Larry L. Overacker writes, responding to Simon:

   I may be interesting to see some brief selections posted to the
   net.  My understanding is that SSPX does not consider ITSELF in
   schism or legitimately excommunicated.  But that's really beside
   the point.  What does the Roman Catholic church say?
   Excommunication can be real apart from formal excommunication, as
   provided for in canon law.

Here's some of the theology involved for the interested.

There is confusion over this issue of the SSPX's "schism"; often the
basic problem is lack of an ability to distinguish between:

- true obedience
- false obedience
- disobedience
- schism

Take the various classifications of obedience first.  There are 2
important elements involved here for my purposes:

1) a command
2) the response made to the command

As far as the command goes, commands can be LEGITIMATE, such as the
Pope ordering Catholics to not eat meat on Fridays.  Or they can be
ILLEGITIMATE, such as the Pope ordering Catholics to worship the god
Dagon when every other full moon comes around.

As far as the response to a command goes, it can be to REFUSE to do
what is commanded, or to COMPLY.

Making a table, there are thus 4 possibilites:

command         response            name
-----------------------------------------------------
LEGITIMATE      COMPLY              true obedience
ILLEGITIMATE    REFUSE              true obedience
LEGITIMATE      REFUSE              disobedience
ILLEGITIMATE    COMPLY              false obedience

So now you see where my 3 classifications of obedience come from.

Obedience is not solely a matter of compliance/refusal.  The nature of
the commands must also be taken into account; it is not enough to
consider someone's compliance or refusal and then say whether they are
"obedient" or "disobedient".  You also have to take into consideration
whether the commands are good or bad.

In my example, if the Pope commands all Catholics to worship the god
Dagon, and they all refuse, they aren't being disobedient at all!

As far as the Society of Saint Pius X goes, they are certainly
refusing to comply with certain things the Pope desires.  But that
alone is insufficient to allow one to label them "disobedient".  You
also have to consider the nature of the Papal desires.

And there's the rub: SSPX says the Popes since Vatican II have been
commanding certain very bad things for the Church.  The Popes have of
course disagreed.

So where are we?  Are we in another Arian heresy, complete with weak
Popes?  Or are the SSPX priests modern Martin Luthers?  Well, the only
way to answer that is to examine who is saying what, and what the
traditional teaching of the Church is.

The problem here is that very few Catholics have much of an idea of
what is really going on, and what the issues are.  The religion of
American Catholics is especially defective in intellectual depth.  You
will never read about the issues being discussed in the Catholic press
in this country.  (On the other hand, one Italian Catholic magazine I
get -- 30 Days -- has had interviews with the Superior General of the
Society of Saint Pius X.)

Many Catholics will decide to side with the Pope.  There is some
soundness in this, because the Papacy is infallible, so eventually
some Pope *will* straighten all this out.  But, on the other hand,
there is also unsoundness in this, in that, in the short term, the
Popes may indeed be wrong, and such Catholics are doing nothing to
help the situation by obeying them where they're wrong.  In fact, if
the situation is grave enough, they sin in obeying him.  At the very
least, they're wasting a great opportunity, because they are failing
to love Christ in a heroic way at the very time that He needs this
badly.

Schism... let's move on to schism.  What is it?

Schism is a superset of disobedience (refusal to obey a legitimate
command).  All schismatics are disobedient.  But it's a superset, so
it doesn't work the other way around: not all disobeyers are
schismatics.  The mere fact that the SSPX priests don't comply with
the Holy Father's desires doesn't make them schismatics.

So what is it that must be added to disobedience to constitute a
schism?  Maybe this something else makes the SSPX priests schismatics.

You must add this: the rejection of the right to command.  Look in any
decent reference on Catholic theology, and that's what you'll find:
the distinguishing criterion of schism is rejection of the right to
command.

Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia says, for example:

    ... not every disobedience is a schism; in order to possess this
    character it must include besides the trangression of the commands
    of superiors, denial of their Divine right to command.
    (from the CE article "Schism")

Is the Society of Saint Pius X then schismatic?  The answer is a clear
no: they say that the Pope is their boss.  They pray for him every
day.  And that's all that matters as far as schism goes.

What all this boils down to is this: if we leave aside the
consideration of the exact nature of their objections, their position
is a legitimate one, as far as the Catholic theology of obedience and
schism goes.  They are resisting certain Papal policies because they
think that they are clearly contrary to the traditional teaching of
the Papacy, and the best interests of the Church.  (In fact, someone
who finds himself in this situation has a *duty* to resist.)

Now, what is the stance of Rome on all this?  Well, if you read the
Holy Father's motu proprio "Ecclesia Dei", you can find out.  It's the
definitive document on the subject.  A motu proprio is a specifically
Papal act.  It's not the product of a Roman congregation, a letter
that the Pope has possibly never even read.  It's from the Pope
himself.  His boss is God... there's no one else to complain to.

In this document, the Holy Father says, among other things:

1) The episcopal consecrations performed by Archbishop Lefebvre
constituted a schismatic act.

2) Archbishop Lefebvre's problem was a misunderstanding of the nature
of Tradtion.

Both are confusing: I fail to see the logic of the Pope's points.

As far as the episcopal consecrations go, I read an interesting
article in a translation of the Italian magazine "Si Si No No".  It
all gets back to the question of jurisdiction.  If episcopal
consecrations imply rejection of the Pope's jurisdiction, then they
would truly constitute a schismatic act, justifying excommunication
under the current code of canon law.  But my problem with this is
this: according to the traditional theology of Holy Orders, episcopal
consecration does not confer jurisdiction.  It only confers the power
of Order: the ability to confect the Sacraments.  Jurisdiction must be
conferred by someone else with the power to confer it (such as the
Pope).  The Society bishops, knowing the traditional theology quite
well, take great pains to avoid any pretence of jurisdiction over
anyone.  They simply confer those Sacraments that require a bishop.

The "Si Si No No" article was interesting in that it posited that the
reason that the Pope said what he did is that he has a novel,
post-Vatican II idea of Holy Orders.  According to this idea,
episcopal consecration *does* confer jurisdiction.  I lent the article
to a friend, unfortunately, so can't tell you more.  I believe they
quoted the new code of canon law in support of this idea.

The Pope's thinking on this point remains a great puzzle to me.
There's no way there is a schism, according to traditional Catholic
theology.  So why does the Pope think this?

As far as the points regarding the nature of Tradition goes, here's
the passage in question:

    The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete
    and contradictory notion of Tradtion.  Incomplete, because it does
    not take sufficiently into the account the living character of
    Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught,

        comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the
        help of the Holy Spirit.  There is a growth in insight into
        the realities and words that are being passed on.  This comes
        about in various ways.  It comes through the contemplation and
        study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts.
        It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which
        they experience.  And it comes from the preaching of those who
        have received, along with their right of succession in the
        espiscopate, the sure charism of truth.

    But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which
    opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the
    Bishop of Rome and the body of bishops.  It is impossible to
    remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond
    with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ
    himself entrusted the ministry of unity in His Church.

    (Papal motu proprio "Ecclesia Dei", 2 July 1988)

It seems to me that the Holy Father is making two points here that can
be simplified to the following:

- Vatican Council II has happened.
- I am the Pope.

The argument being that either case is sufficient to prove that
Archbishop Lefebvre must be wrong, because he disagrees with them.
This is weak, to say the least!

It would have helped clarify things more if the Pope had addressed
Archbishop Lefebvre's concerns in detail.  What is John Paul II's
stand on the social Kingship of Christ, as taught by Gregory XVI, Pius
IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII, for example?  Are we supposed to
ignore what all these Popes said on the subject?

I don't know what the future will hold, but the powers that be in the
SSPX are still talking with Rome and trying to straighten things out.

--------------------------------------------------------------

[Many people would prefer to call a justified refusal to obey
"justified disobedience" or even "obeying God rather than man".
Calling a refusal to obey obedience puts us into a sort of Alice in
Wonderland world where words mean whatever we want them to mean.

Similarly, schism indicates a formal break in the church.  If the Pope
says that a schism exists, it seems to me that by definition it
exists.  It may be that the Pope is on the wrong side of the break,
that there is no good reason for the break to exist, and that it will
shortly be healed.  But how can one deny that it does in fact exist?

It seems to me that you are in grave danger of destroying the thing
you are trying to reform: the power of the papacy.  What good will it
do you if you become reconciled to the the Pope in the future, but in
the process, you have destroyed his ability to use the tools of church
discipline?  It's one thing to hold that the Pope has misused his
powers, and excommunicated someone wrongly.  It's something else to
say that his excommunication did not take effect, and the schism is
all in his imagination.  That means that acts of church discipline are
not legal tools, but acts whose validity is open to debate.  Generally
it has been liberal Catholics who have had problems with the Pope.
While they have often objected to church sanctions, generally they
have admitted that the sanctions exist.  You are now opening the door
to people simply ignoring papal decisions, claiming to be truly
obeying by disobeying, and to be in communion while excommunicated.
This would seem to be precisely the denial of Divine right to command
that you say defines schism.