Yes.  It all depends on how you define "member".  You're defining it in the most general way possible -- a baptized person = member.  This true.  But there are OTHER ways to define the term.

"It all depends on how YOU define member, I define it the way the Church defines it, as I said: "They will never be a member until they are baptized and profess the Catholic faith."  Very simple, very clear.

Is a baptized protestant a member?
Is a baptized self-avowed apostate a member?
Is a baptized excommunicant a member?

Yes and no.  Yes, they are a baptized member.  No, they are not an ACTIVE member.  That's the difference.  That's why the popes can say that a heretic "severs himself from the mystical body" while not denying that he is still a member due to baptism.  You see the difference?

No, there is no "yes and no." Could you be more confused?

To be a Catholic, a member of the Church, one must be baptized and profess the Catholic faith. One who is baptized may never profess the faith hence will never be Catholic, hence never be a member of the Church.

A Catholic may stop professing the Catholic faith and preach heresy, and on that account sever themself from the Body of Church, but remains a Catholic hence a member of the Church by virtue of his baptism and the faith he professed. Heretics  belong to the Church only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted, but like the soldier still belongs to the army, the Catholic that committed the sin of heresy still belongs to the Church.

Material vs formal heresy has nothing to do with intention, nor with the internal forum.

The point is, there is a distinction between being a member (i.e. baptized) and being "in union with" the mystical body, which heretics, schismatics and excommunicated persons are NOT in unity. 

To use a business explanation, these persons are not "active members" even if they are still, technically, members.  It just depends on how you look at it.  If you cut off your arm, that limb is still part of you, but it's no longer part of your living self.

Unlike a severed limb, a severed member it is able to be reattached to the Body should he choose to repent. But unlike lesser sins, the nature of the sins of heresy etc., makes the sinner want to always reject the idea of repentance. That's the nature of that particular sin - there must be a lot of the sin of pride that goes along with it imo. 

That's why when PPXII said they sever a man from the body like no other sins, he was talking about the nature of those sins, not that sinners are expelled from membership in the Church.
   

So, the Bellarmine position is indeed that heretics are excluded from membership in the Church, as are the unbaptized -- i.e. where both Baptism and orthodox faith are required.

I used to tell Stubborn that no theologian ever held his Baptism-only-suffices theory (promoted also by Father Wathen, Stubborn's rule of faith) ... but I later retracted that when, in a survey of this very question, Msgr. Fenton discovered exactly one, but then says the opinion died with him ... and that, since Pius XII later taught otherwise, it was no longer a viable opinion anyway.

But Stubborn's going to cling to his once-Catholic-always-Catholic Wathenian position with his cold dead hand ... and I wonder whether he'd accept otherwise even if a Traditional Pope came along and condemned it explicitly.

If there's ever been a more apt screen name for any user on CathInfo than "Stubborn", then I'd like to see it, since, as far as I'm concerned, nothing else here comes even close.

I've stopped arguing with Stubborn entirely, since I've found that it's a complete and total waste of time, to say nothing of the frustration involved.

I can see a distinction being made that says "once a member always a member" because that member can always be re-attached to the mystical body.  And Pius XII's statement is about such (former) members no longer being "in union with" the body. 

So maybe there's a distinction there between a non-member (i.e. unbaptized), a "member not united" (i.e. heretic, schismatic, excomm), and a "member united". 

But just saying either member or non-member is not enough.  It's an over-generalization that explains nothing and causes confusion.

St. Robert Bellarmine referred to those who had left the Church but still had the character of Baptism as simply having been marked a former member, and they would be in closer proximity to be actually a member (vs. potentially), since they have a higher potency to become a member (again).

He likens it to the brand or a mark on a sheep that then escapes.  So the brand tells you that the sheep USED to be in the fold and that it rightfully belongs (or at least belonged) to a certain owner, but it doesn't mean that it's actually still a part of the fold after it takes off.

In modern day terms, we can think of the Baptismal Character to be analogous to DNA.  If someone chops my hand off, and it just dies, you can find my DNA in the severed member, so that you know it used to be part of my body, but it's no longer part of my body, having been removed from it, but it's no longer actively part of my body.  If I see it there lyhing on the ground, it's no longer part of my body (and I can't move it or do anything with it), but we can determine that it used to be part of my body (rather than being someone else's hand) by checking the DNA.  Now, if it isn't completely dead, it could be re-attached (by surgery) and resume functioning normally.  Alternatively, my hand could develop gangrene and die, without being severed, so it would still be part of my body, just a dead part (Catholics not in a state of grace).  But if it gets severed, and then dies, before it can be re-attached, there's no hope of ever re-attaching it again.

Yes, both sides oversimplify ... yet another reason that privationism / Chazalism present the best theological approach.

So ... a priest is giving a sermon from the pulpit and makes a heretical statement.  Aunt Helen (Father Cekada's heroine) recognizes the heresy for what it is, valiantly stands up, and declares him to be outside the Church.  Is he a manifest heretic now?

Priest says, just a mental lapse and slip of the tongue, where I forgot to say the word "not".  Was he a manifest heretic?  Certainly he uttered heresy, and ... it was in fact manifest ... but it was clearly lacking in pertinacity.  So ... no.

Next week a different priest comes and utters a different heresy.  Once again, Aunt Helen shows herself to be an intredpid defender of the faith and denounces the heresy.  Having learned her lesson from the previous week, she asks the priest if he meant to say what he said.  Priest says he did mean to say it.  But then Aunt Helen pulls out her pocket copy of Denzinger, the edition before Rahner's, and shows him where the proposition was condemned as heresy.  Priests apologizes and retracts the heretical statement.  Was he ever outside the Church?  No, since, again, pertinacity was lacking.

Yet another week goes by, and a third priest proclaims a heresy.  Aunt Helen, armed with her Baltimore Catechism No. 1, having not yet graduated to No. 2 ... goes through the previous steps, but the priest sticks to his guns, telling Aunt Helen that she doesn't know what she's talking about.  Is this priest no longer a member of the Church?  Just because Aunt Helen says so?  So, let's say Aunt Helen was wrong.  OK, then, he never lost membership in the Church.  But let's say Aunt Helen did happen to get it right, and the priest was wrong and what he said was in fact heretical?  Well, the priest goes back to his bishop, and the bishop, renowned for his great knowledge of Catholic doctrine, tells the priest, "Well, sorry to tell you this, but Aunt Helen was right.  That's rather embarrassing.  I'll have to get the rector of the seminary on the line to find out what's going on over there."  Priest then admits his error and changes his mind -- and the seminary rector is relieved of duty.  Did he ever lose his membership in the Church?  No ... even if the seminary rector lost his job.  Why?  Because his heresy was not formal, i.e. the only reason he held to it was because he did not think it was condemend by the Church or the opposite was taught as dogma by the Church ... his only crime was not taking Aunt Helen's word for it.  But, then ... who really would, since she cries wolf on heresy against every few priests who come by.

So, as a result of these cases, the heresy that results in loss of membership in the Church must be 1) manifest, 2) pertinacious, and 3) formal (where it at least implicitly rejects the Church's teaching authority).

Then what if there are a bunch of Catholics who claim something is here, and another group that say the opposite is heresy, such as when the Thomists and Molinists were battling it out.  Are either group heretical?  No, since there's enough disagreement among presumably-well-meaning Catholics that it's hard to discern the truth of the matter.

I've long told the SVs that personal manifest heresy is absolutely the wrong approach to this crisis, and you can argue either way until you're blue in the face and never come to a conclusion that can satisfy everyone.

In addition, despite multiple challenges, both here on CI and to a larger audience on X, I have requested evidence for Montinin having been a manifest heretic before he took office, and outside of his actually beginning to teach the Church and approve (allegedly) heretical teaching.  Crickets.  No one has ever produced anything.  You could find more about Roncalli than Montini, since Montini evidently cared more about manning soup kitches and building stuff (like most bishops just prior to Vatican II) than about abstract, abstruse, and "pie in the sky" subjects like theology.  In fact, and this was a terrible fault of Pius XII, the vast majority of bishops were organizers, builders, and fundraisers, while knowing very little about Catholic theology, despite their chief duty (as explained during the Rite of Consecration) being to teach and defend the faith.  That's why most of them had to bring so-called "periti" in tow with them to Vatican II, since they lacked competence, and, then, having vouched for their periti, went off to the "Bar Jonah" to pass the time while deliberations, driven by their Modernist periti, took place.  For them, if their peritus seemed smart, articulate, and had a degree from one of the Roman institutions, that was good enough for them ... and for all they cared, really.  Since most of them weren't even fluent in Latin (listen to +Cushing's attempt to offer Mass at the risk of developing grave scruples), after returning from Happy Hour at Bar Jonah, they might nudge their "peritus" ... "Hey, Rahner ... should I vote for this?"  Rahner:  "Absolutely, yes ... it will transform the Church."

In any case, there's zero evidence that's ever been presented to establish that Montini had been a manifest heretic prior to his teaching error at Vatican II.  Big problem.  If you think it suffices to determine a non-papacy due to manifest heresy ... only after he starts teaching heresy, that guts the entire Magisterium.  That way, if I were an Old Catholic type, and disagreed with some dogmatic definition, I could simply declare the Pope to be really a non-Pope and reject the teaching.  Problem solved. ... Bigger Problem created.  You could never, then, have an a priori certainty regarding any dogma proclaimed by a Pope, since you could simple argue backwards from what you decided was false dogma to the illegitimacy of the one defining it.  This guts the entire Magisterium.  See, you were still considered Catholic prior if you denied papal infallibility prior to the dogmatic definition at Vatican I.  But, once it was defined, you accepted the teaching with the certainty of faith, and retracted the previous error.  That's how it should work.  But with the principles of SVism, not necessary, since Aunt Helen can just depose the pope for you.

Nor has any SV ever produced a working viable solution to prevent Aunt Helen from starting to depose any pope from her armchair whose teaching she didn't care for, Pius XII, Pius XI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and even St. Pius X.  Father Cekada in his so-called "refutation" of my early "Pope-Sifting" essay (aka "article"), amid a flurry of personal attacks (rooted mostly in his ignorance of the fact that I had not in fact published any article nor was responsible for a good portion of its content), came up with one desperate idea that he slips in after four pages of not even coming up for air and catching his breath from the rattling off his stream of insults.  He says that Dogmatic Facts (such as is the legitmacy of a Pope) is something that's "historical".  So he declares, making an embarrassing blunder, that this means you cannot impugn the legitimacy of a past pope ... unless there was someone alive during his reign who had done so.  Apart from the fact that this does not suffice, since it's quite possible many did exactly that to Pius IX after Vatican I, and there may even have been a bold ancestor of Aunt Helen alive during the reign of St. Pius X ... the embarrassing blunder comes from his misunderstanding of the term "historical", which does not mean "past" but simply refers to something that's in the nature of an event or a fact, rather than a proposition, so that a normal dogma involves the assent of faith to a proposition, a dogmatic fact refers to an event or a circuмstances, something historical IN NATURE, and not involving a "past" time.  Apart from this single attempt, which nevertheless resulted in an epic fail, no SV has ever produced a principle that could restraing the indefatigable Aunt Helen in her crusade to find and denounce heresy wherever she saw it.

No, where it comes to something a serious as the legitimacy of a Pope, there must be some role for the Church to play, and it cannot be left up the musings of Aunt Helen, or even Father Cekada himself.  That's again where Sedeprivationism comes in, and where I first coined, largely tongue-in-cheek, the term "Sededoubtism" (which Sean Johnson has actually adopted of late), where someone is not to be counted as a schismatic who refuses submission to a putative Pope based upon well-founded and relatively widespread (among orthodox believers) questions about his person or (the legitimacy of) his election.  This would put a Pope into the "papa dubius" category, where the accompanying maxim indicatest that "papa dubius nullus pappa" (for all practical intents and purposes) and therefore into what Father Chazal aptly describes as a "state of suspension", until resolved definitively one way or another by the Church.

Let's take the Great Western Schism.  If I believed that Pope A was the true pope, if Pope B had proclaimed a dogma during the Schism, would I have been a (formal) heretic for rejecting the dogma?  No, since there wasn't an antecedent, or a priori, certainty of faith regarding the legitimacy of Pope B, and I wasn't alone in questioning him.  EVENTUALLY, the Church intervened and decided who had been the legitimate Pope.  At that point, had the legitimate Pope, let's say it was Pope A, been the true Pope, any dogma that he defined would have been accepted by the Church in hidsight as being a true dogma to be believed under the pain of heresy and separation from the Church.  At some point the Church, not Aunt Helen, despite her zeal, energy, and theological acuмent ... must be The Final Decider, and if that means that the Pope is more in a "dubius" situation (contrary Bishop Sanborn's mistaken condemnation of "Opinionism") than anything else, in a state of suspension, perhaps a material but nor formal pope ... or something along those lines, rather than definitively a non-Pope.  Archbishop Lefebvre often hinted that he expected a Future Pope or Council to declare these men Anti-Popes once and for all, and I too share that Opinion.

So the argument from personal manifest heresy is largely unworkable, since short of Prevost coming out an saying, "I don't believe Christ actually rose from the dead." or "There are Four Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity" ... it's just too difficult a case to make.

Onto the other angle, then, namely, from the heresies and errors TAUGHT by these putative Popes and from their having promulgated a form of Public Worship that offends God and harms souls, and then canonizine a veritable rogue's gallery of non-saints, an argument made modo tollentis.

So, where this breaks down is the SVs, in reaction against R&R who reduce the protection over the Church by the Holy Ghost to the 1-or-2-per-century solemn dogmatic definitions, leaving 99.9% of the Magisterium up for grabs and fair game, including allowing for nearly all of it to be polluted and corrutped, so long as those solemn definitions are protected.  SVs then inanely join battle on this front, but absurdly extending the scope of infallibilty to include nearly every time a pope passes wind, even if it isn't through his lips, some even to any book that has received an imprimatur, leading to a dispute that can never be resolved.  "That should have been infalible."  "No it shouldn't have."  "Yes it should."  "No it shouldn't." "I know you are, but what am I?" ... this is pretty much the deplorable state we're in regarding this debate.  While many SVs exalt the authority of pre-Vatican II theologians as if they were themselves a rule of faith, in a position that I have coined "Cekadism" (something, BTW, which the reputable and orthodox Msgr. Fenton, a true theologian, actually rejected as absurd), so while they puff up the authority of theologians, they are unable to cite a SINGLE THEOLOGIAN prior to Vatican II that had ever extended papal infallibility to the extent that SVs do.  On this topic, I recommend the remarkably well-balanced discussion on the matter by Msgr. Fenton in his essay on the Authority of Papal Encyclicals, which, despite the name, does an admirable job of discussing the matter.

Now, this is where SVs missed the boat.  Msgr. Fenton also describes a different type of infallibility enjoyed by the Church overall and the Papal Magisterium in particular, that of infallible safety, where a body of teaching could not be radically in error, and where said errors can result in fatal damage to faith and morals, where Catholics who follow that teaching risk losing their souls as a result of having done so.  This speaks more to the infectibility of the Church rather than to "infallibility in the strict sense" (an apt term coined by Msgr. Fenton).  Here's the basic argument from that.  While you could go back and forth on whether this, that, or another teaching meets the notes of infallibility defined by Vatican I, you've clearly crossed a line into indefectibility where Catholics not only may, but even must, break from submission to the hierarchy in their Universal Teaching and Discipline, in order to please God and to save their souls.  If things can get so bad where Catholics wouldn't even be able to consider themselves as practicing the Catholic Religion if they remained in the Conciliar Church, where they endanger their souls and risk offending God and embracing grave error (if not heresy) against the Catholic Faith, you've crossed the line into a defection of the Church in her mission, since that is in fact THE primary mission of the Church, to defend faith and morals, and to facilitate the salvation of souls.  That cannot happen.

So SVs have missed the forest of indefectibility in getting distracted by the trees of infallibility, and as a result feel the need to exaggerate the scope of infallibility to absurd lengths that no Catholic theologian has ever held.

You just made my point.  There are 2 conditions.  Baptism + Faith.

So a baptized (condition 1) person who is a heretic (fails condition 2) is not a member?
Right, so they stop being a member.
This makes no sense and is contradictory from the above quote.  What a heretic PROFESSED (in the past) has no bearing on the NOW, (i.e. his rejection of the faith).

Earlier you said: "A catechumen isn't part of the faithful, and that's why they aren't a member." A catechumen never had the faith whereas a Catholic once did, as such, he remains a Catholic always.

As I said, use yourself as an example. If you committed the mortal sin of heresy, you are trying to tell me that you're still Catholic, but having severed yourself from the Church you are no longer a member of the Church.

Now in order to be absolved, because you're not a member you cannot go to confession. Then you say that an abjuration makes the heretic a member again, which is you saying that a penitent heretic *is* a member of the Church and can be absolved in confession. So all the heretic has to do is be penitent and poof, he's back in.

You're saying that if he falls into the same sin and wants to repent again and again, he jumps into and out of membership each time, has to make an abjuration each time so that a heretic member of the Church can be absolved in confession, but then heretics are not members of the Church so ipso facto cannot go to confession.

This whole idea enjoys the same illogic as: "popes cannot preach heresy, but if they do...." But popes cannot preach heresy - - but if they do...." 

How this makes sense to anyone is beyond me.
   

Are not these passages saying that guilt is presumed and ignorance must be proven past a mere assertion (at least according to "The Delict of Heresy in its Commission, Penalization, Absolution” by the Rev. Eric MacKenzie, S.T.L., J.C.L."):

“All this has immediate application to cases where the delict was due to culpable ignorance, whether crass and affected, or culpable simpliciter. Ex hypothesi, the delinquent is ignorant that he has doubted or denied a revealed truth, and, as noted above, is responsible in conscience for neglect only. This means that his delict, while still serious, is less imputable than the delict of a conscious heretic. Hence, by application of the canon just cited, the delinquent escapes the latae sententiae penalties decreed against heresy. It must be immediately noted, however, that this ignorance must be proved. By virtue of canon 2200, §2, the fact that a delict has been committed establishes a presumption that the delinquent was fully responsible. A mere assertion of ignorance will not suffice. Lay persons will be able to prove this claim more easily than clerics, non-Catholics more easily than Catholics.” pg. 41

and a bit further:

“We have already discussed ignorance that their act was heretical. This is an entirely different claim ; they admit the heresy, and urge only that they were not aware that they would be excommunicated for their external act. As regards this claim , the same general principle holds as in any case of ignorance: the violation of a promulgated law gives rise to juridical presumption that the law was known and deliberately flouted.” In civil law the ignorance that penalties would be assessed for a given act is never accepted as an excuse. The Church is more anxious to fit the penalty to the delict, and weighs all the circuмstances affecting the moral guilt.’ She does however, require that these extenuating circuмstances be not merely alleged but proved in the external forum .” Hence the occult delinquent’s claim that he was ignorant of the penalty must be supported by demonstrable facts.” pg. 47

Thanks!

No ... and now we have an another armchair Canonist (where did you get your degree?).  This has nothing to do with ignorance, but about the credibility of Aunt Helen being the litmus test to decide what is heretical and what is not.  SVs constantly shoot from the hip with stupid accusations of "heresy!" when 95% of what they're accusing are errors that fall short of having the note of heresy (which makes a huge different), but our lay SVs don't even know what at theological note is.

We're not talking about anyone, Bergoglio, Prevost, Montini, or any of them saying anything as blatant as "there are Four Persons in God" or "I don't believe in the Resurrection".  We're talking about issues that are disputed.  Just because some Aunt Helen or you or any armchair layman hurls an accusation, the individual is not thereby deprived of membership in the Church.  Even the Church authorities generally don't declare someone heretical until they've been corrected and refuse to accept the correction, much less because Aunt Helen says so armed with her Penny Catechism.

Really the closest thing to open heresy among the Conciliars is the denial of the dogma that there's no salvation outside the Church, but the irony there is that the vast majority of sedevacantists (apart from, say, the Dimond Brothers) actually believe the exact same thing.  So if they accuse the Conciliars of heresy, they condemn themselves, since the vast majority don't believe that there's no salvation outside the Church.  Oh, sure, sure ... they pay lip service to it, and try redefining the terms, depending on what your meaning of "is" is, or how you define "Church" ... but that's EXACTLY what the Conciliars did also.

Apart from that dogma, which SVs also by and large reject, I have seen not a single smoking gun clearcut heresy from the Conciliars ... just a lot of SV bluster.

Earlier you said: "A catechumen isn't part of the faithful, and that's why they aren't a member." A catechumen never had the faith whereas a Catholic once did, as such, he remains a Catholic always.

The point was to highlight the phrase "part of the faithful".  A catechumen isn't part of the faithful, for 2 reasons...because they don't have the Faith ...and not baptized.  In the same respect, as multiple popes have said, heretics/schismatics aren't part of the faithful because they don't have the Faith (even though baptized).

"Part of the Faithful" = requires Faith + Baptism.
 

TRUE -- "once baptized, always baptized." 
TRUE -- "once a catholic, always a catholic"  (another way to reference baptism).

FALSE -- "once a member, always a member"  (wrong, because membership involves having the Faith, which one can reject).
FALSE -- "once a member of the mystical body, always a member" (wrong for the same reasons).

As I said, use yourself as an example. If you committed the mortal sin of heresy, you are trying to tell me that you're still Catholic, but having severed yourself from the Church you are no longer a member of the Church.

Your problem is that you're reducing heresy to sin alone.  No, it's more than that.  The sin of heresy is 1) a violation of the 10 commandments (i.e. a sin).  2) it's also a HUMAN violation of church law/canon law.

It all depends on how you define the term "catholic". 
a.  If you simply define it as "being baptized" then a heretic is still a catholic, but no longer a member.
b.  Sedes define a catholic as "being a member" so the terms are equal.  So to them, a heretic is no longer a member, thus, they are no longer a catholic.

This whole argument is one of semantics.

Now in order to be absolved, because you're not a member you cannot go to confession.

Remember above, a member = "part of the faithful" which requires 2 things - baptism + Faith.  This is what Pius XII said and others.

A heretic rejects the faith, so no, they are no longer a member.  And no, they cannot simply go to confession.  Because heresy is a two-fold violation - 1) sin against God, 2) violation of canon law.

Then you say that an abjuration makes the heretic a member again,

The abjuration is the necessary act by a heretic to regain status in the Church, by rejecting error and re-affirming the Faith.  It is a human process because it is a violation of a  human law of the church. 

which is you saying that a penitent heretic *is* a member of the Church and can be absolved in confession.

To use your terminology, a heretic is a catholic who has rejected his Faith and thus, rejected his membership.

If the heretic abjures his error and re-affirms his Faith, then he's no longer a heretic, but returns to membership.  Membership = Faith/belief/adherence to doctrine.

So all the heretic has to do is be penitent and poof, he's back in.

The heretic has to CEASE TO BE A HERETIC, and re-affirm the Faith, and abjure his heresies.  He lost his membership due to error; to regain membership he has to abjure the error.

You're saying that if he falls into the same sin and wants to repent again and again, he jumps into and out of membership each time, has to make an abjuration each time so that a heretic member of the Church can be absolved in confession, but then heretics are not members of the Church so ipso facto cannot go to confession.

It depends on the level of heresy.  If your neighbor, John Doe, struggles with some doctrine and continues to read anti-catholic, anti-faith books, and repeatedly confesses this sin against the Faith, this is a type of sin that could be forgiven in confession.  Even though it is, strictly speaking, heresy.  But it's called "occult/secret" heresy.  It's different from the examples i've given to use - i.e. Martin Luther or V2 clerics.

If Martin Luther had FULLY abjured his protestant heresies and come back into the Church, he would be a 100% member.  But if a year later, he left and joined Calvinism, he would cease to be a member, because heresy = a rejection of the faith.  You cannot be a member if you reject the Faith.  You are no longer "part of the Faithful".

Now, if Luther then decided to repent again, this time from Calvinism, he would have to go through the whole process of abjuration, re-affirming the faith, etc.

As many times as he rejected the Faith and left, he would lose membership and then regain it.  Because membership is based on (at least exteriorly) admitting to/following the Faith.

How this makes sense to anyone is beyond me.

You've given an example of some guy hopping between heresy and the faith multiple times, in a manifest manner, which normally doesn't happen.  In other words, a public figure, who preaches heresy and then goes back to catholicism, and then, later, goes to another heresy and openly preaches it.  Don't know of any time in history this has happened.

What is more common is NOT manifest heresy, but occult/secret, where some guy grew up catholic and then went protestant for his wife.  And then he goes back and forth from catholic church to protestant church, dogma to heresy.  This guy, in theory, does still lose his membership, but he's not a manifest heretic, because he's not OPENLY trying to convince people to follow him.  He's not trying to start a new church.  His errors are secret.  His abjuration of heresy is at a lower level and can be done by a priest (normally).

Everything i'm talking about are openly brazen and public heretics.  Their abjuration of error is more process-oriented and tedious because their openness of error has CAUSED SCANDAL and the Church requires a PROCESS and a PUBLIC abjuration to rectify and make amends for the public sins they've done.