Did I say the majority of the bishops have lapsed into heresy? Though I would suggest many more than you might hope are at least material heretics, if not formal. How many, for instance, deny the infallibly pronounced dogma, “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus?”
Rightly understood, I doubt very many. How many would deny the necessity of conversion to attain salvation of those who are outside the Church? **I doubt if you pinned them down, they would out and out deny it. Granted, they probably aren’t as forward as they could be in proclaiming that necessity, but that was also the way in the pre-Vatican II Church as well (no priest ever made the attempt to evangelize my family, though our farm was just down the road from the local Catholic parish and my mother and grandparents had lived there for decades before I was born). **How many rub shoulders with pagans, Jews, heretics and apostates in scandalous eccumenical services that would have horrified their predecessors? **Well, at least they aren’t defending schismatics. That’s something in their impoverished favor. **
All of these are symptoms of a creeping modernism that has infected the Mystical Body, even at the highest levels. **I don’t believe it, you know. I don’t believe that “creeping modernism” has infected the Mystical Body, not even a toe nail thereon. Oh, we’ve always had our oddballs in the Church and they’ve had to be dealt with in every age (both Lefebreve, the Fab Four, and Milingo spring to mind). And we’ve more than our share of questionable Church leaders in the West. But I don’t believe the bit about creeping modernism or infection, because I don’t believe that the Church can BE infected. Besieged? Sure. **Dogma does not evolve. The Church does not see her doctrines in a new light, the light of fashionable thought. The Truth is the Truth and since God is the Truth, the Truth is eternally unchanging. **I agree. You’re right. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to be further explained. AND the TRUTH, immutable as it is, is interpreted by the Church. **
So you’ll pardon me if I don’t lift my skirt and screech everytime I hear of someone attending an “unapproved” Latin Mass somewhere. Not a lot of creeping modernism going on there, I think it’s safe to say. **Oh, neither do I!!! Very little shocks me anymore. I’ve no trouble believing that people rebell against the legitimate authority of the Vicar of Christ on Earth (anyway, there’s nothing new under the Sun). It isn’t about that for me. I wish people would come back into the communion and obedience of the Church, but if they don’t, well, I fail to see what I can do about it beyond prayer. I just am not going to let pass the absurd assertions that the SSPX aren’t in schism or that their bishops aren’t excommunicate or that they are the remnant or any of that absurd garbage or that Lefebreve had to obligation to do what he did our of grave necessity or because of an emergency. That’s all. Think of it as fraternal correction for those ill-advised enough to think that they’ve found the “Church” or the Church’s truth at an SSPX chapel. They haven’t. They’ve run into a bunch of schismatics. **
I’d wager the average SSPX chapel is more in communion with Rome than many novus ordo parishes 'round the world. I said “many” not all. There really is a dinstinction in meaning between the two.