Take a look at Bishop Williamson's website which, if I were a betting person, will soon disappear. [Cyber mavens might want to take a "picture" of it while it is still up.]
If you go to it to this particular link you will learn that this venerable prince of the church also :
1. Well over a century ago Judeo-Masonry is known to have been envisaging three World Wars to achieve its unified global domination.In short Jews together with Freemasons planned WWI and WWII. They are planning for WWIII. And 9/11 was not committed by Arab terrorists [or are we supposed to call them militants?].2. By lies, Judeo-Masonry brought about the first two World Wars.
3. By lies, Judeo-Masonry is preparing for the Third World War.
4. The supposed treachery of Arabs last year against the Twin Towers in New York already igniting American public opinion to go to war against Afghanistan and now Iraq.
5. We now in 2002 know with certainty that our governments and media told us far from the complete truth in 1941 as to who was truly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, so we will eventually know that those truly responsible for the attack on the Twin Towers were certainly not those primarily held up as being responsible by our governments and media.
But that's not all he has to say.
1. Women should not wear trousers: ever.
2. Women should not go to university: ever.
3. Modernism caused the Rwanda genocide.
4. Sound of Music is an evil film because it celebrates true love and depicts Nazis as villains.
And this is the man the Vatican has said can now offer mass and give communition. Something is very wrong here.
[NOTE: a number of comments on this post point out that I might not have it right here. I apologize for that and acknowledge that maybe he can't offer mass or give communion. But that does not lessen the fact that a man -- and for that matter the group he is part of -- with some very weird ideas and hateful attitudes has been welcomed back into the church... unexcommunicated shall we say.... That is bad enough]
Kudos to Jim Burroway for scoping out these gems. [There are more if you have the time and energy to slog through Williamson's missives. But do it quickly. Someone at the Vatican will tell him to pull them down ASAP]. And thanks to my cyber-fiend friend Sara for pointing me in this direction.
13 comments:
As I was saying in my preceding comment (but perhaps blogger is having some technical problems and my comment disappeared), I am sceptic on whether he is considered a "bishop" by anyone else than those who use this title when referring to him.
Do you have sources from the Vatican referring to Richard Williamson with the title of "bishop" or "prince of the church" ? Many newspapers call him a "bishop", but journalists are not the pope.
"Prince of the Church" refers to cardinals, not bishops. And he is still suspended ("a divinis" in canon-speak) from administering any of the sacraments. This means that he's not allowed to say Mass, not allowed to hear confessions, not allowed to ordain priests. He's not even allowed to preach from Catholic pulpits. If you don't believe me, ask a canon lawyer.
Deborah, I appreciate the work you do in defending historical truth, but please don't twist the facts in this case. It undermines your work in other areas.
afaik, Mr. Williamson can't offer mass or give communion, because he's still suspended "a divinis" (some information in http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspense_(droit_canonique)).
That said, he's not someone I would be happy to share a meal with. He's disgusting.
Dr. Lipstadt,
You might want to speak to experts on Catholic sacramental theology and Catholic ecclesiology before you post again on Bishop Williamson.
You are missing a couple of nuances that amount to big parts of the story.
Doctor, your complaint is
"And this is the man the Vatican has said can now offer mass and give communion. Somethings very wrong here."
You're not understanding the problem from a Catholic perspective, or getting the subtleties completely right.
Let me have the honor of being a Catholic friend and gently pull your coattail to the following:
1.) This man (Bp. Williamson) could ALWAYS say Mass and give communion. The Catholic Church can't stop him. His confection of the sacraments were in canon law "valid" but not "licit". The point of this recent diplomacy is that in a condition of schism Williamson can't really be stopped anyway so it does little good to forbid it if there is indication that the rest of his organization is in a talking mood.
2.) Please notice! The whole point of a Papacy in the Catholic Church is UNITY. If there are functional Catholics who are separated and who want to discuss re-union then the Pope, in his mission of unity, canNOT NOT respond or seek a return.
Please write John Allen or some established Vatican journalist. He will explain it. There is an internal logic of purely internal religious necessity in his dealing with these people. He can't NOT do this no matter how offended the rest of the world becomes.
This in no way changes the fact that Bishop Williamson is a dangerous nut, or that Bishop Milingo of Africa is a nut, or that St. Louis' Marek Bozek is a nut. If Bishop Milingo wanted to come back in yes we would have to talk to him.
By the way, congratulations on finding the "Sound of Music" letter. AMong Traditionalists who worry over Williamson it is sort of a "proof text" of his dementia.
In short, schism in the Catholic religion is essentially an issue of sacramental theology. If dissident Catholics are firing sacraments with "live ammunition" we have to round them up.
In an essentially protestant culture like America's it's easy to subject Catholic theology to "snark attack". If we were protestants the Lefebvrists would just become another long beard, boon-dock, stump-jump sect.
But in our version of Ecclesiology we have to go after them. He is firing off valid communion which being the body and blood of Christ is something we cannot let him do alone. He's like a kid with a gun who has found daddy's ammunition drawer. We have to go out in the street and get him.
The result to your chagrin (and mine) is that from this perspective Papa Ratzinger has to ignore what this looks like to parties concerned about Jewish interests.
Please do notice in your blog that L'Observatore Romano" condemned "Holocaust Denial" yesterday.
It's not as much as you want but it's not insignificant.
Look for B-XVI to deal with these guys much more harshly once he has them back in the house.
Dear Dr. Lipstadt,
You wrote regarding Bp. Williamson's letters,
"[There are more if you have the time and energy to slog through Williamson's missives. But do it quickly. Someone at the Vatican will tell him to pull them down ASAP]."
Dear Dr. Lipstadt, unless your purpose is to saw to threads the filial bonds between Catholics and Jews please reflect on the snark-like grimace of contempt hovering above your statement.
The Vatican is not a Cabal of Elders who get things spiked or published with a phone call.
Neither are Jews.
Look, most Catholics concerned with the SSPX have known about these "Belle Lettres" of Bp. Williamson for years.
You are my hero. Please listen! The whole point of the schism is that the Vatican has NOT been able to get them to change any of their views.
I agree with you that the letters will be pulled but the order will probably come not from Rome but from Bp. Fellay (if you want to reseach who is in charge of whom). The Vatican is not now nor has it been for twenty years able to tell the SSPX to do anything.
I love your work. So, before you alienate ALL the Catholics who read your site let me ask, "Have you not noticed that the Catholic Church can't get even the Bishops in good standing to do ANYTHING by means of a simple directive.
A case in point: Four and one half years ago Pope John Paul II pointedly, through one Cardinal Ratzinger, told the Amerian Bishops to rein in their Catholic politicians on the subject of abortion. The American bishops ignored the letter.
Please be a little more careful about how you address Catholic issues.
Or don't. I still love your work and your blog.
I'm new to your blog and it may be that your wish to address a primarily Jewish or secular audience. In that case you have my apologies for burdening you with my parochial concerns.
To Dr. Lipstadt and her readers,
Here is a link to a SSPX site which gives their views on the Theological role of the Jewish People in History.
Note how it begins with a warm and really upbeat note of fraternity and then a few pages later decends into pure hell.
http://www.sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/mystery_of_the_jews.htm
For what it's worth, the link to the document on Rwanda is broken - it takes you to the page on women and Universities, not to anything on Rwanda.
San Joaquin:
Thanks. The link has been fixed. And thanks to all who corrected me and properly chastised me for mangling Catholic doctrine.
I guess it would not be inappropriate to say mea maxima culpa. Sincerely.
Dr. Lipstadt,
You wrote, "I guess it would be inappropriate to say mea maxima culpa."
Not at all darling. You said it "like a true Roman."
To Dr. Lipstadt and all readers,
I picked this up off my favorite Traditionalist Blog.
Newsweek's George Weigel has gotten the whole "Affaire Williamson" dead solid perfect with respect to the French "anti-Dreyfus" roots of the Lefebvrist movement.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/181721/page/1
I have been looking for the full text of the decree of repealment of excommunication. They have it on http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=31776
This decree, signed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, on January 21, 2009, clearly refers to the 4 people as "bishops", so I was wrong in doubting of this title.
This is a shock to me, as the previous texts from the Vatican refered to them only as priests, for example a text from John Paul II, dated 2 July 1988,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html
refers to them as "the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta".
"journalists are not the pope"
Maybe not, but they run a close second. And like the pope(s), journalists also vacillate on issues related to the Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel.
"...the snark-like grimace of contempt hovering above your statement."
Please, Guy Fawkes, don't hyperbolize Prof. Lipstadt's statements. You could have no idea of how many of my angry posts she has prudently chosen not to post to this blog. Those particular posts actually had "the snark-like grimace of contempt hovering above" them. I'm sure she chose not to post them so as not to offend your fellow Catholics. Please don't paint Prof. Lipstadt as hateful. That's a cheap shot, if you ask me.
"filial bonds between Catholics and Jews"
Filial bonds? Filial? You just don't get it, Guy Fawkes: No affinity exists, veridically speaking, whether spiritually or otherwise, between Judaism and Christianity. Christians must, of necessity, propound an affinity to the Jews and Judaism in order to justify Christianity's undue claims to the writ of mandamus the Jewish people (not Christians, not Muslims) received from the Almighty in regards to disseminating to the non-Jewish world the reality of their G-D, Jerusalem, and the land of Israel. This so-called "filial bond" is merely a figment of your imagination and a product of the Vatican's political and religious preponderance.
A Rabbi once advised me, "To presume consent is an act of theft." You and your fellow religious would do Catholic-Jewish relations a world of good by thinking upon this axiom, Guy Fawkes.
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