SSPX Canonical Status

... as we often said in the Ecclesia Dei Commission, it is not a question of a true schism but rather of an abnormal situation that arose after the ‘schismatic act’ by Archbishop Lefebvre when he conferred the episcopate without a papal mandate, contrary to the express will of the pope."

We are not confronted with a heresy. We cannot say in correct, exact, precise terms that there is a schism. In the fact of consecrating bishops without a papal mandate there is a schismatic attitude. They are within the Church. There is just this fact: there is a lack of a full, a more perfect—as was said during the meeting with Bishop Fellay—a fuller communion, because the communion does exist."