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Why bother? You have closed your mind to the plain meaning that is found in canon law.

You have closed your mind to the fact that Canon Law itself allows for exceptions to penalties incurred for ostensibly violating it.

Schism is punishable by automatic excommunication.

True. "Implied" schismatic intent, however, is not.

Somehow, in the parallel universe that you inhabit, automatic excommunication is not real even when it is expressly confirmed by a papal decree.

Sure it is, provided there's a crime to match the punishment.

Again, excommunication is pointless if it is nullified by the censured individual's subjective state of mind, something which cannot be determined.

You seem to have no problem having determined it in the case of the Archbishop. That said; yes, intentions are important, just as in the civil law. The Archbishops intentions, as I've said in this thread, were made public, repeatedly, before the alleged "schismatic" act occurred.

In that case, the Church has no right to exclude anyone from communion with her, if the individual can rationalize what he did. I didn't realize that the SSPXers were moral relativists. They apparently think that since Lefebvre acted sincerely, he could not have been guilty.

It's not relativism, it's looking at the situation honestly, according to Canon Law, which you say condemns him simply because you refuse to acknowledge that Canon Law foresaw such situations and allowed for exceptions.

The problem is that no one can judge this man's subjective state of mind. We can only judge his act. And his act was immoral because he peformed it in defiant disobedience to the Pope. His act was a clear rejection of the authority of Church, an act of schism.

His act was not immoral, again, because of his intentions. It's a grave moral evil to take someone's life. A man who takes another's life defending his own life or that of another commits no sin at all, evevn though he objectively took a life. Had the same man been judged by your standards, he would have been locked up for life or executed, since those are the penalties for taking a life.

No souls would have been lost if he had not ordained these four men.

Who are you to say that souls have been lost as a result?

Lefebvre and the four bishops offended the unity of the Church and were rightly excommunicated. As long as Bishop Fellay and the other three schismatic bishops pretend that they were not excommunicated, there is no hope of the SSPX returning to the Church. And maybe that is for the best.

Seems to me that if you're so interested in the unity of the Church, you would not not think it was "for the best" for anyone to be outside of it.