[ebb tide]

It was Pope Benedict XVI who lifted the latae, not ferendae sententiae, excommunications of the SSPX bishops.

[Captain Walker]

I understand that, although I find it somewhat interesting that the SSPX bishops requested that the excommunications be lifted. (It's the SSPX, after all, who insists that the excommunications were never valid.)

In any event, the lifting of the four excommunications as a gesture of goodwill is in no way, shape, or form to be taken as a retraction of Pope John Paul II's position on Lefebvre's act of disobedience, or of the bishops' participation in it.