Actually, they made a deal with the Vatican and explained in their letter in great detail how they made that deal because they no longer wanted to question whether the vatican 2 church had any authority and were afraid that if they continued that they would have to openly accept sedevacantism. They even explain how they wrote to Bishop Fellay and explained the same.
http://brasildogmadafe.blogspot.com.br/p/docuмento-perdido-dos-padres-de-campos.html

Yes, I am aware of what they did. It is sad. Bishop Rifan would eventually begin to concelebrate the New Mass. Again, they didn't quite understand the Crisis being isolated in their area of Brazil. 

Lad, you're putting words into Drew's mouth; he's not a protestant and many sedes DO act as if the pope is the rule of their faith, just like novus ordo catholics put the papacy on a pedastal.  You hear the phrase 'R&R' and you immediately go into attack mode and put blinders on...yet I ask, one could define Fr Ringrose and Chazal's arguments as "recognizing" their material authority, while "resisting" their non-existent spiritual authority.  Potatoe, potato.  Don't let the terms overshadow the underlying arguments.

Here's the issue that is not being distinguished - the time factor.  For example, how many councils have we had in the past and how many doctrines have they defined?  (at least 20 councils).  And how many Doctors of the Church and saints and other holy people, including popes, have written and explained such doctrines?  Hundreds.  So, the previous magisterium's of the Church have already "spoken" and already explained all that's needed to be said concerning most of these doctrines.  For example, the doctrine of Christ having 2 natures - divine and human.  This has been around and explained for so long that we catholics in the 19th/20th/21st centuries don't need it re-explained.  It's pretty basic.

So, such doctrines are settled.  The current magisterium isn't spending time re-explaining these types of topics because the Church has had 17 centuries to do so.  So, to say that the current magisterium is the 'rule' of faith, is not accurate for this topic.  It might be accurate for issues which are CURRENTLY BEING ATTACKED or which need to be clarified, but for older doctrines, we look to the past for explanations.  We can do this because the Church's teachings are CONSISTENT and UNIVERSAL.  Therefore, what She said 16-17 centuries ago concerning Our Lord's Divine nature was as accurate then as it is now.

The point is, to say that the current magisterium is the 'rule' of faith is only partially correct.  The magisteriums of the past (i.e. previously defined doctrine/dogma and the related commentary) is part of the 'rule' of faith as well, because Church Teaching is eternal, no matter what time period it came from.  So the rule of faith is THE MAGISTERIUM (past and present) because ultimately what they teach is ETERNAL TRUTH, which is timeless.

So, to Drew's point, whether or not the current pope strays from the Faith is irrelevent to our Faith because the current magisterium is only a small part of The UNIVERSAL magisterium, which is the constant teaching of the faith over 2,000 centuries.  This UNVERSAL magisterium is what Drew means when he says 'doctrine'.

The  Magisterium (Pope & Episcopate) is needed for each passing generation.

No one is saying they aren't needed.  We're debating to what level.  The point Drew is trying to make is that one's faith is MORE DEPENDENT on dogma (which has already been explained) than on the current hierarchy.  As the past 50 years have shown - wherein we've had NO leadership and NO reliance on the magisterium, since they are quasi-heretical - traditional catholics have survived quite easily, because we have 2,000 yrs of orthodox magisterium's to fall back on.  This is the beauty of God's eternal truth - that it does not change, which is why modernists had to introduce the idea of a 'living' magisterium - to get people to stop looking at the past and to get them to think that the 'current' magisterium is all that matters.  This is heresy pure and simple.

He was arguing that the Magisterium is not the proximate rule of faith but, rather, dogma itself.

As I understand it, he was classifying the PAST magisterium's teachings as dogma, since they aren't alive anymore and their teachings are 'set in stone'.  All things in the present are classified as the magisterium.  This way, one does not have to use the term 'universal'.

No, CATHOLICS hold that the Magisterium is the proximate rule of faith, not the pope per se.  So you open with a complete strawman distortion of Catholic teaching.  R&R like yourself concocted this nonsense about DOGMA itself, i.e. YOUR private judgment interpretation of said dogma, being the rule of faith ... and have thus essentially embraced Protestantism, the only difference being that the Prots hold that there's only one source of said dogma, while you hold two.  Other than that, you're nothing but a run-of-the-mill Protestant.  Dogmas is the object of the faith, not its rule.  We've gone through this already.

You make distinctions that cannot be made, and then cannot make distinctions that should.  In a previous exchange on this same subject you divided the two necessary and essential attributes of the virtue of faith.  In this exchange you divide the matter from the form of the papal office and cannot see a necessary substantial change that must follow. Then you cannot make a simple distinction between the Magisterium, which is the means, from dogma, which is the end and which constitutes the formal object of divine and Catholic faith. It is the formal object that constitutes the rule.  And this fact can be seen as evident if you simply examine the answers that are given to questions on defined doctrine. The answer is always the dogma.
 
Rev. Joseph Pohle in God, the Author of the Natural and Supernatural uses the term “rule of faith” as a synonym for dogma, for example, when he says:

It is a rule of faith, by which we believe that there is but one God, nor any other beside the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing. For the sources of their teaching the Fathers point to Apostolic Tradition and the Mosaic narrative. Thus St. Athanasius teaches: “God created all things, which previously did not exist, through the Logos out of nothing, so that they received being, as He speaks through the mouth of Moses: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’”

He even cites the Church council that uses the term “Rule of Faith” as a synonym for dogma that was approved by Pope Zosimus.
 

“Whoever denies that new-born infants should be baptized immediately after birth, or asserts that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but do not contract from Adam original sin, which must be expiated in the waters of regeneration, and that consequently the baptismal form for the remission of sins applies to them not truly, but falsely; let him be anathema.” The Council bases this definition on Rom. V, 12 sqq., and on ecclesiastical Tradition, and concludes: "Propter hanc enim regulam ndei etiam parvuli, qui nihil peccatorum in semetipsis adhuc committere potuerunt, ideo in peccatorum remissionem veraciter baptizantur ut in eis regeneratione mundetur, quod generatione traxerunt. According to this rule of faith little children, who are as yet unable to commit actual sin, are therefore truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that by regeneration they may be cleansed of that which they have contracted by generation."
Second Council of Mileve (416); its canons were taken over by a plenary council held at Carthage in 418, and approved and promulgated by Pope Zosimus in his Epistola Tractoria.

St. Thomas says:

The formal object of faith is the First Truth as manifested in Holy Scripture and in the Church’s teaching. Hence if anyone does not adhere as to an infallible and Divine rule to the Church’s teaching, which proceeds from the Church’s truth manifested in Holy Scripture, such an one has not the habit of faith, but holds the truths of faith not by faith but by some other principle" (II-II, Q. v, a. 3).

The Church’s teaching (Magisterium) is the means to produce the “infallible and Divine rule to the Church’s teaching” (Dogma).  Dogma and Scripture are both called “the formal object of faith.” Both are Divine Revelation. Scripture is “first,” that is the remote rule of faith. Dogma is the proximate rule of faith.
 
When you fail to make the distinction between the means and the ends you cause the same confusion in the minds of the faithful that Cantarella made by calling the "living magerterium the rule of faith," that is, that the rule of faith can continually develop and evolve through the “living magisterium.” Furthermore, since the pope is the means by which the “living magisterium” speaks, this is nothing more than a synonym for calling the pope the rule of faith.

Only those who faithfully hold dogma as the proximate rule of faith can avoid the errors of sedeprivationism that destroys the office by dividing its form and the matter, and sedevacantism that discards the office entirely.


Drew

And:
-Contrary to the teaching of the Church: There is no hierarchy whatsoever.  (It is de fide that the hierarchy must be perpetual.)  Therefore, Catholics must reject sedevacantism.

This is a strawman.  Sedevacantism doesn't posit the complete loss of the hierarchy.  SVs are all over the map on this particular point.  1. Some say there must be an ordinary hidden somewhere (Bishop in the woods theory) - John Lane claims this among many others.  2. Some say all the sees are vacant - Fr. Cekada proposed this on Ignis Ardens in 2012.  It is possible. The hierarchy consists of all clerics and even a man who has received first tonsure is a cleric.  So as long as there is at least one Catholic bishop (even if not an ordinary), the hierarchy is intact and retains all the powers of order and jurisdiction even if jurisdiction is not being exercised in any particular see.  3. Sede privationist theory  4. Siri theory - Cardinal Siri was the true pope elected in 1958.  5. Home alone theory and Apocalypse theory - we are in the end times.  There might be other positions as well.  But they are generally lumped in with the sv position.  Basically, sv is a catchall for everyone who rejects the idea that Conciliar bosses are the true hierarchy of the Catholic Church.  With the possible exception of position #5, sedes are not positing the destruction of the hierarchy.  And those who hold #5 are very small in number.  So I consider the argument a strawman.  Also, I have never heard of a sede privationist attacking sedevacantists.  So Fr Chazal and Fr. Ringrose have an ambiguous position.  It certainly looks like SP but they are trying to distance themselves from other SPs and they give no reason for that.  We could speculate that  they do this for political reasons (because SP would be unpalatable to many former SSPX people which is the demographic that they are trying to serve).

Again, you throw around the word 'magisterium' as if it's ALL infallbile and we must accept ALL of it, no ifs, ands or buts.  This is a gross generalization.  If you would distinguish between the fallible and infallible parts of the magisterium, then you would see that I'm not rejecting the papacy, or maginalizing the idea of the magisterium, but only separating the fallible vs infallible, just as sedeprivationism separates the material from the spiritual office of the pope.

Previous INFALLIBLE magisteriums declared it a dogma that 'outside the church there is no salvation'.  The V2 magisteriums FALLIBLY "seems" to contradict these doctrines.  Therefore, the V2 magisteriums are wrong (and by extension, Pope Francis is wrong), for they contradict doctrine and scripture.  Ergo, this is an example where doctrine supercedes the papacy.