.
In all of this, number 2 stands out as the lone item that would be self-contained as it were:
2. They go along with whatever the SSPX does, continuing to perform mental gymnastics in order to continue to partake of the Tridentine Mass and chapel they've helped build up with their own money over many years. It is defined as the church of Bishop Fellay, essentially, because whatever he says is their benchmark of orthodoxy. All they would seem to care about is appearances, but its more than that, really. Because the appearances have already changed over the past 19 years of Fellayism.
When the cross-bearer was eliminated in Post Falls, there was no outcry from the faithful. A few scattered voices objected, but they were shouted down by the lemmings who are prone to "mental gymnastics" -- whatever it takes to garner the approval of the Great One or his minions.
When any priest dares to mention there is an inconsistency in what's coming out of Menzingen, they are punished, or sent to Africa to evangelize the baboons or to Antarctica to evangelize the penguins, and where is the outcry of the faithful? There might be a few scattered voices of objection but these are ostracized and shunned by the so-called faithful Fellayites, the mental gymnasts.
There is a culture of togetherness that has formed around the SSPX regulars, such that a family with two or three vocations is an SSPX family, such that +Fellay and his yes-men have developed a balancing act whereby they are the authority, with "grace of state" (never mind that we all have this grace of state!) regardless of their having no jurisdiction.
You can't say they have no jurisdiction, lest you'd be shunned.
The cult of Fellay doesn't appreciate being called a cult, because the truth hurts.
All they would seem to care about is appearances, but it's more than that, really.
When termites eat the wooden framework of a building, the surface of the lumber exposed to the air around it still looks like lumber. The 2 x 4 studs still look like 2x4's, and the 6 x 12 girders still look like 6x12's. But take a chunk of #4 rebar and shove it into the wood, and you'll see how solid it is. Take a screwdriver and push into the side of a 2x4 and watch it sink in like it would into a Thanksgiving turkey. The termites have eaten the insides of the wood, leaving the appearances of wood on the surface.
I think it is better described that all they really care about is how they FEEL about the appearances. So long as Fellay et. al. can provide for them the FEELING that the appearances are credible, then the newfangled $20,000 stone altar at Econe with the floating, removable crucifix above is okay, because along with the thing itself comes the FEELING (delivered by its spokesman) that assures them, "Everything's Gonna Be OKay" (EGBOK).
What is most important in all this is the FEELING of "unity" that they have because their current spokesman proclaimed, "We have achieved unity," on
the very grave of ABL in July of 2012.
.