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Here's some shit from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X#Present_canonical_status_of_the_SSPXPresent canonical status of the SSPX On the question of whether Archbishop Lefebvre committed a schismatic act in consecrating four bishop in 1988, see Controversy over the consecration. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, appointed by John Paul II for the Holy See observe relations with the Society of St. Pius X and other traditionalist Catholic clergymen in a state of dispute with Rome,<14> has expressed, in letters signed by its Secretary Monsignor Camille Perl, the judgment that "many in authority" in the Society do conform to the definition of schism,<15> and that those who attend SSPX Masses might be in danger of "imbib a mentality which separates itself from the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff", leading over time - according to Perl - to a "formal adherence to the schism".<16> The second of these letters also declares that attendance at SSPX Masses, since they are celebrated by priests suspended from priestly functions, is for Catholics "morally illicit" in normal circumstances.<16> On the question of the Society as a whole: Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, stated a personal opinion (not endorsed by the Vatican) in a 2005 press interview that a "situation of separation" had come about as a result of the illicit episcopal consecrations, "even if it was not a formal schism."<17> In a television interview the same year, he also stated: "It cannot be said in correct, exact, and precise terms that there is a schism. There is a schismatic attitude in the fact of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. They are within the Church. There is only the fact that a full, more perfect communion is lacking – as was stated during the meeting with Bishop Fellay – a fuller communion, because communion does exist."<18> In yet another interview he said: "The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. By the illicit episcopal consecration Archbishop Lefebvre performed a schismatic act. For this reason the bishops consecrated by him are suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society are not excommunicated. They are not heretics. I share Saint Jerome's fear that heresy leads to schism and vice versa. The danger of a schism is great, for instance through systematic disobedience to the Holy Father or denial of his authority. It is a question of a service of charity (love of neighbor) through which the priestly society obtains full communion with the Holy Father and recognizes the holiness of the new Mass."<19> Father Gerald E. Murray of the Archdiocese of New York, now working for his Canon Law doctorate, received his license in Canon Law from the Gregorian University, in June 1995 with a thesis entitled, "The Canonical Status of the Lay Faithful Associated with the Late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of Saint Pius X: Are they Excommunicated as Schismatics?" In his interview he said:<20> "I have received a license in canon law and I've studied this topic, the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre, for my license thesis.... They're not excommunicated as schismatics, as far as I can see, because the Vatican has never said they are... I come to the conclusion that, canonically speaking, he's not guilty of a schismatic act punishable by canon law. He's guilty of an act of disobedience to the Pope, but he did it in such a way that he could avail himself of a provision of the law that would prevent him from being automatically excommunicated(latae senteniae) for this act." "In the case of the Society of Saint Pius X lay people or the priests, the Vatican never declared any priest or lay person to have become a schismatic." "As far as I can see, the Holy See has never stated that the mere attendance at a Mass said by a priest in the Society of Saint Pius X constitutes a schismatic act... Let's say that you knew that the priest at your parish was teaching things contrary to the moral law or Catholic doctrine. Let's say he's denied the existence of hell, or taught that divorced and remarried people could receive Communion. Could you go to a Society of Saint Pius X chapel to receive good doctrine? That seems better to me than hearing truly heretical sermons." The Holy See views the four SSPX bishops as validly ordained but excommunicated.<21> It regards the priests ordained by them as ordained validly but illicitly, with the result that they are by law suspended from exercising their priestly functions.<22><23> No decree of excommunication has been issued against the priests or other religious of the Society (which does have lay members in the "<12> Third Order"), and an attempt by Bishop Ferrario of Hawaii, to excommunicate, on 1 May 1991, some followers of the SSPX, for supporting the SSPX and attending its Masses. Cardinal Ratzinger,now Pope Benedict XVI, declared that the decision "lacks foundation and hence validity." Bishop Ferrario's attempted excommunication of SSPX followers was overturned by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, on June 28, 1993, he said: "From the examination of the case, conducted on the basis of the Law of the Church, it did not result that the facts referred to in the above-mentioned Decree, are formal schismatic acts in the strict sense, as they do not constitute the offense of schism; and therefore the Congregation holds that the Decree of May 1, 1991 lacks foundation and hence validity."<24> The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and all its infallible teachings, while rejecting what it sees as novelties in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. It has officially recognised Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI as Popes. One of the Society's four bishops, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, has declared that Pope Benedict XVI "has professed heresies in the past! He...has never retracted his errors. When he was a theologian, he professed heresies, he published a book full of heresies."<25> In the same interview Bishop Mallerais said of the Second Vatican Council: "You cannot read Vatican II as a Catholic work. It is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. ...I will say, one day the Church should erase this Council. She will not speak of it anymore. She must forget it. The Church will be wise if she forgets this council."<25> Similarly, Bishop Richard Williamson has said of Pope Benedict XVI: "His past writings are full of Modernist errors. Now, Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies (Pascendi, Saint Pius X). So Ratzinger as a heretic goes far beyond Luther's Protestant errors, as Bishop Tissier de Mallerais well said." Williamson added that the documents of the Second Vatican Council "are much too subtly and deeply poisoned to be reinterpreted. The whole of a partly poisoned cake goes to the trash can!"<26>
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