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.
It makes no difference if he received a zillion warnings. The conditions were the same--a state of emergency of the type we read about daily--a Church stewing in corruption, without a clue how to right itself and follow the true faith. You and others like you refuse to concede the obvious. You obsess over legalisms, exactly as the Pharisees had done. In fact, the issue for the Archbishop was exactly as it is for Fr. Z--an inability to trash the true faith for the sake of a hollow obedience.