I had heard this news privately, and began formulating an outline in preparation for an article/analysis, but with too many projects on my desk, abandoned it as just another distraction. Nevertheless, here are some ideas I would have developed (however, as CI does not allow numbers and/or bulletpoints, the formatting is very jumbled):
- The SSPX will market the consecrations as the final realization of +Lefebvre's battle (i.e., "He always wanted a bishop to continue Tradition, and now we finally have Rome giving them to us.").
- But the problems with this ploy are numerous:
- Once +Lefebvre realized the Romans were negotiating in bad faith, he considered it necessary to consecrate bishops independent of them.
- He further stated that we must remain separated from this conciliar Church until they come back to the faith (Spiritual Journey).
- These two aforementioned observations should reasonably pre-empt the SSPX’s anticipated rebuttal that the 2023 consecrations are the fulfillment of +Lefebvre's goal (and secondarily, the anticipated claim that Rome is no longer poorly disposed toward Tradition).
- But such idiocy must necessarily pass over in silence the hostile actions of BXVI (whom +Ganswein said was always trying to lure the faithful and clergy away from +Lefebvre, and who intended to create a hybrid rite in order to reorient trads toward the conciliar reforms, and also use the hermeneutic of continuity to reorient them toward conciliar doctrine), and of Francis’ recent legislation, who's blatant hostility requires no explanation.
- The question then becomes, “What can we make of bishops consecrated by a Rome more hostile to Tradition than ever?
- Obviously, the candidates chosen for consecration will be unknown liberals (they cannot be known liberals, because this would open the operation up to criticism, and expose the Roman strategy). Nor could such candidates be stalwart traditionalists (if any are still to be found within the SSPX ranks), since this would obviously be contrary to anti-traditionalist Rome’s agenda to dilute, then capture. Tradition.
- Supposing the aforementioned observations were accurate, would the consecration of bishops represent a win or a loss for Tradition and the recovery of the Church?
- +Lefebvre famously said that since the Society has everything to lose and nothing to gain, every compromise is a loss.
- I wrote a book detailing over 100 of these compromises, changes, and contradictions, intended by the SSPX to garner goodwill from modernist Rome (the most conspicuous of which is the relinquishing of combativeness against modernism, instead preferring to collaborate rather than fight it, and naively thinking it can co-exist without qualitative decline and slowly sliding into modernism themselves…despite the compromises just alluded to, which prove the opposite).
- The final conclusion, therefore, which any prudent traditionalist would have to arrive at, is that the consecration of modernist-approved bishops will materially continue to extend the temporal existence of the SSPX, but only at the expense of cementing and solidifying its conciliar trajectory, which as mentioned necessitates silence in the face of conciliar and Roman errors, and the continued qualitative dilution of its own doctrinal, moral, and liturgical positions.
- Fr. Cottier (later made a Cardinal after his conquest of Campos) once advised with the psychological shrewdness of the devil, "We must be patient...what is important is that there no longer be rejection in their hearts...gradually, we must expect further steps, such as concelebration..."
If +Fellay famously said the Society agreed with 95% of Vatican II, and the Society no longer combats the modernist errors of Rome with the same vigor of yesteryear, its a pretty good indication that "rejection (of conciliarism) is no longer in their hearts."
The salt has lost its savor...
BUMP.
I just figured it out, in light of the Huonder consecration of holy oils: The SSPX is preparing the terrain for the acceptance of conciliar-approved and/or conciliar-consecrated bishops.
If the faithful accept the validity of the holy oils, they will accept the validity of a bishop.
"+Lefebvre is victoriuos!" they will declare.
But it never occurs to Menzingen that the demon-worshipper in Rome who wants to eradicate Tradition must have reasons for approving the SSPX (and it certainly couldn't have anything to do with wanting to further dilute the empty shell of the neo-SSPX with liberal bishops, make them even more beholden to modernist Rome, or put Rome at ease because of all the compromises highlighted in my book).
The SSPX has converted to conciliarism, and that has earned them conciliar bishops.
PS: Here's a question nobody is asking: If the SSPX hasn't already beeen approved "in pectore," then why would Rome consecrate bishops for them (i.e., non-Catholics)? Either this suggests the rumours reported by +Williamson are false, or, we might need to go back and revisit the Argentinian Recognition to understand what really happened there. Last time I looked, Rome doesn't approve bishops for schismatic communities.