Menzingen has no one to blame but itself for the firestorm of speculation and discussion on the Internet. The entire situation could have been avoided had they been more forthcoming. Instead, they've chosen to operate a Pravda-style publicity campaign to keep all of us guessing as to their true intentions. :read-paper:
Catholics have a strong natural interest in this story -- after all, our souls are at stake!
The poor judgment demonstrated by +Fellay and Co. on the PR front makes me even more fearful of the kind of agreement they've "negotiated" with Rome.
It just shows that Fellay is not an idiot. Mendacious prig, yes, but not an idiot. He knew very well when undertaking reconciliation with the Conciliar anti-church that full disclosure of his capitulation would've meant instant mass exodus of a significant, perhaps even majority, portion of the faithful attached to the Society. Disinformation has bought him:
1.) Sufficient time to establish himself as a martyr, pressed between the "Church, still persisting in error" and the militant "would-be sedevacantists" that reject reconciliation short of Rome's complete repudiation of false, Vatican II religion.
2.) Money. Despite the confusion, I'd imagine that the vast majority of faithful attached to the SSPX are still contributing financially to it.
3.) Entrenchment of the Goldilocks syndrome in those faithful attached to the SSPX that support a deal. It's a phenomenon I've found throughout the many stripes of pseudo-traditionalism. For "traditional" conciliarists, modernists are too liberal and the SSPX too conservative to the point of purported schism. To some in the SSPX, now, the false dichotomy that conciliarism is too liberal and sedevacantism too militant, again to the point of purported schism.
No, it was a political masterstroke on his part in terms of attempting to produce the greatest temporal benefits to himself and his comrades. If it were 1960, he would've gotten away with it completely. However, the digital age (that is, the release of letter from the Three and his response), has been his undoing.
Be not deceived, God is not mocked.