The Catholic schism

Back in 2019, I posted that the Catholic Church seemed to be headed for a schism due to the growing rift between modernizers (who seek to moderate the Church's traditional condemnation of homosexuality, divorce, etc) and traditionalists (who look upon such changes as heresy).  The modernizers include most of the leadership and control the Church as an institution, while the traditionalists are few in number in the West but probably a majority in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the Church's demographic center of gravity now is.

Well, this week the Vatican declared the entire Society of St Pius X, a traditionalist bastion, to be in schism because it has consecrated several bishops without the pope's authorization.  All the SSPX's clergy have been excommunicated, and the Vatican is warning that even ordinary Catholics who "adhere to" the SSPX could be excommunicated too.  So the battle seems to have been joined.

It will take time to tell how serious this breach actually is, but already some traditionalists are fighting back.  One of the new SSPX bishops gave a speech dismissing the modernist Church as "a new religion", "a desert" that "kills everything that it touches".  Lifesite News, a traditionalist site, is arguing that pope Leo, being a heretic, cannot validly excommunicate anyone.  I'm no expert on Catholic theology, but calling the pope a heretic seems like pretty strong language to me.  Popcorn on standby.