One of the sedevacantist arguments to the fact that all the bishops consecrated by Pope Pius XII had died was that, since indefectibility prevented apostasy of the entire hierarchy, there must still be some “lone bishop in the woods,” consecrated in the old rite by another himself consecrated by Pius XII.
I had formerly dismissed that theory as nothing more than wishful thinking, and again, because even if such a thing did happen, said hidden bishop would not possess jurisdiction (meaning the hierarchy would still have vanished completely).
But this morning, a new thought occurred to me:
What if a bishop, consecrated in the old rite (say, an SSPX or Resistance bishop), but without jurisdiction, were requested by a conciliar bishop to conditionally ordain/consecrate him?
This would solve the problem of the Pius XII bishops all having died, and the problem of jurisdiction, making the possibility somewhat more plausible than in the past.
I learned only 1-2 years ago about Cardinals being appointed by the popes “in pectore” (ie., secretly, to avoid persecution), and more recently, Resistance bishops being consecrated “in pectore.” We also saw SSPX priests secretly obtaining certainly valid holy oils from +Faure in the wake of the +Huonder fiasco.
The point being, that in revolutionary and persecutors times, things are sometimes done secretly, for tge survival of the Church, and this method could be a reverse Trojan Horse for re-injecting traditional bishops and cardinals through the back door back into the hierarchy (their orders and episcopacies being kept alive by “irregular” bishops), when they can no longer enter through the front.
Ps: Is this partly why the conciliar church is so desperate to conquer the SSPX and/or discredit the trads (ie., to prevent such a back door maneuver/work-around)?