"No, there is never an obligation to obey a command which does harm to souls--not even if issued by a popular pope."
What COMMAND has your diocesan Ordinary or the current Roman Pontiff made specifically to you?
Read Vatican I and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta. Maybe instead of listening to "high ranking Vatican archbishops," Bishop Fellay should listen to the Pope and reunify with the Church. That would be TRUE obedience. He has no obligation to any "high ranking archbishop."
"Bishop Fellay should listen to the Pope and reunify with the Church. That would be TRUE obedience. He has no obligation to any 'high ranking archbishop.'"
First, there is no need to "reunify with the Church." That unity was never broken, despite the erroneous statements by John Paul to the contrary. There never was a schism. There was only the abuse of power by the Holy See which forced good men to choose between their faith and a false obedience.
Second, Bishop Fellay does not feel any obligation to a "high ranking archbishop", as you say. He only feels an obligation to protect the traditional faith in lieu of the failure of the present See to do so. And he does so by default, not because he wants to. Moreover, there can be no "regularization" of relations with Rome until it surrenders its modernist ambitions and converts to the traditional faith of our forefathers.
Third, those who place the Pope above the faith cannot properly understand where the SSPX is coming from. There was every indication John Paul II intended to destroy the ancient Mass, having thrown in his lot with the ecclesiastical marauders who had already spread ruin everywhere. The evidence is there. Look at it.