Well, it would be nice to have a source to cite, if it exists. Hopefully someone can point me in that direction.
I doubt that there is any kind of
written source, as in, for example,
If I am only going to consecrate one bishop, it will be Richard Williamson.
I have never seen any quotes by the Archbishop naming names before the final candidates were chosen, which makes sense. So all we have to go by is verbal comments among the priests from that time. Which is, I think, what Stephen Heiner's information was taken from. But I too have heard (and it makes sense) that if there would only be one it would be +W. Matthew's list above makes sense, and also, think about what we do know:
- There were only supposed to be 3 candidates. This fact
is docuмented. In all of the docuмentation leading up to the consecrations, whenever the Archbishop refers to the candidates (not sure if that's the appropriate word), he mentions "three", except when referring to the fact that Rome is only planning to allow him
one.
- The initial 3 were supposed to be Frs. Williamson, Faure, and Tissier de Mallerais. It seems safe to assume that Fr. Faure declined and made his recommendation of Fr. de Galarreta early on, in which case, by the time Rome was saying +L could only consecrate one, Fr. Faure might have already been out of the running, so to speak.
If +L had to choose between these remaining three, Williamson, TdM and dG, I think we can safely eliminate dG as the "one", because a) he wasn't even a first choice, and b) he was rather young. Thus we are left with TdM and W. And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that it would have been W.
This is not directly related, but something in this discussion reminded me of a comment by Fr. Doran in this:
Fr. James Doran on Volume I of Bp. Williamson's Letters from the Rector
... The letters of the first volume cover the years when Father Williamson was first vice-rector and then rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Ridgefield Connecticut. Named by Archbishop Lefebvre to these posts, he was certainly a lieutenant for the esteemed prelate. These letters were written during that time of trust and confidence from the founder of the Society of St. Pius X. “Trust” and “confidence” are not too strong of words, as Archbishop Lefebvre, in a sense, confirmed these public writings of 1983-1988, by his choice of Richard Williamson as one of the four men consecrated to carry on his episcopal duties in that fateful year, 1988.
Read them. Appreciate them. Hate them, even. Whatever, as long as the ideas be kept alive and the complacency of so many years be shaken off.
Thanks Matt.
This lunatic was saying +Fellay was the 'one' to be consecrated. I laughed.
I'm glad you laughed.
I wrote the above before reading this post.
I think if you read "
Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican", even very close to the time of the consecrations, +L still refers to "three" candidates. I'll have to check that, but if so, I think +F was a very last-minute add-on.