ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday begged a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics to call off its plan to consecrate new bishops without his consent, calling the move a schismatic act and a “sin of extreme gravity.”

“I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!” Leo wrote in a letter to the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, the superior of the Society of St. Pius X.

Leo issued the last-ditch appeal a day before the society plans to consecrate four new bishops at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland. Under church law, the consecrations constitute a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church, and incur automatic excommunication for the four bishops and the bishop administering the consecration.

The ceremony poses the first major crisis for the American pope, who has stressed the need for church unity since the start of his pontificate. He has worked especially hard to heal tensions with traditionalist Catholics who prefer the old Latin Mass, that worsened in some ways during the Pope Francis pontificate.

The society, known as the SSPX, was founded in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the council revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other religions and the laity, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than Latin.

Its members celebrate the ancient Latin Mass and have accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

In 1988, SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the church.

The Vatican in 2009 lifted those original excommunications as part of its outreach to try to bring the group back under its wing. But the Vatican has warned that a similar fate awaits the new bishops if Wednesday’s consecrations go ahead.

In his letter, Leo repeated the Vatican’s offer of dialogue and said that going through with the consecrations would be counterproductive for the SSPX faithful.

“I urge you to consider carefully the spiritual good of the faithful, because the schismatic act you are about to undertake would deprive them of the licit, and in some cases, even valid reception of the sacraments,” he wrote.

Despite the original 1988 schismatic act, the group has continued to grow and today poses a threat to the Holy See as a parallel, ultra-Catholic, pre-Vatican II church. The SSPX counts two bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.

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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.

People granted asylum in Britain could have to repay the government about £10,000, roughly more than $13,000, for accommodation and basic living support before they can become eligible to apply for settlement, officials announced on Monday.

This comes as immigration has become one of the most important issues in British politics, consistently ranking among voters’ top concerns in polling.

Under the proposed rules, the government says repayments would be means-tested and limited to adults above an income threshold. Officials say safeguards would be included to prevent people from being pushed into extreme poverty, though key details of the threshold and enforcement mechanism have not yet been published.

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The rules would not be applied retrospectively and children would not be subject to the payments.

“Receiving asylum support is a right, but it is also a responsibility,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said. “Once people can contribute and repay the generosity of the British people, we expect them to do so.”

Mahmood explained that her latest reforms aim to reduce the burden on taxpayers’ wallets.

The Home Office also said over the weekend that it aims to remove 45,000 more people with no legal right to remain and foreign criminals within the next decade, in addition to the tens of thousands already being removed on a yearly basis.

The center-left Labour Party has increased efforts to curb both legal and illegal immigration as it seeks to counter the rising popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which has vowed to deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers and other people whose claims or appeals have failed.

“Mass migration has changed this country, certainly in many of our cities, literally beyond recognition,” Farage told Fox News Digital last week. “We’ve not been selective about who’s been able to come into the country. That is a major contributory factor.”

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Refugee advocates and migration researchers have criticized the proposal, arguing it could punish people who fled persecution and questioning whether many refugees would earn enough to repay the proposed sum. Critics have also warned that tying repayment to settlement could create uncertainty for people trying to rebuild their lives in the UK.

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The Labour Party has faced internal divisions over how tight its immigration policy should be, and the party is up against further overall uncertainty after its leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, announced last week that he will resign.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Outbreak spreads to a fourth province, Haut-Uele, bordering South Sudan and the CAR, according to a media report.

⁠The Democratic Republic ⁠of the Congo (DRC) says confirmed ‌Ebola cases in the country have reached 1,307 and include ⁠377 deaths.

In an update issued late on Monday, the country said the confirmed cases ⁠have been ⁠recorded ⁠in three provinces – Ituri, ‌North Kivu and ‌South ‌Kivu.

The announcement comes as the AFP news agency reported that a case has been detected in a fourth province. A source at the DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) quoted by AFP said the viral haemorrhagic fever has spread to Haut-Uele, which borders South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

The source said the case there was detected after an infected person travelled from Bunia, Ituri’s capital, to Haut-Uele.

That person has since died, another health source told AFP.

Authorities are now trying to trace the chain of transmission and identify contacts.

Its spread to Haut-Uele means the DRC’s entire northeast, home to about 15 million people, is now affected.

The conflict-hit province of Ituri is the epicentre of the country’s latest Ebola outbreak, its 17th, which started in May.

In many cases, the virus has spread at funerals, where the highly infectious bodies of Ebola victims are handled.

For weeks, aid workers, facing mistrust among local communities, have struggled to plan safe burials in affected areas to prevent contact with the dead.

In the DRC, funerals often last several days, during which family members and friends touch the body of the deceased.

Reporting from a treatment centre in Rwampara in Ituri province, Al Jazeera’s Catherine Wambua-Soi said health workers often lack sufficient equipment.

“These centres have been attacked several times. Last month, tents here were set on fire by an angry mob. Some Congolese still distrust those trying to help,” she said.

“They need more of everything: protective gear, medicines, rapid test kits … and body bags.”

On Saturday, the government issued a ban on public gatherings in four ⁠provinces, including the country’s capital, Kinshasa, as it continues to battle the spread of the outbreak.

That order was issued before a planned protest in Kinshasa on July 8 against constitutional reform, and opposition figures have called the ban “politically motivated.”