A Priest in San Antonio is laicized and excommunicated for willful disobedience and blatant disrespect

 

San Antonio priest laicized, excommunicated after calling Popes Francis and Leo ‘usurpers’

written by Simone Orendain 

In this file photo, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio is seen during a march in El Paso March 24, 2025. In a letter dated Aug. 14, 2026, Archbishop García-Siller publicized the laicization of John Mary Foster, a former priest that has been found guilty of schism for refusing submission to the pope. The archbishop also warned Catholics not to follow Foster or support the Mission of Divine Mercy, a group Foster founded that involves sharing alleged prophetic messages. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)

(OSV News) — A priest of the Archdiocese of San Antonio who was “found guilty of schism” has been removed from the clerical state and excommunicated, according to the archbishop of the archdiocese.

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller announced Aug. 14 that a tribunal of canon lawyers authorized by the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith found John Mary Foster guilty of “a crime against the faith for his refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff.” 

In the letter announcing the April 20 sentence, the archbishop said, “Mr. Foster has chosen to reject the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church by his words and actions. He has publicly referred to Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV as ‘usurpers.'”

Foster was ordained a priest in 1987 for the Congregation of St. John, an international religious community based in France. In 2001, he founded an organization called Mission of Divine Mercy. Based in Canyon Lake, Texas, the group has offered retreats and sacramental ministry, with a lay branch called Amici Christi. In 2009, Foster was incardinated in the San Antonio diocese after ministering in Laredo, Texas.

Problematic alleged ‘messages’

In 2010, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller’s predecessor, Archbishop José H. Gómez, who oversaw the San Antonio Archdiocese from 2005-2010 before taking leadership of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, granted the Mission of Divine Mercy the status of an approved Catholic apostolate. Foster was granted a special assignment to serve as its director. The apostolate, which claims six current members, was not a canonically erected religious community.

The Mission of Divine Mercy’s members include Sister Maria Amapola de Jesús, who claimed to receive messages from God and Mary beginning in 2016. Prior to the message’s first publication in 2024, Archbishop García-Siller said he had been supportive of the group’s efforts and had “enjoyed a positive relationship” with Foster and the Mission of Divine Mercy members.

In a March 2024 letter to the faithful, Archbishop García-Siller explained he had asked the group “to refrain from publishing any alleged prophetic message until they were reviewed to ensure they were not harmful to the people of God” because they “include many scandalous claims and false teachings.”

In February 2024, the group began publishing messages online without the archbishop’s approval. Archbishop García-Siller met with Foster after the first published message and requested that the group remove it from its website, but the group did not comply and proceeded to publish others. The archbishop’s March 2024 letter notified the archdiocese that he had removed Foster’s faculties for public ministry. He also suppressed the Mission of Divine Mercy’s apostolate status.

Refused obedience to bishop

The group continued to post alleged messages through at least July 2026. Foster said to Archbishop García-Siller in an email sent before a March 6, 2024 posting, “After prayerful discernment with our little community, we believe we are called to continue publishing the messages we believe God is giving us for the good of His Children. We deeply regret the pain that this will cause you, and how it will be perceived.  We are doing it out of a desire to obey God and serve His Church.”

The message posted March 6, 2024, was addressed to Catholic bishops and said, “You have not only let the smoke of Satan infiltrate into My Sanctuary; but you have allowed a whole army of demons to take your places. And you have allowed the usurper to sit on the chair of My Peter.”

In the Aug. 14, 2026, letter, Archbishop García-Siller noted that Foster’s excommunication was “latae sententiae,” meaning he automatically incurred it through his own schismatic acts.

“Despite being offered countless opportunities to repent and to cease his schismatic actions and teachings, Mr. Foster has chosen the path of disobedience. I have prohibited him from publicly celebrating Mass, yet he continues to do so,” the archbishop said.

When celebrating Mass, Foster “intentionally omits the name of Pope Leo XIV, as he did with Pope Francis, from the Eucharistic Prayer. In doing so, he publicly manifests his separation with the Church and the successor of Saint Peter,” the archbishop explained.

Faithful prohibited from association with group

Archbishop García-Siller addressed the faithful directly, saying, “In my fraternal care for you as your shepherd, I encourage you to guard your heart and mind against those who seek to separate you from the Catholic Church.”

He said he is prohibiting “all Catholics from attending any Mass or any liturgical activity or event” held by Foster or at the suppressed group’s location and warned the faithful that participating in such “is a formal act of disobedience.” 

The archbishop also urged the faithful not to financially support Foster or the Mission of Divine Mercy. He implored them to join him in praying for Foster, “that he will repent and seek reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church and be able to once again receive the sacraments of the Church.”

Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.

Catholics insisting on attending SSPX Masses, etc. are at a crossroads.

 

Traditionalist Catholics face a difficult choice after Vatican cuts off breakaway group

By  HOLLY MEYER

Updated 6:23 AM CDT, July 17, 2026

For traditionalist Catholics who worship at churches affiliated with the breakaway Society of St. Pius X, Sunday Mass now comes with an extraordinary question.

Their priests and bishops have been excommunicated after the fringe movement on the Catholic right committed what the Vatican considers one of the faith’s gravest crimes: rupturing church unity by consecrating bishops without the pope’s consent. The Vatican says Catholics should stop going to the breakaway group’s worship services and activities, and that some sacraments administered by the society’s priests are illicit and invalid.

Yet inside the society’s churches, normal life has largely carried on. Service in the old Latin Mass is still being celebrated, baptisms performed, camps and pilgrimages are moving forward, and some faithful say they have no intention of leaving.

The consecrations two weeks ago posed a crisis for Pope Leo XIV because of his emphasis on church unity. The American pope has especially reached out to the conservative and traditionalist wing of the church, which in many ways were alienated during the Pope Francis pontificate.

Fallout from the excommunication remains uncertain

Several bishops in the U.S. are echoing the Holy See’s warning to the society’s faithful, urging them to switch to churches aligned with Rome.

“To embrace the unity called for by Christ is to remain attached to the vine and to be in communion with Pope Leo XIV and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church,” San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller wrote to his archdiocese.

His instruction echoes the schism declaration and excommunication decree issued July 2 by the Vatican’s doctrine office against the Society of St. Pius X, also known as SSPX, which has about 750 priests.

Will Catholics heed that call? It largely depends on where worshippers feel most connected, said R. Andrew Chesnut, the Catholic Studies chair at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Longtime SSPX adherents often regard such statements through the lens of a decades-long conflict with Church authorities,” he said, “and are therefore less likely to be persuaded.”

The society was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which it considers rife with heresies and errors. The 1960s council revolutionized the church’s relations with Jews and other faiths, supported religious liberty for all, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in people’s everyday languages, rather than Latin.

SSPX leaders see the society as a defiant guardian of church tradition, and they have defended its July 1 consecrations as necessary for saving souls. The society has also questioned the soundness of the Vatican’s sanctions.

Chesnut said the response from society leaders was “remarkably consistent” with past flare-ups with Rome. Priests have been reassuring the faithful that there is no change in their mission to preserve traditional Catholic liturgy.

The society has appealed the Vatican decree, and U.S. district spokesperson James Vogel said it’s too early to judge its effect. For now, Masses and other activities haven’t stopped.

“I think a lot of people just continue to hold fast to what they’ve been doing,” he said.

That isn’t surprising, said Mike Lewis, managing editor of Where Peter Is, a Catholic commentary website supporting popes Francis and Leo.

“We’re talking about communities that have essentially been separate for 30 to 40 years. People’s families and social lives are wrapped up in this movement,” he said.

Some traditionalist faithful choose to double down

Jim De Piante’s ties to the Society of St. Pius X run deep. His parents helped bring the movement to North Carolina, and he belongs to St. Anthony of Padua, a society-affiliated church near Charlotte that bought land for a new campus the week after the excommunications.

If anything, the excommunications make him want to do “tradition even harder.”

“St. Anthony’s offers to me the traditional sacraments in the same faith that made every great saint throughout history,” De Piante said. He feels it’s his responsibility to preserve that faith for future generations.

While he’s not worried, De Piante knows others are, especially newer participants, and he has been offering guidance to SSPX faithful in his orbit. He’s noticed a small drop in attendance at St. Anthony’s, which draws a few hundred people to Sunday services, and knows families who are rattled and some who don’t plan to return. De Piante attended the new bishops’ consecrations in Switzerland and says he remains optimistic about the society’s future.

The Vatican urges Catholics to come ‘home’ or face consequences

When the Society of St. Pius X consecrated those bishops, the Vatican considered it a schismatic act, a disruption to church unity that resulted in the excommunication of SSPX bishops and priests. The society’s faithful were also warned that they, too, would face the church’s harshest sanctions if they “formally adhere” to the group.

Excommunication is a “medicinal” sanction or censure that can be lifted. Excommunicated people are not kicked out of the church but are barred from certain church activities.

Bishops such as Frank J. Caggiano of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, are inviting the society’s churchgoers to come “home.” In a letter to his diocese, he noted that excommunication doesn’t apply to people who accept the pope’s authority and attended SSPX churches simply to worship.

Still, going against the pope is no small transgression. Staying loyal to the society “would be to share in a separation from the Successor of Peter,” Caggiano warned.

Other SSPX faithful are facing a ‘crisis of conscience’

Ross McKnight is wrestling with what to do next.

Drawn to the society during the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his family enjoy the supportive, traditionalist community of a nearby SSPX church in Lacombe, Louisiana. He thinks a fair amount of people are, like him, having a “crisis of conscience.”

“We don’t want to abandon them in their dark hour,” he said. “At the same time, that’s not our first duty. The first duty isn’t to any particular person and/or group of priests. So, I think that’s the source of the conflict.”

García-Siller, the archbishop in Texas, has instructed Catholics not to attend the society’s local affiliate, and said he would no longer allow SSPX priests to preside at weddings or to minister in the archdiocese.

But livestreamed worship services show church life carries on at St. Joseph’s, as it does at other society churches.

During Mass on the first Sunday after the excommunications, the Rev. Stephen Zigrang ticked through more mundane announcements — building maintenance, a special collection, a baptism — before reassuring the congregation that there was no need to change course.

“The problem is, of course, family, friends,” said Zigrang, who declined The Associated Press’ request for an interview. “They’ll look at us crooked. But just smile, right? Say, ‘We like the old Mass. … You ought to come and try it.’”

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Associated Press writer Peter Smith contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Should a Catholic go to Mass with the SSPX today; probably not a good idea

 

EWTN News explains: As a Catholic, can you attend an SSPX Mass?

 By Daniel Payne for EWTN News

The traditionalist group has been declared in schism with the Catholic Church after an illicit “ordination” of bishops.

The new illicitly ordained Catholic bishops — French Marc Hanappier, French Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, American Michael Goldade and Swiss Pascal Schreiber — stand next to Swiss traditionalist Catholic Bishop of the Society of Saint Pius X Bernard Fellay during a schismatic consecration in Econe, western Switzerland, on July 1, 2026. | Credit: Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

The Vatican this week issued a decree declaring that the bishops involved in the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X’s illicit consecrations have incurred automatic excommunication and that the group is in schism with the Church.

The illicit ordinations occurred in Écône, Switzerland, on July 2 after Pope Leo XIV had urged the group to “turn back” and refrain from carrying out the unauthorized rite.

The SSPX is a controversial fraternity of priests known for their strict traditional celebration of the Latin Mass and opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

The group for years has enjoyed a canonically irregular status within the Church, and the faithful have generally been permitted to attend Masses held by SSPX priests. Yet the declaration of schism has raised questions about whether or not Catholics can still attend those liturgies without incurring canonical penalties.

The Vatican recognizes that the faithful may be able to attend an SSPX Mass without suffering excommunication, so long as there is no “formal adherence” to the SSPX.

Formal adherence was described in an important 1996 explanatory note from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, on the “Excommunication for Schism Incurred by Members of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Movement,” which was cited in the new decree’s own explanatory note.

It described two key components: an internal one of freely and consciously sharing the substance of the schism and an external one of making outward expression of that choice, such as the exclusive participation in SSPX Masses.

Notably, in the 1996 note, Vatican officials recognized “that occasional participation in liturgical acts or activities of the Lefebvrian movement — without adopting the movement’s attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunity — is not sufficient to constitute formal adherence to the movement.”

It added that in pastoral practice, it is necessary “to take into account the person’s intention and how that inner disposition is translated into action,” and such situations should “be judged on a case-by-case basis by the competent authorities.”

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 2 sent a letter to bishops worldwide outlining the means by which clergy and faithful who have taken part in the schism with the Church can return to full communion with the faith.

The letter stipulated that penalties for lay faithful who belong to SSPX “cannot be presumed automatically, but must be assessed case by case.”

The dicastery said that “imputably” in the matter “requires full awareness and deliberate consent.”

Some cases in which laypeople are not considered “imputable,” the dicastery said, include those who have attended SSPX Masses “only for liturgical or spiritual reasons,” along with those who “do not reject the magisterium or the authority of the Roman pontiff.”

‘Strongly discouraged’ for risk of schism, scandal

Nevertheless, the new decree’s explanatory note strongly admonishes the faithful “to remain firmly united with the Roman pontiff, with the bishops in communion with him, and with the entire Church … and to refrain from participating in the celebrations and activities organized by the aforementioned Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X.”

Ronald Bolster, an associate professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and dean of the theology school there, said it would be “inappropriate and strongly discouraged to participate in the liturgies and activities” of the SSPX.

To do so, he argued, “would imply support for their schismatic act.”

“Participation could also be a cause of scandal, causing others to consider that such participation is appropriate, and more broadly, suggest that the laws of the Church and the authority of the vicar of Christ can be dismissed or disregarded without consequence,” he said.

William Newton, a theology professor and the chair of Franciscan University’s theology department, also argued that Catholics who attend SSPX Masses “collaborate” in the schism, though he noted that there are degrees of responsibility associated with it.

“Certainly, the culpability for this collaboration can vary as with any sin, because of ignorance or lack of freedom of will,” he said.

“However, the schismatic character of the SSPX has been confirmed by the Church, so ignorance, while still possible, cannot be assumed,” he added.

He noted that there are “alternative valid Masses available to the faithful,” which he said, “makes the choice to attend an SSPX Mass that much more likely to be willful collaboration with schism.”

The faithful “should not attend a Mass of the SSPX,” he argued.

Bolster described the schism event as a “most unfortunate situation.”

He urged Catholics to “join Pope Leo in praying that the concerns which have motivated this division can be addressed without further loss of unity. “

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was last month even firmer in saying Catholics should not attend SSPX Masses.

In his exclusive interview with EWTN News just days before the illicit consecrations, the cardinal was asked what faithful drawn to SSPX Masses should do if a schism follows. Müller said forcefully that they “shouldn’t go and cannot participate in the Masses of schismatic priests and bishops.”

Vatican sends instructions to Bishops on how to welcome back SSPX members who want to return to Catholic Church

 

Facade of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith 

Vatican

• catholic church
• dicastery
• faith

Lefebvrite priests and lay faithful: Procedure to return to Catholic communion

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has sent a communication to bishops around the world outlining what must be done to welcome back those who decide to leave the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X following the schismatic act that led to excommunication.

Vatican News

Following the schismatic act of July 1, a return to Catholic communion will not require repeating the experience of special commissions, such as Ecclesia Dei in the past, because the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has already established a procedure for both priests and lay faithful, directly involving diocesan Ordinaries and the leaders of the fraternities that follow the ancient rite and are united with Rome.

The instructions are being transmitted in these days through Apostolic Nunciatures, as already announced in the Explanatory Note published by the Dicastery on July 2.

Reconciliation for priests

The procedure set out by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, beginning on July 1, 2026, provides that a priest who has decided to leave the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X — and who is willing to accept the Second Vatican Council and the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo Missae, while remaining attached to the ancient rite — must “find an Ordinary — a diocesan Bishop, a Major Superior of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right or of clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right, etc. — willing to receive him ad experimentum.”

The priest must then “write by hand a letter to the Holy Father in which he presents himself and asks for the remission of the censures incurred because of the ordination he received from an excommunicated or irregular Bishop, or because, having been validly and legitimately ordained, he subsequently became a member of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.”

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Profession of faith and Formula of adherence

The priest must also attach his certificate of priestly ordination and enclose, signed and dated, “the Professio fidei and the Formula adhaesionis.”

These are the Profession of Faith, which summarizes the content of the Catholic faith, and the Formula of Adherence, by which the priest promises fidelity to the Pope and commits himself not to attack him or his magisterium publicly.

He must accept the teaching of number 25 of the conciliar Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium on adherence to the Church’s magisterium. He must also declared that he considers the celebration of Mass according to the rites promulgated by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II to be valid, and that he adheres to the norms of the Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II.

The priest must have these documents — the letter with the certificate, the Profession, and the Formula of Adherence — sent by the Ordinary, “who will state in the accompanying letter his willingness to receive him ad experimentum in his Diocese or Institute.”

As soon as it receives the documents from the Ordinary, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will draw up a Rescript remitting the censures and authorizing the Ordinary to receive the priest making the request “for a probationary period of at least one year and no more than three, at the end of which his incardination may proceed.”

Reconciliation for lay faithful

The procedure, the Dicastery explained, “concerns the question of imputability, or the degree of subjective responsibility, of lay faithful who have formally adhered to, or who attend, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and who ask to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.”

It notes that the imposition of a penalty on lay people belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, in fact, “cannot be presumed automatically, but must be assessed case by case.”

“Since imputability requires full awareness and deliberate consent,” the document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith states, examples of proven imputability may include “lay people who belong to the Third Order of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X; lay people who habitually participate in celebrations of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and formally share its doctrinal positions.”

The procedure to be followed

The procedure to be followed for lay people belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X on whom a penalty has been imposed, and who ask to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, “implies a formal act of full adherence to Catholic doctrine and obedience to the Catholic hierarchy, under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary, who is the guarantor of the unity of the particular Church.”

Therefore, a lay member of the faithful who has decided to leave the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X must present to his or her bishop the Professio fidei and the Formula adhaesionis, dated and signed.

“Once the documentation has been obtained, the local Ordinary will see to welcoming the lay member of the faithful at the times and in the manner, he deems most appropriate.”

Lay faithful who are not imputable

The document specifies that the following “are not to be considered imputable: lay people who have attended the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X only for liturgical or spiritual reasons; lay people who, while aware of the tensions with the Holy See, do not reject the Magisterium or the authority of the Roman Pontiff.”

As regards these latter cases, it will be sufficient for them to approach “a priest in full communion, with the decision not to attend the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X in the future.”