Abp. Lefebvre in case of the German Old Catholic (valid) bishop Georg Schmitz in 1977 made an exception. To avoid canonical difficulties, he, Abp. Lefebvre, received the traditionalist inclined bp. Schmitz as a priest more or less to continue regularisation as bishops "as soon as our, SSPX, relations with the authorities in Rome are again functioning well". Fr. Schmidberger was present at the abjuration of heresy and profession of submission the Apostolic See by bp. Schmitz. Schmitz continued to offer Mass and hear Confessions, but Lefebvre told him to only wear ring and pectoral cross, no mitre nor crozier. (Schmitz was a valid priest and bishop from the Old Catholics). This converted bishop revised his pastoral practice and implemented all Latin Pius V rite celebration of Mass, whereas previously he had held the vernacular to be the norm for an Old Catholic liturgy. In the late 1980s Bp. Schmitz however, sadly enough, broke with the SSPX, returned to an independent ministry, and in 1996 again ordained one ex university student and ex seminarian, who had become a very extremist polemical sedevacantist, to the priesthood, as this intelligent seminary student at once from conservative Novus Ordoism went over to harshest brand of SVism. Bp. Schmitz still lives in Germany.