.
The best example I've heard comes from Fr. Hewko, who gave this
during the Christmas season conference in Kentucky.
When does a woman who is having an abortion commit a mortal sin,
when she shows up for the appointment or when she first makes
the appointment 3 weeks in advance?
In order to have committed a mortal sin, someone must have made
an act of the will that is gravely sinful, such as deciding to kill
someone (like a baby by abortion), and must know that this is a
mortally sinful thing to do, and knowing that, commits the act of
will anyway.
So, provided that the woman picking up the telephone knows that
she is making an appointment to kill her baby, and knowing that this
act of her will is a mortal sin, proceeds to make the appointment,
she is thereby committing a mortal sin. Even if she later cancels
the appointment or just doesn't show up, it makes no difference
for the fact that she sinned grievously in making the appointment.
So then going through with the operation is really two mortal sins.
Applying this principle to the dealmaking with modernist Rome,
the decision to enter into a 'deal' with modernist Rome, evidenced
by the fact that B. Fellay drew up the Dialectical Doctrinal
Declaration in the first place, and signed it, and delivered it to
Rome, amounts to his having committed a sin, one of compromise
with error, since the Dialectical Doctrinal Declaration compromises
with error.
However, it is not our place to judge whether it is a mortal sin for
him to do this. But he really should know better.
He made a morally unjustifiable offer to Rome in that docuмent,
which is a sinful act, and to that extent, he made a 'deal' because
it was entirely in the power of modernist Rome to merely accept
it, and then the 'deal' would be complete.
The fact that Rome did not accept it makes no difference from the
perspective of B. Fellay who made the offer.
If a man goes into a house of prostitution, pays the fee and goes
to a room where he waits for the prostitute, he has committed a
sin already. If the prostitute does not show up, he has still
committed the sin. This is what B. Fellay has effectively done, for
his Dialectical Doctrinal Declaration, the AFD, waits for the other
party to show up. And Rome backed out. Bishop de Mallerais said
this was due to the intervention of Our Blessed Mother that Rome
did not accept the AFD.