If memory serves me, it was Prefect of the CDF Cardinal Ratzinger's interpretation of canon law that was involved more directly than JPII's. I suppose Benedict could declare Ratzinger to have erred, but I'm not holding my breath. If he does, I won't jump off a cliff--if a pope wants to declare himself to have erred in his prepapal decisions, it's a mark of humility, but I'm not sitting on a mountain waiting for it to happen.
You may not, some here give the impression that they would.
but I'm not sitting on a mountain waiting for it to happen.
I don't know anyone who is.
In exercising supreme, full, and immediate power in the universal Church, the Roman pontiff makes use of the departments of the Roman Curia which, therefore, perform their duties in his name and with his authority for the good of the churches and in the service of the sacred pastors.
CHRISTUS DOMINUS, 9
"ECCLESIA DEI"
JOHN PAUL II>
1. With great affliction the Church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on 30 June last by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the Church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X founded by the same Mons. Lefebvre. These efforts, especially intense during recent months, in which the Apostolic See has shown comprehension to the limits of the possible, were all to no avail.(1)
2. This affliction was particularly felt by the Successor Peter to whom in the first place pertains the guardianship of the unity of the Church,(2) even though the number of persons directly involved in these events might be few. For every person is loved by God on his own account and has been redeemed by the blood of Christ shed on the Cross for the salvation of all.
The particular circumstances, both objective and subjective in which Archbishop Lefebvre acted, provide everyone with an occasion for profound reflection and for a renewed pledge of fidelity to Christ and to his Church.
3. In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.(3) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.(4)
*You don't sit on a mountain waiting for the excomunications to be declared invalid.
There are many sitting in caves denying the excomunication was valid and waiting for lefevbre to be declared a Saint