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.