In the old days, conditional ordinations were NEVER made public. They were kept extremely quiet and the record of them having been done was locked in a chancery file that few could access.
The reason for the secretiveness being the amount of scruples the laity would have about receiving possibly invalid sacraments.
The theologians say that, at least with Masses that were perhaps invalid, the graces would have been supplied from the “treasury of the Church”.
In these times when we lack proper authorities with a canonical mission and lack true seminaries in which to train priests (a seminary must be canonically erected… what are passing today as trad seminaries are nothing more than houses of study), most of us feel conditional ordinations should be made public knowledge. Recent videos of botched ordinations and consecrations prove why we need to be more open with this information.
I am a priest.
Thank you, Father. I can see that in the old days, to a point, when there was canonical normalcy in the Church, revealing a conditional ordination would serve little purpose other than to cause worry among the faithful. But if I had been confessing my sins to a doubtful priest, even then I should think that I would have a right to know, so that I could make a good (possibly general) confession. What of the Mass stipends that I had requested? Even today in the Conciliar Church, if it's found out that various Masses had been doubtful, even by their standards, there would be some kind of provision made to have the Mass stipends that were offered redone if possible.
Back in the day, the Diocese was expected to ensure the validity of priests. So if the faithful went into a random Catholic church, if there was a priest in the confessional, you could be confident to just walk in and begin confessing your sins. But today, with all the various groups and bishops out there, and with the doubt about Conciliar Orders, the assurances about validity are often on an individual basis.