SSPX Schism

Stephen Hepburn, it's apples and oranges, Sir.  Those Chinese bishops are to replace actual existing empty seats of authority. The SSPX bishops, that were illegally consecrated, were replacing no existing vacant sees, and are not essential to the continuation of the church. They know this because they are not claiming any kind of jurisdiction or territory. The SSPX bishops are sacramental bishops. But of course, the ignorant faithful practically treat them like their local ordinary, while they totally ignore the true jurisdictional territorial Bishop of the diocese in which they reside.  Also, considering the fact that, the Vatican expressly forbade the SSPX to do what they did, in 1988, and clearly now in 2026.  Besides that, come on, it doesn't matter what you or I really think. It only matters what the church authority says about it. If the church excommunicates the SSPX, then they are. Formally. And even if they didn't, they would be automatically excommunicated, lata...

"...schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him." (CIC, 751). “It is imperative for every priest who wishes to remain Catholic to be separated from the Conciliar Church until such time as it has returned to the traditional Magisterium of the Church and the Catholic Faith,” [Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ‘Spiritual Journey,’ 1990].

   After 15 years of retirement, Pete Vere, is back to analyze the SSPX status. Read here: SSPX Consecrations and Impending Schism - Where Peter Is For those who have been in the Trad world for a while, you may recall Pete's co-authorship of a book with Patrick Madrid, More Catholic than the Pope. This was back when mainstream Traditionalists were not sympathetic to the SSPX. The SSPX, after all, was in competition with the FSSP, ICK, Indults, etc. for the TLM flock. If individuals were pro-SSPX, it was "under the radar". 

"Among the documents published in the Letter is an older declaration, which had remained secret, written by Archbishop Lefebvre five years earlier, on October 19, 1983, amplifying that of November 21, 1974, and animated by the same spirit of rupture. This declaration shows that he had long since made the decision to consecrate bishops." To safeguard the Catholic priesthood, which carries on the Catholic Church and not an adulterated Church, Catholic bishops are needed. We therefore see ourselves compelled, because of the invasion of the modernist spirit into the present clergy, even to the highest levels within the Church, to proceed to the consecration of bishops, the fact of this consecration having been admitted by the pope in Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter of May 30. These episcopal consecrations will be not only valid but, in view of the historical circumstances, probably licit. Whatever may be said of their liceity, it is sometimes necessary to abandon legality in order to...