Британдық католик дәстүршіл епископы Ричард Нельсон Уильямсон және Холокостқа қатысты даулары

British Catholic traditionalist bishop

Richard Nelson Williamson (born 8 March 1940) is a British independent Traditionalist Catholic bishop who opposes the changes in the church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, Williamson was one of four Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) priests illicitly consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for which Pope John Paul II declared he had incurred ipso facto automatic excommunication. The validity of the excommunication has always been denied by the SSPX, who, citing canon law, argue that the consecrations were permissible due to a crisis in the Catholic Church. The excommunications, including that of Williamson, were lifted on 21 January 2009 but the suspension of the bishops from ministry within the Catholic Church remained in force. Immediately afterward, Swedish television broadcast an interview recorded earlier at the SSPX's seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria. During the interview, Williamson expressed his belief that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust and that Nazi Germany did not use gas chambers. Based upon these statements, he was charged with and convicted of Holocaust denial by the district court of Regensburg, Germany. The Holy See declared that Pope Benedict had been unaware of Williamson's views when he lifted the excommunication of the four bishops. He said that Williamson would remain suspended from his episcopal functions until he unequivocally and publicly distanced himself from that stated position on the Holocaust. In 2010, Williamson was convicted of incitement in a German court in relation to those views; the conviction was later vacated on appeal. He was convicted again on this charge in a retrial in early 2013. Williamson appealed again, but his appeal was rejected. After a number of incidents, including calling for the resignation of Bernard Fellay as the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, refusal to stop publishing his weekly email and an unauthorised visitation to Brazil, Williamson was expelled from the Society in 2012. After leaving the Society, Williamson consecrated Jean Michel Faure, Tomás de Aquino Ferreira da Costa, and Gerardo Zendejas [pl] as bishops in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Because of these consecrations, he was excommunicated latae sententiae from the Catholic Church again in 2015. Williamson is fluent in English, French, German and Spanish.

Williamson was born in 1940 in Buckinghamshire, England, the middle son of a Marks & Spencer buyer and his wealthy American wife. Williamson attended Winchester College before going on to study at Clare College, Cambridge, where he received a degree in English literature. Upon graduating, he taught at a college in Ghana for a brief period. After a few months as a postulant at the Brompton Oratory, he left. He became a member of the Society of Saint Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic faction founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in protest against what Lefebvre saw as the liberalism of the Second Vatican Council.

In June 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate Williamson and three other priests (Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, and Alfonso de Galarreta) 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 1983 Code of Canon Law. On 17 June 1988 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops sent the four priests a formal canonical warning that they would automatically incur the penalty of excommunication if they were to be consecrated by Lefebvre without papal permission. On 30 June 1988 Williamson and the three other priests were consecrated bishop by Archbishop Lefebvre and Antônio de Castro Mayer. On 1 July 1988 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin issued a declaration stating that Lefebvre, de Castro Mayer, Williamson, and the three other newly ordained bishops "have incurred ipso facto the excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See". On 2 July 1988, Pope John Paul II issued the motu proprio 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", and that "such disobedience – which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy — constitutes a schismatic act". Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, head of the commission responsible for implementing Ecclesia Dei, has said this resulted in a "situation of separation, even if it was not a formal schism." The SSPX denied the validity of the excommunications, saying that the consecrations were necessary due to a moral and theological crisis in the Catholic Church, making them permissible under canon law. His excommunication, along with that of Archbishop Lefebvre and the other bishops consecrated the Écône consecrations were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI.

After his episcopal consecration Williamson remained rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota. In 2003 Williamson was appointed rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina. Among the changes he opposes are the Church's increased openness to other Christian denominations and other religions, and changes in the forms of Catholic worship such as the general replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Mass of Paul VI. Williamson has criticised Pope John Paul II, to whom he attributed a "weak grasp of Catholicism". Williamson holds that the SSPX is not schismatic, but rather is composed of true Catholics who are keeping the "complete Roman Catholic apostolic faith". Williamson is viewed as being located towards the hardline end of the traditionalist spectrum, though he does not go quite so far as to espouse sedevacantism. accusing the latter of deceit He has been reported as viewing reconciliation between the SSPX and the Holy See as being impossible, and he has noted that some SSPX members might refuse to follow the Society in such a direction even if an agreement were reached. Williamson was reportedly dismissive of Mother Teresa because of her supposedly 'liberal' views.

Williamson holds strong views regarding gender roles. He opposes women wearing trousers or shorts, women attending college or university, and women having careers. He has urged greater "manliness" in men.

Williamson supports conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theory, denying that the September 11 attacks were foreign terrorist attacks and claiming they were instead staged by the U. S. government. He has also said that the 7 July 2005 London bombings were an "inside job" and propagated rumours about the likelihood of a nuclear attack on the London Olympics in 2012.

Williamson condemns the Jewish religion. He has urged the conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. He says that Jews and Freemasons have contributed to the "changes and corruption" in the Catholic Church. He has also stated that Jews aim at world dominion and believes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be authentic. identifying the contemporary enemies of the faith as "Jews, Communists and Freemasons". Since the late 1980s, Williamson has been accused of Holocaust denial. Citing the pseudoscientific Leuchter report, and praised Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.

On 4 February 2009, German prosecutors announced the launch of a criminal investigation into the statements. In October 2009, a German court, using an "order of punishment" fined Williamson €12,000 after finding him guilty of Holocaust denial. Williamson denied the charges and appealed, paving the way for a full hearing that Williamson need not attend. He did not attend the trial, on orders from his society, on charges of inciting racial hatred in Regensburg, Germany on 16 April 2010, and was found guilty. The court reduced the fine to The fine was appealed by lawyers from both sides; the lawyer Williamson hired was the former leader of the Wiking Jugend, an outlawed Neo Nazi group. The Society of St. Pius X ordered Williamson to find a new lawyer under threat of expulsion. On 22 February 2012 the higher court dismissed this conviction, finding that the initial charges against Williamson had been inadequately drawn, having failed to specify the nature of his offence, or at what point his filmed comments came under German jurisdiction, or in what sense he could be held liable for failing to prevent their publication in Germany. but his appeal was dismissed. On 31 January 2019 the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Williams' attempt to overturn a conviction for Holocaust denial on the grounds of free speech.

In August 2012, Williamson administered the sacrament of confirmation to about 100 laypeople at the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, during an unauthorised visit to the State of Rio de Janeiro. The society's South American district superior, interlanguage Christian Bouchacourt, protested against his action on the SSPX website, saying that it was "a serious act against the virtue of obedience." In early October 2012, the leadership of the SSPX gave Williamson a deadline to declare his submission, instead of which he published an "open letter" asking for the resignation of the Superior General. On 4 October 2012, the Society expelled Williamson in a "painful decision" citing the failures "to show respect and obedience deserved by his legitimate superiors".

In the first issue of his weekly blog after his expulsion, Williamson wrote: "Hang tight, everybody. We are in for one 'helluva' ride. Let's just make that a ride to Heaven!" And later he wrote: "For myself, I shall attempt to follow [God's] Providence in the ordaining of priests – or in the consecrating of bishops. God's will be done." He called for the establishment of a loose network of what he called "Catholic Resistance" to any proposal by the SSPX to drop its opposition to Rome. An initiative was set up by Williamson under the title "The St. Marcel Initiative". On 19 March 2015, Williamson ordained Frenchman Jean Michel Faure, a former member of the SSPX, as a bishop in a ceremony in Nova Friburgo, Brazil. Faure had, like Williamson, opposed reconciliation discussions between the SSPX and the Catholic Church. As this was done without papal mandate, both Faure and Williamson incurred a latae sententiae excommunication. The SSPX condemned the consecration as "not at all comparable to the consecrations of 1988" and as proof that Williamson and Faure "no longer recognize the Roman authorities, except in a purely rhetorical manner". Exactly one year later, Williamson consecrated Tomás de Aquino Ferreira da Costa as a bishop in Brazil. This consecration also took place without papal approval. The following year, it was announced that Williamson intended to consecrate a third bishop, Mexican American prelate Gerardo Zendejas, on 11 May 2017. The consecration was held at St. Athanasius Church in Vienna, Virginia. In late December 2022, Williamson stated he had privately consecrated another bishop, Giacomo Ballini (the leader of the Cork branch of the group calling itself 'SSPX Resistance'. They are a group founded by Williamson), in 2021. If this claim is to be believed, Williamson has in total consecrated four bishops since he has become independent. On 15 August 2022 he consecrated Michał Stobnicki as a bishop in Poland.

In January 2024, it was reported by several sources that Williamson had conditionally re consecrated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to the episcopate. Viganò had already been consecrated as Bishop in 1992 by John Paul II, but has later grown closer to radical positions of traditionalist Catholicism: the conditional re consecration seems to imply that Viganò now believes that sacraments confected through the current Roman Missal are of dubious validity. Should the news be confirmed, Viganò would be excommunicated latae sententiae.