UPDATED to add: Fr. Francois Chazal sent a note to a user at CathInfo.com, as follows:
“In the meantime, by my broad and imperfect calculations, the Resistance, with all its faults and miseries, totals about 110, seven bishops included, most of them making no noise, but a lot of good. This is without counting the followers of Archbishop Vigano, with whom we agree, despite wishing him, and the people he ordained to be convalidated in that simple and easy process you know well.”

This was posted on CathInfo.com on September 26, 2023, 05:49:02 AM, by SeanJohnson, a longtime member with over 15,000 posts.

It is very concerning that archbishop Vigano is said to be ordaining people. He retired in 2016, and the vast majority of his service to the Church was as a Vatican diplomat. He has not been in a position to be ordaining anyone EVER, as far as I could determine. He was consecrated bishop in 1992, and only served in diplomatic positions:
* Apostolic Nuncio to Nigeria (1992–1998)
* Official of Secretariat of State (1998–2009)
* Secretary-General of the Governorate of the Vatican City State (2009–2011)

If Vigano is ordaining anyone, he has committed a serious schismatic act (in addition to his schismatic public assertions). Ordaining anyone apart from the authority of the Pope, the Apostolic See, and the Bishops in communion with the Pope is a serious violation of Church law.

Can. 1013 No bishop is permitted to consecrate anyone a bishop unless it is first evident that there is a pontifical mandate.

Can. 1015 §1. Each person is to be ordained to the presbyterate or the diaconate by his proper bishop or with legitimate dimissorial letters from him.

Can. 1017 A bishop cannot confer orders outside his own jurisdiction without the permission of the diocesan bishop.

=== Original Article follows ===

The claim is that archbishop Carlo M. Vigano has been conditionally reconsecrated as a bishop by schismatic SSPX bishop Richard Nelson Williamson, and has therefore joined that heretical and schismatic sect.

Why would Vigano be newly consecrated a bishop, when he is already a bishop? Vigano is so severely opposed to the Church since Vatican II, that he and others might consider his consecration as a bishop by Pope Saint John Paul II (on 26 April 1992) to have been possibly invalid. A person can be consecrated as a bishop, validly, only once. A conditional consecration means that a new ceremony for the consecration of a bishop is held, in case the prior consecration ceremony was invalid.

This type of action is sometimes done for baptism, if the validity of the original baptism is in doubt, or if the person is not sure if they were even baptized at all as a child. So the ceremony is only a valid Sacrament, if the previous attempted Sacrament was invalid (or never occurred).

Now Vigano certainly considers the Church led by Pope Francis to be a false Church led by an heretical and false pope. Since Vigano does not recognize the validity of Vatican II, nor the validity of the Church led by Francis, he may have decided that the consecrations of Bishops since Vatican II are all possibly invalid. Such a claim would destroy the validity of innumerable attempted Sacraments worldwide for over 60 years — and so this claim is contrary to the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church and contrary to the promises of Jesus in the Gospels. It cannot be true.

The SSPX has had controversy in its ranks for many years. SSPX founder Marcel Lefebvre ordained and later consecrated Richard Nelson Williamson as priest and then Bishop. But in 2012, Bishop Williamson was expelled from the SSPX. Williamson now leads one of the breakaway sects of the SSPX, the sect which is called either SSPX-MC for Marian Corps, or SSPX-SO for Strict Observance. A set of similar SSPX breakaway sects is called the “SSPX Resistance”. Those clergy who join one of these sects, especially the largest one led by Williamson, are said to have “joined the Resistance”.

In a video discussed here: Fr. Chazal Implies Bishop Vigano was Conditionally Consecrated a Bishop for the Resistance, Father Francois Chazal claims that archbishop Vigano has joined the Resistance (SSPX-MC) by being conditionally consecrated a bishop by Bishop Williamson. This ceremony itself expresses schism and heresy. It expresses schism in that it is a ceremony based on the claim that the Popes of Vatican II (John 23 to Francis) are not valid Popes, or that they are valid Popes who are heretics and must be resisted. (Views on these points vary within the SSPX, the Resistance, and others who oppose Vatican II and Pope Francis.) The same ceremony is heretical, as it is based on the idea that the entire body of Bishops and the successive Popes and an Ecumenical Council have all gone astray from the true faith and have led the vast majority of clergy and laity astray for over 60 years. Such a claim is contrary to the dogma of indefectibility, and therefore heresy.

Here is an article on the topic: Fr. Francois Chazal States that Archbishop Vigano Is a Bishop of the Resistance. Be advised that these links to the article and video are by persons who are schismatics because they reject Pope Francis in his authority or teaching.

If true, then bishop Vigano has taken yet another public step to separate himself from the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. Being consecrated a bishop, when you were already consecrated a bishop by Pope Saint John Paul II, is a repudiation of the validity of that Pope and the other Popes of Vatican II. It is also a repudiation of the other Sacraments of the Church since Vatican II. This new attempted consecration of Vigano would certainly be invalid, as the original consecration of Vigano in 1992 by Pope Saint John Paul II was his valid consecration as Bishop, and the Sacrament cannot be repeated.

Many conservative or traditionalist Catholic support Vigano. But I think they support him only because they do not realize what he really believes and teaches. I notice that few if any of Vigano’s supporters make the same type of extreme claims about the Church since Vatican II and about Pope Francis as Vigano has made. They should realize that Vigano does not have similar ideas about Catholic Christianity as they have, and so turn away from him.

You can dislike Pope Francis and think that he has erred in various ways, in non-infallible doctrine and discipline, to some extent, without being unfaithful to the Church. Popes can sin and can err. The dogma of the indefectibility of the Church and the charism of truth and never-failing faith given to the Pope prevent him from erring to a grave extent in what is non-infallible. So Vigano and others with similar views cannot be right. Catholics should focus on Christ, more than on whoever is the current Pope.

{16:18} And I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

The gates of Hell can never prevail over the Church. This is the dogma of indefectibility, and it means that the Church can never go astray or lead astray. So whatever problems the Church might have in any generation, we can trust that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ on Peter and his successors.

Ronald L Conte Jr