Agreed, Iuvenalis. If I remember correctly, there were 15 last year, 7 as of Jan. 2015, it probably isn't unrealistic to say there will be none in a couple of years. Texts like these "the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles", "as he sent apostles ... in like manner it was his will that in his Church there should be shepherds and teachers until the end of time" also indicate bishops in office, not merely Emeritus bishops.
Iuvenalis is not "R&R", Ladislaus, he is sedeprivationist, which even you are favorable to, and which I think is the best attempted response to the problem. Simple sedevacantists should at least ask themselves how the crisis is going to be resolved, not least because it will have to be these Ordinaries who have to pass the juridical declaration that there is no Pope before a new one can be elected. There is, therefore, on the part of one who is assured of the truth of 57 year sedevacantism and the perpetual succession consequences, an obligation to safeguard the hierarchy from a defection before it is too late.
Anyway, thanks for your lively response, yes I do believe in "infallible safety", it is not something unique to Msgr. Fenton, but taught by Cardinals Franzelin and Billot among countless others. A non-infallible Magisterial text is "infallibly safe" in the sense that it cannot, for example, explicitly formulate something heretical, while, as you admit, respectful questioning of non-infallible statements which seem to be contrary to Tradition and prior Magisterial teaching is accepted by theologians as a right of the faithful. We're not going to get anywhere if we discuss "R&R" issues in a thread about SV. Please start a thread with your criticisms/objections to R&R and we'll discuss them there. Lastly, Archbishop Lefebvre distinguished between a single Pope losing his office, and an interregnum spanning several decades, "the visibility of the Church is too necessary to Her existence for it to be possible for that visibility to disappear for decades."
Apostolicity is closely linked to visibility, as Gueranger puts it, "Rome was, more evidently than ever, the sole source of pastoral power. "We, then, both priests and people, have a right to know whence our pastors have received their power. From whose hand have they received the keys? ... thus it is that the divine Founder of the Church, who willed that she should be a city seated on a mountain/ gave her visibility; it was an essential requisite; for since all were called to enter her pale, all must be able to see her. But He was not satisfied with this.. He moreover willed that the spiritual power exercised by her pastors should come from a visible source."Apostolicity, in other words, requires a visible line of succession going back to St. Peter and the Apostles, in order to distinguish the Church from the schismatic Greeks, the Protestants etc. If you have an alternate suggestion on how Apostolicity and visibility are preserved, please provide it.
Now, you cite private revelation, and you know I don't disagree. I've cited Catherine Emmerich's vision that "I saw what I believe to be all the bishops of the world, but only a small number were perfectly sound" and this is what I believe has happened, so yes, we can see that the hierarchy in large part has defected. Only a complete defection of the hierarchy is precluded by the divine promise, not that large sections of the Church cannot disappear.