The Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX) has expressed “sorrow and incomprehension” over restrictions preventing its priests from publicly celebrating Mass and other liturgical rites at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, while pointing to previous occasions when Muslims were permitted to participate in interreligious prayer activities at the famed Marian shrine.
According to LifeSiteNews, Father Gonzague Peignot, superior of the SSPX’s French district, announced Aug. 22 that the Society will proceed with its planned pilgrimage to Lourdes, but participants will limit themselves to private prayer in accordance with restrictions imposed by Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes.
On Aug. 13, Bishop Micas prohibited SSPX priests from celebrating Mass, administering the sacraments and conducting public prayers within the sanctuary. According to LifeSiteNews, the bishop cited the Vatican’s declared excommunication of six SSPX bishops connected with recent episcopal consecrations carried out without a papal mandate.
SSPX priests and faithful are still permitted to visit Lourdes and pray privately.
The Society said it would respect the bishop’s decision but questioned why its Catholic faithful could not gather publicly for prayer at one of the Church’s most important Marian shrines.
“Simple sons of the Catholic Church, who in no way claim to replace the Church and who have no other ambition than to remain faithful to it, are forbidden to meet to pray publicly to their Mother in Heaven,” the French district said, according to AdVaticanum.
The SSPX also drew attention to an interreligious pilgrimage held at Lourdes in October 2025 involving Christians and Muslims. According to the SSPX account cited by LifeSiteNews, the four-day gathering included a prayer service, Mass, a torchlight procession, prayer at the Grotto and interreligious meetings. Participants also entered the Chapel of Our Lady together.
The comparison prompted a forceful response from the Society.
“How can we not be astonished – even offended – that those who do not recognise the divine Motherhood of the most holy Virgin Mary, nor the dogma of her Immaculate Conception, nor the divinity of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been allowed (at the sanctuary), while the faithful of the chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X are prevented from coming to pray publicly to the most holy Virgin Mary in her sanctuary of Lourdes,” the SSPX statement asked, according to LifeSiteNews.
Despite the restrictions, the Society has encouraged its faithful to continue the pilgrimage in a spirit of prayer rather than confrontation.
“While the doors of the sanctuary remain closed to public pilgrimage, the door to the Heart of the Mother of God never closes to her children,” the statement said.
Father Jean-Michel Gleize, an SSPX priest, offered a similar message during a recent sermon. According to InfoVaticana, Gleize acknowledged that the Society may be unable to use “those churches, those sanctuaries built by our ancestors to venerate the Virgin Mary,” but emphasized that the faithful remain spiritually united to her.
“We have the Virgin Mary. She remains in our heart; she remains in the sanctuary of our soul,” Gleize said.
Peignot also assured Bishop Micas of the Society’s “respect and prayers, without resentment,” while expressing hope that the bishop may eventually regard SSPX clergy as “not rebels, but sons desirous of living and serving in the Catholic Church.”
The dispute comes amid continuing tensions surrounding the canonical status and ministry of the SSPX. The Society maintains that its mission extends beyond preservation of the traditional Latin Mass and includes defending what it understands to be the perennial teaching and practice of the Catholic Church, including its public rejection of what it regards as errors contained in documents of the Second Vatican Council.
For now, SSPX pilgrims intend to travel to Lourdes without public liturgical celebrations, turning instead to private prayer at the shrine where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
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