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Well, today, unfortunately, the Holy See published a declaration that the Society did not receive the papal mandate for the episcopal consecrations. Therefore, if they do it in spite of this, they will incur excommunication, along with all those who formally join these schismatic acts.
This is a very wide and broad formulation. How does one establish concretely that a person formally adheres to schism? And then, what is schism? This can also be interpreted in different ways because there can be a stricter interpretation or a wider interpretation.
Very strict interpretations, which say that disobedience to the Pope is already schism, are against the great tradition of the Church. Even episcopal consecrations carried out against the will of the Pope or without his permission were punished in the old canon law not with excommunication, but only with suspension. Suspension was not a punishment for schism or separation from the Church. This is a fact, and we have to recognize it according to the meaning of the larger tradition of the Church.
Now, in the last decades, especially since the Council, there has been a time of broad pastoral attitudes toward different people and groups in the Church. Yet only toward one group is there a very narrow and strict application of canon law, the Society of Pius X. They basically promote only the faith and liturgy of our fathers, of the saints, and of the majority of the popes. They do nothing else. And for this alone, they are basically punished. We must honestly recognize and state this.
There is also a broader way to view the matter, namely that not every disobedience, even disobedience regarding the Pope’s prohibition against episcopal consecrations, is automatically a schismatic act. It depends on the intention and on the meaning of these consecrations.
These new bishops would exist only and exclusively to transmit the sacraments of ordination and confirmation, and nothing more, with no governing acts. Throughout history, schism has been understood as when candidates publicly rejected the office of the Pope as such, like the Orthodox, the Anglicans, and others, or denied dogmas regarding the primacy of the Pope, or established a parallel church with parallel dioceses, titles, and so on.
This is not the case with the Society of Pius X. On the contrary, they love the Pope, they pray for him and for the bishops, and they try through these acts, even in this difficult situation, to help preserve and hand over the integrity of the Catholic faith and the liturgy.
Therefore, I think this is not a case of schism according to the larger tradition of the Church and according to the intention of the Society or of those bishops who will ordain the candidates. Therefore, this declaration today, threatening all people who will formally adhere, is unclear, vague, and cannot be applied in a just canonical way.