With the announcement of the SSPX plans to ordain new bishops this summer, we return to the question of schism. That question has to begin with whether Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer, and the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre without pontifical mandate in 1988 actually committed a schismatic act. If they did, they were excommunicated automatically (Latae sententiae). If they did not, they committed an act of disobedience not an act of schism. There's a world of difference.
