I think you really misunderstand the degree of adherence to the supposed "schism" SSPX members hold.
Yes, there are the "purists" therein who I doubt would reunify with Rome even if Fellay and (wishful thinking) Williamson were to regularize their situation. But what of the folks who simply cannot abide the liturgical nonsense that goes on their local parishes, and attend an SSPX chapel simply to retain their sanity? Even if there's an indult nearby, you can't always be so faulting of these folks, as (being from a fully established indult Latin Mass community myself), there is absolutely *no comparison* between a full parish life around the Latin Mass and a once-a-week, throw-the-peasants-a-bone indult of the type I have also attended.
Second of all, as has been repeatedly asserted by Rome, though the bishops were excommunicated, the laity of the SSPX (and I think even the priests) are *NOT* in schism. The SSPX was not condemned by Rome *as a group*. There is, I agree, antisemitism in the SSPX. And yet, there's also antisemitism among liberal Catholics.
There is, I agree, lunacy in the SSPX. And yet, there's a whole lot more lunacy in the Church at large.
There is, I agree, some distrust of the magisterium in the SSPX (I have never seen hatred personally). And yet, there is much much more open and flagrant hatred, contempt, and downright disobedience among the majority of Mass-going Catholics who claim to be Catholic yet refuse to accept this or that teaching. I know it first hand--my family is riddled with far more contempt for Rome's authority than anyone I've met in the SSPX.
Intellectually, yes, they do look with fondness--perhaps too much fondness--to a particular time in Church history. And yet, every liberal does the same--communion on the hand, the Mass versus populum, standing instead of kneeling-*all* defended by a supposed deference to antiquity and the Apostolic Era.
And yet, the liberal nuts are allowed to run free in the church. Grave abuses of the liturgy go on every day without even so much as a peep. And I'm not talking clown Masses, I'm talking in your average parish, where Eucharistic ministers tromp all over the altar, the blessed Sacrament is treated appallingly, and the music reads like a Marty Haugen tribute instead of the venerable chant and old hymns that Vatican II expressly called for.
Have some charity for our brothers and sisters in the SSPX. They are defending the Church the only way they know how. And I, for one, want every single one of them fighting side-by-side with me to reverse this 40 years of madness that has overtaken the American church.
Bene detto. (Pun intended.) ;-)
Claud, the only official document on this that I know of is the short note issued by the PCILT. It states that the SSPX clerics are all excommunicated. BUT that the status of laity who attend the SSPX is reserved to the judgment of the pastors of the Church:
As the Motu Proprio declares in no. 5 c) the excommunication latae sententiae for schism regards those who "adhere formally" to the said schismatic movement. ...In the case of the Lefebvrian deacons and priests there seems no doubt that their ministerial activity in the ambit of the schismatic movement is a more than evident sign of the fact that the two requirements mentioned above (n. 5) are met, and thus that there is a formal adherence.
On the other hand, in the case of the rest of the faithful it is obvious that an occasional participation in liturgical acts or the activity of the Lefebvrian movement, done without making one's own the attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunion of such a movement, does not suffice for one to be able to speak of formal adherence to the movement. In pastoral practice the result can be that it is more difficult to judge their situation. One must take account above all of the person's intentions, and the putting into practice of this internal disposition. For this reason the various situations are going to be judged case by case, in the competent forums both internal and external.
Bravo!
Of course, one can find well-intentioned folks in each group but one doesn't invite DU to write the Republican Party Platform nor ought one invite the SSPX back into the Church to "write" or "right" Tradition