[Mrs. Don-o]

When he was head of the Apostolic Signatura (top canonical judge, Catholic equivalent of Supreme Court) Cardinal Raymond Burke ruled definitively, clearly, elaborately, forcefully, that public, manifest, unrepentant pro-aborts and suchlike, if they approach for Communion, are to be denied.

Burke is no longer with the Apostolic Signature, and even when he was, most bishops/priests ignored this, and there was no way to monitor actual practice or force compliance. In other words, without active promotion, active discipline, unequivocal backing from the Chair of Peter, it was a dead letter.

However, the ruling is still there. It has never been overturned. The bishops are outlaws, I am sorry to say.

[Legatus]

The bishops are outlaws, I am sorry to say.

Doesn't that put them in de-facto schism? Seriously, if they're outlaws they're rebels, what makes them more legit than (for instance) SSPX bishops? It is all a legal fiction where we pretend to ignore the heretical elephant in the room? I know, I know, the elephant is actually schismatic but I think he's an heretic too.

We talk about automatic-excommunication for pro abort pols that isn't enforced, is there a situation of automatic-excommunication for bishops who are no longer (in any reasonable use of the term) in communion with the bishop of Rome?

I realize this basically plunges us into a state of anarchy in the Church but isn't that really what's going on anyhow?

[NKP_Vet]

“The bishops are outlaws, I am sorry to say”.

Heretics is a better word.