Bishop Williamson - Latest News

JMJ

I periodically do a Google Search for anything related to the SSPX in the last 24hrs.

Today a piece from the Catholic Herald popped up (link here). It appears that Bishop Williamson's appeal for his conviction of breaking a German law concerning denial of the holocaust (ie systematic murder of Jews in various concentration camps).

Here's the key phrase:

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Bishop Richard Williamson knew he was breaking German law by denying the scale of the Holocaust

This was obvious since, in the same recording, he makes it clear that he knew the law and the consequences of speaking his mind while in Germany.

The rest of the article goes on to highlight some key points:

Williamson holds the unique distinction of having been excommunicated by the Church twice. He was first excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1988, following his illicit consecration as a bishop by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in Écône, Switzerland against the orders of Pope St John Paul II. At the time, Williamson was a member of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), a canonically irregular religious order not in full communion with the Church.

Williamson’s excommunication, and that of the three other SSPX bishops consecrated by Lefebvre in 1988, was lifted in January 2009, in a decree that was signed the same day his interview aired in Sweden.

On October 4, 2012, Williamson was formally expelled from the SSPX after “refusing to show due respect and obedience” to his superiors in the society following an unauthorized visit to Brazil. Williamson then joined an offshoot of the society called the SSPX Resistance, and said that he would continue ordaining priests.

In 2015, he was once again declared excommunicated by the Church after consecrating a bishop in Brazil without Vatican approval. Since then, he has consecrated two other bishops, including one in 2017.

I don't know if Williamson can have recourse to the same logic / argumentation as Archbishop Lefebvre concerning the first excommunications.

Primarily as the circumstances were quite different, especially since he basically has gone rogue and if I am correct simply one of many 'resistance' splinters.

Anyway, enough about this ... I thought it was an interesting conclusion to the 2008 debacle.

P^3

Comments

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Spiritual Journey Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - Extracts

+ JMJ I have posted these two chapters to provide context for the quote of: It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to separate himself from this Conciliar Church for as long as it does not rediscover the Tradition of the Church and of the Catholic Faith. P^3 Courtesy of SSPX.ca Chapter II The Perfections of God We ought to remember during this entire contemplation of God that we must apply all that is said of God to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God. We cannot separate Jesus Christ from God. We cannot separate the Christian religion from Jesus Christ, Who is God, and we must affirm and believe that only the Catholic religion is the Christian religion. These affirmations have, as a result, inescapable conclusions that no ecclesiastic authority can contest: outside of Jesus Christ and the Catholic religion, that is, outsi...

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+ JMJ A reader asked the following question in the 2015 version of the article on the Dogmas of the Catholic Faith (link) : 117: "In the state of fallen nature it is morally impossible for man without Supernatural Revelation, to know easily, with absolute certainty and without admixture of error, all religious and moral truths of the natural order." Where can you find this in the documents of the Church? ( Link to comment ) Here's the reference from Ott: The citation that Ott provided was Denzinger 1786 and the source document is Dogmatic Consitution Concerning the Faith from the First Vatican Council (Papal Encyclicals - link) : Chapter 2 On Revelation, Article 3: It is indeed thanks to this divine revelation , that those matters concerning God, which are not of themselves beyond the scope of human reason, can, even in the present state of the human race, be known by everyone, without difficulty, with firm certitude and with no intermingling of error. Here's ...

Tradicat

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