Stmaria,
I understand your thoughts about Archbishop Lefebvre, or at least I think I do. You think that he has done a great thing for the Church insofar as that the Tridentine Mass was wrongly witheld from the faithful and that he, acting according to his conscience, not only did what he could to return it but ultimately played a part in bringing it back to the faithful - that is to say, his actions in some way led to the Motu Proprio of Benedict XVI. Because of this, you want very badly to see him in a very good light, but far more important than how
you see him, you want for the
reality of the matter to be that he acted properly, did what was right, and will one day be lifted up for veneration by the faithful as one of the saints on the Roman Calendar. These are very wonderful sentiments to have for a person, especially for one who you feel has done great things.
Unfortunately, I think that your sentiments may be clouding your ability to judge the matter objectively. Whether or not the ultimate goal that Archbishop Lefebvre sought to reach was meritorious, the means by which he worked to accomplish it were not, but were in fact sinful, and more than likely gravely sinful. He consecrated four bishops without the approval of the Holy See, which is in itself a grave sin on many accounts, perhaps the most significant being that he knowingly took upon himself an authority rightly belonging to the Bishop of Rome, meaning that not only did he disobey the Supreme Pontiff, but he also, in a very real sense, declared - through his actions, not his words - that either the Roman Pontiff had no authority in this case, or that his authority surpassed that of the Pontiff. And so the sin was one not only of disobedience, but perhaps even implicitly a sin against faith in the dogma of papal primacy. Remember that it is our actions by which we declare our faith, and not only our words, so what the Archibishop professed with his mouth and by the pen matters less than what he professed by his actions.
The citations from canon law that you brought up don’t really have anything to do with the matter in this case for two reasons. The most important is that those canons pertain to the handing out of penalties. That is, those are the laws by which the Church is to act when it places upon someone an ecclesiastical penalty. For example, if I were to commit an excomunicable act out of fear, then the Church would not lawfully be able to excommunicate me. It is the Church’s judgment, however, to see whether or not this applies. It may be that after investigation it was determined that I did not in fact act out of grave fear, and so the Church would be required to refrain from imposing a penalty on me. However,
if they did impose a penalty, I would still be bound under that penalty even if they had judged wrongly. In that case I would be able to appeal to a higher court of canon law. The same goes for canon 1324.
Essentially, these canons list matters to be considered by those judges who would impose penalties. They do not, however, have anything to do with penalties which are imposed. Even a penalty imposed unjustly on a person must be respected until such time as it is lifted. It is much the same way as with civil law. I might be convicted of a crime unjustly, but I still find myself in prison until such time as the injustice is corrected.
And this really gets to the main part of the issue. When we look at the lives of the saints, we see countless examples of unjust excommunications, restrictions, and all manner of other penalties. The saints did not disregard these or disobey their superiors. Rather, they humbly submitted and worked for justice through prayer and obedience. They held obedience as the highest of virtues. Saints who saw the Church in need of reform, or some great injustice being imposed on the faithful by the Church acted also through prayer and obedience. They did not go ahead and do what they felt was right anyways in opposition to the Church.
This is why I think it highly unlikely that Archbishop Lefebvre will ever be canonized. Even if he is in now sitting in a high place at the Heavenly Banquet, the utter lack of obedience with which he did live and the other errors in his judgment insofar as how he handled the situation here on earth makes him a rather terrible example for the faithful to venerate. In short, he did everything that the saints teach us
not to do.
the irregular status of Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX of a certainty led to a distrust of the movement advocating the TLM among the majority of Catholics, who rightly saw full union with Rome as something essential and to be preserved above all.