Introduction:
Now that the names of the SSPX candidates for episcopal consecration on July 1 have been released, there have been many discussions about their various characters, strengths, positions, traits, and of course the inevitable comparisons to current and former SSPX bishops. As regards one of the four to be consecrated, Fr. Michael Goldade, some have thought to discover in him various parallels to the late Bishop Richard Williamson, noting that Fr. Goldade received most of his seminary formation under +Williamson, appears to have taken a recent interest in the writings of Fr. Fahey, and was himself a seminary rector.
From these superficial and incidental commonalities, some are harboring hopes in their hearts that Fr. Goldade will become the next Bishop Williamson. The purpose of this article is to throw cold water on those hopes, supply a heavy dose of reality, and explain why that simply isn’t going to happen.
The Seminary:
I was myself providentially enrolled in the SSPX seminary in Winona at a most interesting point in history: Arriving in the fall of 2001, I was there not long after the GREC-organized 2000 pilgrimage of the SSPX to Rome put the ralliement of the SSPX into its public phase. I was there when Campos capitulated. And I was there when the divide between the competing visions of +Williamson and +Fellay first began to quietly circulate amongst the priests and seminarians, causing all of us to secretly take sides for or against a deal with Rome.
Of course, Fr. Goldade was also there. As he was an upper level seminarian, we did not converse much, but my impression of him at the time was generally favorable. He was sober, temperate, and struck me as rather plain (i.e., he did not have any of the eccentricities some of the other seminary transients had). Consequently, I never knew his position. But the division was already alive and well in Winona: You were either a Fellay man, or a Williamson man, since you could not be both at the same time vis-a-vis Rome without violating the principle of non-contradiction, their positions being mutually exclusive.
The point here is that being formed by a Williamson-run seminary is not in itself an indicator that one shared his positions. And as one reflects upon the way things panned out under +Fellay from 2001-2012, literally hundreds of priests formed by the English bishop either actively opposed him, or sat silently on the sidelines, content to watch his demonization in prelude to expulsion.
Fr. Goldade was more than just one of these latter Nicodemus types, as we shall see.
Fr. Goldade vs the Resistance:
In America, the SSPX’s anti-resistance purges reached their apex in 2012, under the leadership of the serial pedophile, Fr. Arnaud Rostand. At that time, there was an excellent website called sossaveoursspx.com. One of the first Resistance websites, it exposed and chronicled the compromises, changes, and contradictions of the neo-SSPX as it transformed itself in preparation for insertion into the conciliar church, by documenting sermons, articles, conferences, providing website links, defending the first Resistance priests, and doing what it could to sound the alarm that all was not well with the Society (hence the name “SOS” which stood for “Save Our SSPX”).
At that time, Fr. Goldade was serving at the SSPX’s Christ the King chapel in Ridgefield, CT which also happened to be the same chapel the editor of the sossaveoursspx.com website attended. On September 16, while Fr. Rostand was in town for a conference on then-current dealings with Rome, Fr. Goldade passed over the editor at the communion rail in front of hundreds of people (the website being the reason). At the conference afterwards, Fr. Rostand told him to take it down. Not long after, it vanished. You can read all about that sorry affair on Cathinfo.com here.
Whether this incident was on order from Fr. Rostand, or was the initiative of Fr. Goldade himself is not pertinent. What is pertinent is that +Williamson was a promotor of the Resistance and militantly opposed to any practical accord with unconverted Rome, and was willing to go so far as suffering expulsion in order to bring the SSPX resisters sacraments,1 whereas Fr. Goldade denied the sacraments to this man. I do not know if there were other instances, or whether this man’s family (he had 8 children and a wife at the time) were included in this interdict.
The point here is that the traits which most characterized +Williamson were his anti-conciliarism and his fidelity to Archbishop Lefebvre. Neither of those traits are conspicuous in Fr. Goldade, in fact he actively persecuted that which +Williamson actively promoted (at least on this occasion).
A Final Note:
I can easily imagine Fr. Goldade being quite surprised to learn that some are placing in him their hopes of finding the next Bishop Williamson.
His first question, like my own, would be “Why?”
Quite frankly, I think the SSPX will never get another +Williamson, because they don’t deserve one. They threw him out on the street, and all who backed him, yet I’m to believe they somehow failed to recognize that the priest they’re about to consecrate is actually a Williamsonesque protege?
No, what they’ll get instead are quiet, plain, ordinary, subservient, controllable, and unremarkable bishops who will all be good company men (perhaps even open to an accord with modernist Rome some day).
Recall that +Williamson’s unauthorized trip to Brazil to perform confirmations for the faithful of Dom Thomas Aquinas (who’s faithful +Fellay had refused sacraments until they ousted Dom Thomas Aquinas, and replaced him with a leader willing to bow to +Fellay) was the official reason given for +Williamson’s expulsion.
I'm still not particularly convinced that the consecrations will go ahead as currently proposed, but that some dramatic "last-minute" deal will be struck, where there will be so much "winning" for Tradition that we'll get "tired of the winning", as SSPX apply the principles from "The Art of the Deal".