Clarified in the thread below and in this CNS piece:

Father Conn said Navarro-Valls "simply noted that the act (of ordination without approval) objectively has this automatic penalty attached, but there always are conditions."

If the bishops involved "were not laboring under an external burden, it would be clear," he said.

Excommunication "may have been incurred, but we do not know that because we do not know their consciences or the external factors involved," Father Conn said.