Same old same old. I'm even weary of correcting you, but correct you I must. Here is a post I sent to Black Elk two days ago--it applies to your rigid way of thinking as well:
You state Ecclesia is authoritative. Fine. The only problem is that it is in direct conflict with a more authoritative document--Canon Law. Canon 1323 allows for a subject to disobey if he fears a state of necessity. It says nothing about whether such a state must exist or not. The canon is only concerned with the interior state of the subject and how he perceives a situation. If said subject sincerely believed there was a state of necessity which forced him to disobey, no penalty is incurred according to canon 1323. The Archbishop evoked the canon--legally and honestly.
But this is not all. Not only does a canon allow for disobedience under certain conditions, but another canon stated that even if the individual were WRONG about such a state of necessity, as long as he sincerely believed there was an emergency, no penalty is incurred. How much clearer can this be? It was not up to the Pope to decide what was in the Archbishop's mind when he "disobeyed", it was the Archbishop's call, not the Pope's.
If the Pope had wanted to prove that the Archbishop was culpable, he ought not to have relied on a latae sententiae decree, but on a formal tribunal, the traditional route for disciplining high churchmen. Such a tribunal would have called witnesses, allowed for a full airing of the dispute, and rendered a fair-and-square verdict, ferendae sententiae. He didn't do this--probably because this would have given the Archbishop the right to defend himself. It would have meant bringing up embarrassing conflicts regarding matters of faith in which the papacy was at loggerheads with the Church's own Tradition. So the Pope did an end-run and used the pretext of an automatic latae sententiae to falsely charge the Archbishop with excommunication and schism. \
As for what the Pontiff owes me or doesn't owe me--that is a ridiculous point to bring up. I am not important--but the faith itself is. The Pope owes explanations not to me, but to millions like myself who expect more from a pope than poetry. We expect a vigorous defense of the traditional faith--not novelties that have nothing to do with the faith. We want faith-affirming Masses and clearly Catholic catechesis for our children. We want bishops who are devout and orthodox not corrupt and apostate. It is all well and good that he is so worried about Buddhists and Jews and Muslims. But his own Catholic sheep are starving. He needs to follow Christ's injunction to feed his lambs and his sheep before he attends to the Hindus.
He invoked it after multiple warnings from the Apostolic See that there was no state of necessity. As the PCILT said, there can hardly be ignorance in such a situation.
he ought not to have relied on a latae sententiae decree, but on a formal tribunal, the traditional route for disciplining high churchmen.
And I pointed out that there is plenty of precedent for disciplining high churchmen as schismatic without a trial, and that the Apostolic See generally uses latae sententiae excommunications - this wasn't a special case for Msgr. Lefebvre.
Msgr. Lefebvre was stubborn because of his mistakes on various doctrines, especially religious liberty, in which he effectively rejected Pius XII's teaching in "Ci Riesce". At the end, he couldn't even accept
Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.insisting that a clause needed to be added to allow for private judgment. Sola Traditio!
Dollinger always considered himself a Catholic, too.