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Famous Like Me > Actor > W > Richard Williamson

Profile of Richard Williamson on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Richard Williamson  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 1st April 1964
   
Place of Birth: Toronto, Canada
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Bishop Richard Nelson Williamson is a bishop of the Society of St. Pius X.

Williamson was born March 8, 1940 in England, and was raised as a member of the Church of England. After taking a degree in literature at the University of Cambridge, he taught at a college in Ghana.

In 1973 Williamson was baptised in the Catholic Church by a priest of the Society of St. Pius X. He entered the society's International Seminary of St. Pius X at Ecône in Switzerland. In 1976 he was ordained priest by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Williamson's first appointment was as a professor at the Society of St. Pius X's International Seminary of the Sacred Heart in Zaitzkofen, Germany. In 1983 he was transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Within a short time he was appointed rector of the seminary which moved to Winona, Minnesota in 1987.

In June 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate Williamson and three other priests as bishops. Lefebvre did not have a pontifical mandate for these consecrations (i.e. permission from the pope), normally required by Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law. On June 17, 1988 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops sent Williamson a formal canonical warning that he would automatically incur the penalty of excommunication if he were ordained by Lefebvre without papal permission.

On June 29, 1988 Williamson and the three other priests were consecrated bishop by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. On July 1, 1988 Cardinal Gantin issued a declaration stating that Lefebvre, Williamson, and the three other newly-ordained bishops "have incurred ipso facto excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See". Williamson and his supporters denied the validity of the excommunication, saying that the consecrations were necessary due to a moral and theological crisis in the Catholic Church.

On July 2, 1988, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei in which he reaffirmed the excommunication, and described the consecration as an act of "disobedience to the Roman pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church".

After his episcopal consecration Williamson remained rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary. He also performed other episcopal functions, including confirmations and ordinations. In 2003 he was appointed rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina.

Williamson is noted for his controversial views. He is fiercely critical of what he calls "Sound of Music" Catholicism, calling for an uncompromising Catholicism which should attempt to mould every aspect of life, including politics, music and education. He also is strongly against modern systems of economics and the modern lifestyle in general, calling the Unabomber Manifesto "suggested reading". Williams wrote in a May, 2000 newsletter that the United States is "a Communist country in all but name." He has also made statements regarded by some as anti-Semitic; in 1989, while speaking at Notre Dame de Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Canada, he is reported to have claimed that "there was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies. The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel.... Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil, and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism." In published letters to friends and benefactors he has quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as authoritative, and in the May 1997 edition of the Australian traditionalist monthly Catholic he declared that "Jews are the most active artisans for the coming of antiChrist."

Williamson is a controversial figure even within the traditional Catholic community. Many traditionalists, some of them former SSPX parishoners, feel that by connecting his personal opinions on the superiority of pre-Industrial Revolution life and socio-economic systems with hard-line moral teachings, he comes dangerously close to espousing heresies condemned by the Church for centuries. Some critics claim that many of his more radical writings have more in common with certain moralist Protestant sects, and also the condemned teachings of Jansenism, which was spread throughout France in the 17th century. His remarks regarding Judaism, Jewish people and the Holocaust have distressed some Catholic traditionalists, particularly those from Jewish backgrounds.

On the other hand, his suporters sustain that contrary to being bordering on heretical, Bishop Williamson is one of the few remaining Catholic leaders, that his beliefs are solidly Catholic, based and supported by the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and other great doctors of the Church, and that his excommunication is invalid.


Episcopal Lineage
Consecrated by: Marcel Lefebvre
Date of consecration: June 30, 1988

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Richard Williamson