VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said on Thursday (Jul 2) that priests and lay Catholics who are part of a breakaway right-wing Catholic group that ordained ​bishops without Pope Leo's approval were in schism with the wider Church and now excommunicated.In a strong decree, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the ‌top watchdog authority for the 1.4-billion-member Church, also warned Catholics globally that the Swiss-based Society of St Pius X now celebrated the sacraments illicitly.The ultra-traditionalist group, which denies key Church teachings, cannot officiate marriages or hear confessions validly, the decree said.It is a strict teaching of the Church that only the pope can authorise the consecration of new bishops, in order to maintain the Church's ties to Jesus' 12 apostles, who are