celebrate mass there.

He dismissed Pope Francis's authority to excommunicate Viganò and expressed hope that he would also be excommunicated.

Support for Viganò

Since his excommunication, Viganò has garnered support from other prominent figures.

US Bishop Joseph Strickland criticised the Vatican's decision, pointing out the disparity between Viganò's quick excommunication and the lack of action against Theodore McCarrick despite his crimes.

Strickland, who was removed from the leadership of the Tyler diocese in November last year, called for a re-evaluation of the Vatican's actions, suggesting that Viganò's removal was intended to silence him.

Actor Jim Caviezel, known for his role as Jesus in Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," also supported Viganò. Caviezel urged people to pray for Viganò and described him as a fighter for the truth.

The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced Viganò's excommunication, citing his refusal to recognise and submit to both the Pope and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Viganò waived his right to defence, instead accusing Pope Francis of schism and heresy.

Sources

English Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

He was the papal nuncio in Washington from 2011-2016.

In 2018 Viganò reportedly hid after alleging Pope Francis and other senior clerics knew of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct for years and did nothing about it.

He called for the Pope to resign, saying Francis was a "false prophet" and a "servant of Satan."

Summoned to the Vatican

The Vatican rejected the 83-yer old Viganò's accusations of a Vatican cover-up of sexual misconduct. It summoned him to answer charges of schism and of denying the pope's legitimacy.

On Friday, the Vatican doctrinal office said Viganò's public comments showed he refused "to recognise and submit" to the Pope.

Viganò had also rejected the Second Vatican Council's liberal reforms. They were not legitimate, he claimed.

"At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict (violation of the law) of schism" the Vatican said in a statement.

He has been excommunicated from the Church the Vatican announced.

Unrepentant Viganò

In a message on X, Viganò remained unrepentant, publishing the full text of the decision against him, which warned that he could be expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood if he persisted in his stance.

He urged Catholic faithful to voice their support for him, quoting Jesus in the New Testament: "If they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting".

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, head of the Doctrine of the Faith office, and its secretary Father John Joseph Kennedy, signed the Vatican ruling.

Although - as is usual in such cases - the Pope did not sign the announcement, it is said to be "highly unlikely that the punishment was meted out without his approval.

Attacking the pope

Viganò, who mostly communicates via the X social network, announced last month that he had refused to take part in the Vatican disciplinary proceedings.

"I do not recognise the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its Prefect, nor of the one who appointed him," he said, referring to Fernandez and Francis.

Viganò referred to Francis only by his surname "Bergoglio" and accused him of representing an "inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable and gay-friendly" Church.

The Church has strayed from its true message, he wrote.

Francis has angered many conservatives with his attitude to divorcees and the LGBT community. Mercy and forgiveness should come before the strict enforcement of Catholic doctrine, he says.

Conservatives and traditionalists are also disturbed by Francis' championing of migrant rights, fighting climate change and condemning capitalism's excesses.

Source

• NBC

Italian Archbishop Carlo María Viganò is also undergoing a Vatican extrajudicial process for schism.

Just what are schism and excommunication in the Catholic Church? An explanation follows.

Schism

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, schism is:

"the rupture of ecclesiastical union and unity, i.e. either the act by which one of the faithful severs as far as in him lies the ties which bind him to the social organization of the Church and make him a member of the mystical body of Christ, or the state of dissociation or separation which is the result of that act."

Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states that schism is "the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

Canon 1364 stipulates that the penalty for this crime is excommunication "latae sententiae," i.e., automatically upon the commission of the offense.

Excommunication

Briefly, excommunication can be defined as the most serious penalty a baptized person can incur.

It consists of being placed outside the communion of the faithful of the Catholic Church and denied access to the sacraments.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states that excommunication is "a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society."

"Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offense.

The encyclopedia also explains "It is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended not so much to punish the culprit as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness,".

Why is a person excommunicated? Read more

• Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa

While acknowledging Viganò's public opposition as "irreverent and disrespectful", Schneider cautioned that the act of excommunication could potentially deepen the existing divisions within the Church.

"I think the pope would be wise and prudent if he were not to excommunicate Archbishop Viganò" Schneider told Religion News Service. "With this act, the Holy See will increase divisions even more" he added.

Viganò faces charges of schism, which can lead to the Church excommunicating him after being summoned by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to a trial on June 28. He dismissed the trial as "fake" and reiterated his criticism of Pope Francis and the Vatican.

In the interview, Schneider suggested that Vatican officials should seek a private dialogue with Viganò to resolve differences without resorting to judicial measures. He lamented Viganò's disrespectful language but noted that the Church was already struggling with internal divisions.

Increasingly radical statements

Viganò, formerly the papal nuncio to the United States, gained prominence in 2018 with a letter accusing Pope Francis of covering up sexual abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. His subsequent statements have become increasingly radical, denouncing the Second Vatican Council, condemning COVID-19 vaccines and praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Viganò also claimed that Pope Francis' election was illegitimate, causing many conservative prelates to distance themselves from him.

"He is in error, because he is voicing a new theory of the probably invalid theory of Francis' illegitimate election" Schneider said.

"I think that today the church has so much internal division that it would be imprudent, even if there is some canonical ground to judge Archbishop Viganò."

In his interview, Schneider emphasised that his criticisms stem from sincere concern for the Church and the Pope. He stressed the duty of bishops to speak out when they believe the head of the Church is in error, asserting that only God is his ultimate judge.

While Pope Francis has invited dialogue and criticism, he has also acted against conservative dissenters.

Last year, Francis asked Cardinal Raymond Burke to leave his Vatican apartments and removed Bishop Joseph Strickland from his diocese in Tyler, Texas. Schneider defended Strickland, calling the accusations against him disproportionate.

Sources

Religion News Service

CathNews New Zealand

Canonical criminal trial

The Vatican's Department for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, asked that the prelate present himself for an abbreviated canonical criminal trial accompanied by a legal representative.

The Vatican document summons said that Viganò's public denials of Pope Francis' legitimacy and his rejection of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council no longer allow him to be in communion with the Church.

In a statement posted on the website Exsurge Domine, Viganò didn't deny the accusation:

Referring to the Pope, as he often has, by his given name — Jorge Mario Bergoglio — rather than his papal name, the papal critic accused the pontiff of being a "false prophet."

He repudiated the Second Vatican Council, which sought to reconcile the Catholic Church with the changing society and challenges of the 1960s, as "neo-modernist errors."

He dismissed the legitimacy of the trial as well. "I assume the sentence is already ready, given the extrajudicial trial," Viganò wrote.

"I consider the accusations against me to be a matter of honor. I believe that the very wording of the accusations confirms the theses that I have defended on several occasions in my interventions."

Excommunication possible

It remains unclear whether Viganò will attend the trial.

The Vatican document said that if he would not attend, a Vatican canon lawyer would represent him.

If found guilty of schism, he would be subject to "excommunication latae sententiae," an automatic penalty that would prohibit the prelate from performing and receiving the sacraments.

In 2018, Viganò published a lengthy and fiery letter accusing Francis of having covered for Theodore McCarrick, a onetime cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., after men came forward to accuse McCarrick of having committed sexual abuse.

At the time, Viganò said he had repeatedly warned the Church hierarchy of the abuse and called for Francis' resignation.

The Vatican answered by conducting its own investigation into the McCarrick case, which found that the Pope had demoted and punished McCarrick when he became aware of the accusations.

McCarrick, who was already retired, was defrocked by Francis in 2019.

In 2024 a court suspended the trial of the 93-year-old for the abuse of a young man in 1977.

The scandal, however, proved deeply divisive in the church, and Viganò has been living in an undisclosed location.

Pro Trump, Putin, anti Pope

Viganò, an effective Vatican functionary who once served as papal representative in the United States, slowly moved closer to more conservative and eventually conspiratorial wings of the church and American society.

He supported President Donald Trump's claim that the 2020 election had been fraudulent and more recently hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as the savior of Christianity, while continuing to attack Francis.

"I repudiate, reject and condemn the scandals, errors and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the goal which legitimises Authority in the Church," Viganò wrote in his online statement.

In the statement he calls calling the Pope's management of the Church "a self-referential tyranny."

Vatican crackdown

In recent months, Francis and the Vatican have been cracking down on the Vatican's most outspoken critics.

Firebrand Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, was ousted from his diocese last year after an investigation of his statements criticising the Pope.

Strickland's ouster has not diminished his standing as the de facto leader of the conservative faction in the Church.

Papal critic Cardinal Raymond Burke, another American conservative, was stripped of his pension and forced to leave his Vatican apartment around the same time.

Asked to comment on Viganò's statement, the second most powerful prelate at the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told reporters that the archbishop must answer for his public attitudes and actions.

"I am very sorry because I always appreciated him as a great worker, very faithful to the Holy See, someone who was, in a certain sense, also an example.

"When he was apostolic nuncio he did good work," he told Vatican journalists on Thursday.

"I don't know what happened," he said.

• First published in Religion News Service44
• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.

Conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing says under half of Germany's citizens still belong to Christian denominations.

Evangelisation in Germany has been a central theme since the time of Pope St John Paul II he says.

"But the other half [who aren't Christian] are not simply faithless or don't ask any questions and, in this respect, I believe we need to do much more" Bätzing says.

"We should get in touch with these people, talk to them without being intrusive. The times of a mission with a negative tone are over, but speaking and answering questions about the hope that fills us, as the letter to the Hebrews says, is part of Christianity."

Losses by the number

Bätzing's own Diocese of Limburg exemplifies the reduction in the Catholic faithful of Germany.

In 2016, over 630,000 Catholics resided in Limburg. By 2022, there were fewer than 540,000.

The overall Catholic population in Germany has likewise significantly decreased.

In 2020, there were approximately 22.19 million Catholics among the country's 83 million population. By 2022, this number had fallen to 20.94 million.

Projecting the future

In 2019, scientists at the University of Freiburg predicted the number of Christians paying church tax (a requirement for practising Christians) in Germany would halve by 2060.

The Bishops' Conference says that within three years over 500,000 baptised Catholics had left the Church.

At that time, Bätzing wrote on his diocese's website that the "alarming" figures showed the necessity of continued "cultural change" and for the German Synodal Way resolutions to be implemented.

However the German Synodal Way, which has advocated for significant changes, has not changed the haemorrhaging Church numbers.

In 2021 CNA Deutsch reported that a third of Catholics in Germany were considering leaving the Church.

Older people cited the Church's handling of the abuse crisis. An earlier study had said that younger people didn't want to pay church tax.

Excommunication and evangelisation

The German Bishops' Conference says leaving the Church results in automatic excommunication.

Many theologians and canon lawyers disagree with this view.

Pope Francis prefers to focus on evangelisation.

He wrote to German Catholics in 2019, urging them to focus on evangelisation amid a "growing erosion and deterioration of faith".

Relying solely on internal strengths doesn't work, he wrote.

"Every time an ecclesial community has tried to get out of its problems alone, relying solely on its own strengths, methods and intelligence, it has ended up multiplying and nurturing the evils it wanted to overcome."

In September 2021, a motion to emphasise evangelisation was narrowly passed.

Exactly a year later, Bätzing said the shortest definition of religion was "interruption".

Some forms of continuity which people seek from religion are "frankly suspect" he said.

Source

• Catholic News Agency

However, a couple of women ordained Catholic priests in our area say the Pope's revision of papal law is irrelevant to what is really happening in the alternative church.

Eileen McCafferty DiFranco was ordained in 2006.

"I'm an ordained Catholic priest. My ordination is valid, but it is illicit and I 'excommunicated myself.' What I like to say is, ordained women excommunicate themselves much like back in the olden days [when] women used to get themselves pregnant without benefit of man," she said.

Read More

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) announced on 23 October they were throwing him out of the church.

In 2009 Vlasic was accused of teaching false doctrine, manipulating consciences, disobeying ecclesiastical authority, and of committing acts of sexual misconduct.

These incidents occurred during the 1980s when he acted as ‘spiritual advisor' to six people in the town of Medjugorje, in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. The six said they experienced visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

A document signed at the time by the then-CDF prefect, the late Cardinal William Levada, also accused Vlasic of adultery. The priest had had a child with a woman in 1987.

The priest had been reduced to the lay state by a decree of Benedict XVI. Vlasic had asked to be released from his priestly obligations following the investigation by the CDF.

He was also relieved of his religious vows and excluded from the Franciscan Order.

Don Adriano Bianchi, Director of the Office for Social Communications for the Diocese of Brescia announced that the CDF had issued the decree of excommunication formally on 15 July this year.

He said: "The serious canonical penal provision was imposed on him due to the fact that unfortunately, during these years, Mr Vlasic has never complied with the prohibitions imposed on him in the canonical penal precept issued against him by the same Congregation, on 10 March 2009, under penalty of excommunication reserved for the Holy See.

"In fact, in all these years, in the Diocese of Brescia and in other places, he has continued to carry out apostolic activities towards individuals and groups, both through conferences and through information technology; he continued to declare himself a religious and a priest of the Catholic Church.

"Because of this penalty of excommunication, Mr Vlasic is prohibited from taking part in any way as a minister in the celebration of the Eucharist or any other ceremony of public worship, from celebrating sacraments or sacraments and from receiving the sacraments, from exercising functions, in offices or ministries or any ecclesiastical assignments, or to place acts of government."

Sources

La Croix International

Independent Catholic News

Catholic News Agency

The Archdiocese of Palermo has published the formal decree concerning Minutella's "latae sententiae" excommunication.

In canon law, once certain crimes are committed, they are punished latae sententiae, or "automatically," by force of the law itself.

According to the Code of Canon Law, those who are excommunicated are forbidden from:

• participating in the Eucharist or other ceremonies of worship celebrating the sacraments or sacramentals and receiving the sacraments;
• exercising any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions or placing acts of governance.

The notification of the decree of excommunication issued in regard to Father Alessandro Maria Minutella, published by the Archdiocese of Palermo, says:

"On November 13, 2018, Father Alessandro Maria Minutella was notified of the Decree of August 15, 2018 (Prot. No. 046/18) by which the Archbishop Corrado Lorefice DECLARES the excommunications latae sententiae, which the same priest has incurred for the crime of heresy and for the crime of schism, as required by canon law (cf. can.1364 §1 CIC), with all the consequences arising from the same measure."

In 2015 Archbishop Michele Pennisi of Monreale issued a public warning to the faithful that they risked "grave danger to their souls" by listening to Minutella.

He said Minutella was suspected of manipulating parishioners with his prophesies and "seriously posed a risk to the genuine popular devotion to the Madonna, angels and saints."

Minutella, who says he thinks Pope Francis an antipope and claims to have communications with angels, saints and Our Lady, describes his preaching as the "true" Catholic doctrine.

He says anyone who follows Francis is a heretic.

Source

• The Washington Post
• Vatican News
• Image: Gloria TV

He says they will be excommunicated from the church.

Brandmüller is one of the four "dubia" cardinals who has repeatedly asked Pope Francis to provide doctrinal clarity about some elements of Amoris Laetitia.

He was responding to comments by German politician Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaue.

Kramp-Karrenbaue, who is the General-Secretary of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the Die Zeit newspaper on 10 May: "It is very clear: women have to take positions of leadership in the church."

She also said although she hoped for the ordination of female priests, a more realistic goal might be to concentrate on a "female diaconate."

Brandmüller says the question of female priests was authoritatively ruled out by Pope John Paul II.

In his opinion, the persistent demand for female priests, celibacy, intercommunion and remarriage after divorce will not bring about a revival of Catholics as is expected.

He notes that the German Evangelical Church - "where all these demands have already been actually fulfilled" - shows that "such demands have had the effect of emptying out the churches."

He also reminded Kramp-Karrenbauer (who is widely regarded as the frontrunner to succeed Angela Merkel as German Chancellor) that the Catholic Church is not "a human institution" but a community of those who believe in Jesus Christ, and it is "founded through the Sacraments."

Brandmüller pointed out that the Church lives according to the "forms, structures and laws as given to her by her Divine Founder about which no man has power [to change] - also no pope and no council."

He commented that it is "astonishing" that certain themes were being kept alive within the German Church.

In his view they are "always the same: female priesthood, celibacy, intercommunion, remarriage after divorce. Just recently there has been added the Church's ‘yes' to homosexuality."

Source

• Catholic Herald
• The Tablet
• Image: OnePeterFive

Lei Shiyin, the Chinese- government-backed bishop of Leshan in Sichuan province, was ordained in China in June 2011 without Rome's blessing.

He was excommunicated for this.

The Vatican is concerned Lei's role in last week's the ordination could upset delicate negotiations with the Chinese government about selecting and ordaining bishops. Read more

The Diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo made the announcement on June 5 concerning the self-styled Universal Christian Church of the New Testament.

This followed an examination by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of what the diocese termed "very grave abuse".

Issuing the decree required the approval of the Pope.

A diocese statement noted the group obliged "the faithful not to receive sacraments, to disapprove of the Pope's teaching and authority, not to entertain relations with priests and their parish communities, and not to observe ecclesiastical discipline".

The diocese said the group is "committed to spreading false religious doctrines and teachings that distort the Bible and are outside the truth of the sacred text".

In 1947, Giuseppina Norcia reportedly saw an apparition of the child Jesus in the town of Gallinaro.

This was followed by subsequent apparitions in 1974, and her family built a chapel on the site the following year.

Samuele Morcia, the son-in-law of Giuseppina Norcia, took over the prayer groups dedicated to the "apparition" after Norcia's death in 2008.

He turned the groups into a sect based on a cult of personality.

He claimed that Norcia had transferred to him her capacity to receive messages and prophecies from Christ.

The group holds that Gallinaro is the "New Jerusalem," and it has attracted tens of thousands of worshippers from across Italy.

Many prayer groups have spread dedicated to the worship of the supposed apparition of the child Jesus.

In establishing themselves as the Universal Christian Church of the New Testament last year, the group committed an act of schism and thus incurred automatic excommunication, the diocese stated.

The diocese stressed that "all the faithful of the diocese must be informed" of the consequences of "this very grave abuse".

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Crux

Above the image of one of the women priests were the words "some women disobey".

The putting up of the posters in Rome's Trastevere neighbourhood and near St Peter's was part of a "jubilee for women priests".

All of the women pictured are "essentially under excommunication", the Guardian reported.

Kate McElwee, co-executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, said the metre-high posters are meant to celebrate female priests around the world.

They may help spur a dialogue with the Church about women's equality, she said.

Ms McElwee sees this as a "true blind spot for Pope Francis".

In 1994, St John Paul II declared "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful".

Pope Francis has said the ordination of women as priests "cannot be done", citing St John Paul II.

The city of Rome agreed to put the women priest posters up.

Organisers said they had found an enthusiastic supporter within the city government who had promised to save "good space" for them even though they are competing with political posters before the upcoming mayoral election.

According to Ms McElwee, there are about 150 renegade female priests around the world.

Many of them were ordained after a group of women known as the Danube Seven were ordained illegally in 2002 by an Argentinian bishop.

The posters were created by Italian photographer Giulia Bianchi.

She said meeting a woman priest helped heal the "Catholic child inside herself" and "a lot of pain and scars I have from the official Church".

A petition calling on Pope Francis to lift the excommunications of women priests will be delivered by a woman priest to the Vatican on June 3.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Action Groundswell Movement
• Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Xania News

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, suggested such criticism could be seen as akin to "physical violence" against the Roman Pontiff.

This carries a penalty of excommunication.

But US canon lawyer Ed Peters said provisions in canon law must be interpreted narrowly and physical violence means what it says - physical violence.

While hateful speech is objectively sinful, it is not a canonical crime punishable by excommunication, the canonist said.

Continue reading

At his general audience on August 5, the Pope said such people are "still part of the Church", even though "their unions are contrary to the sacrament of marriage".

"As these situations especially affect children, we are aware of a greater urgency to foster a true welcome for these families in our communities.

"For how can we encourage these parents to raise their children in the Christian life, to give them an example of Christian faith, if we keep them at arm's length?" he asked.

He stressed that his predecessors "have worked diligently to let these families know they are still a part of the Church".

Acknowledging that "there is no easy solution for these situations", he said: "We can and must always encourage these families to participate in the Church's life, through prayer, listening to the Word of God, the Christian education of their children, and service to the poor."

The Church is always looking with the "heart of a mother" to seek out the good for people, the Pope said.

He also called on priests "to manifest openly and coherently the availability of the community" to welcome and encourage divorced and remarried persons.

The Pope added: "May everyone, especially Christian families, imitate the Good Shepherd, who knows all his sheep and excludes no one from his infinite love."

Quoting from his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel"), the pontiff said: "The Church is called to always be the open house of the father."

"No closed doors," he told the audience, repeating: "No closed doors!"

Sources

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Washington Post

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

• Reuters
• The Guardian
• Image: Dominicainsavrille

The Rorate Caeli blog reported the planned consecration this month of Fr Jean-Michel Faure at the monastery of Santa Cruz in Nova Friburgo in Brazil.

March 19 is the likely date.

Bishop Williamson was one of four bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, against the orders of Pope John Paul II.

As such, Bishop Williamson and the other bishops involved incurred excommunications.

The excommunications of Bishop Williamson and three other traditionalist Society of St Pius X bishops were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

A scandal erupted, however, when it emerged that Bishop Williamson had previously claimed in a Swedish television interview that the Nazis did not use gas chambers and killed no more than 300,000 Jews.

The Vatican claimed that it had not known about Bishop Williamson's extreme anti-semitic beliefs, despite the fact that evidence of this could easily be found on the Internet.

The affair turned into a major public relations disaster, attracting criticism from Jewish groups, Catholic leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A month after the Swedish interview went to air, the SSPX partially sanctioned Bishop Williamson by removing him from his position as the head of a seminary near Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Bishop Williamson was suspended by Pope Benedict until he repudiated his denial of the Holocaust.

In 2012, Bishop Williamson was expelled from the SSPX, for distancing "himself from the leadership and the government of the Saint Pius X Society . . . and refusing to show respect and obedience deserved by his legitimate superiors".

Now, following this month's episcopal consecration, according to Rorate Caeli, a new penalty of excommunication will fall upon Bishop Williamson and those he consecrates.

A second episcopal consecration by Bishop Williamson in Brazil has also been rumoured.

Fr Faure, who was ordained a priest by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1977, left the SSPX in 2013.

Sources

• Rorate Caeli
• Jewish Daily Forward
• The Telegraph
• Image: BBC

The goal of the special faculties granted by Turin's Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia is to ensure that the public display of the shroud promotes conversion and healing.

The shroud, which shows a faint image of a crucified man, is believed by some to be a burial garment of Jesus Christ.

It is to be displayed from April 19 to June 24, reported the Catholic News Service.

According to the Code of Canon Law, "A person who procures a completed abortion" automatically incurs excommunication.

To be excommunicated, a person has to know that procuring an abortion is an excommunicable offence.

Canon law lays out various reasons where such a sanction may not apply, including ignorance of the law, acting out of grave fear, errors as to the scope of the law, lack of the use of reason and age.

A person who believes they have been excommunicated must refrain from Holy Communion until both absolution for the sin and absolution for the excommunication have been given, according to an EWTN article.

Where the conditions for an excommunication do exist, only the bishop or a priest he designates can lift the penalty.

In some dioceses the local bishop has formally granted the faculty to all priests, while in Turin and other places, the bishop grants the faculty on special occasions.

Archbishop Nosiglia wrote that the Church's ministers, meeting the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims expected to visit the Turin cathedral to see the shroud, want to "concretely demonstrate the Father's mercy toward those who repent of an evil committed".

However, he said, the permission granted to priests is limited to the time of the shroud's public display so as not to "diminish the rigour of the law", which aims to teach people how seriously wrong it is to kill an innocent life.

Archbishop Nosiglia also asked priests to impose a penance that would help lead to a lasting conversion.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• EWTN
• Image: The Guardian

Austrian Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, 58, told The Telegraph: "Most Catholic priests in Austria, are very nice to me. They call me 'Mrs Bishop'. And they show me respect."

The newspaper reported her having been at the altar at Kremsmunster, the oldest Benedictine monastery in Austria.

Several instances of Church services with Catholic male priests were also cited.

Ms Mayr-Lumetzberger said the priests accept her as one of them, and none have ever been disciplined by a bishop for it.

A member of the Roman Catholic Women Priests movement, she estimates there are hundreds of women priests around the world, some of whom she ordained.

She said the unjust law under which she was excommunicated was made by celibate men who do not know the people over whom they rule.

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Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano diocese said SSPX bishops and priests are suspended from priestly ministry.

When the faithful receive the sacraments from them, "they break communion with the Catholic Church".

The faithful who incur excommunication may be received back into the Church only after a penitential process, the bishop said.

Bishop Semeraro said he is only reiterating the policy of his predecessor in Albano.

While Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of SSPX bishops, the suspension from priestly ministry remains in force, Bishop Semeraro said.

His diocese, just outside Rome, encompasses the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.

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