Bishop Williamson is excommunicated after illicitly ordaining a bishop

[Ognir]

Bishop Williamson is excommunicated after illicitly ordaining a bishop

Bishop tells his supporters that Rome has been occupied by 'modernist cuckoos'

Bishop Richard Williamson has been automatically excommunicated along with the priest he illicitly ordained a bishop.

Bishop Williamson violated Church law when he ordained Fr Jean-Michel Faure, 73, a bishop without papal approval during a ceremony in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, on the feast of St Joseph.

While the Vatican did not comment immediately, canon law provides automatic excommunication for the newly ordained bishop and for the bishop ordaining him in cases where the ordination goes against the will of the pope.

Bishop Williamson had been excommunicated in 1988 when he and three other traditionalist bishops were ordained against papal orders by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St Pius X.

Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications in 2009 as a first step toward beginning formal talks aimed at reconciliation with the group. However, there was widespread outrage at revelations that Bishop Williamson had denied the gassing of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. The Vatican said the pope had been unaware at the time of the bishop's radical views on the Holocaust.

Bishop Williamson, who opposed the Society of St Pius X holding reconciliation talks with the Vatican, was ousted from the society in 2012.

He and a number of followers did not support reconciliation with Rome because they believe the Vatican had strayed from the Catholic faith since the Second Vatican Council.

Fr Faure, who was ordained a priest by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1977, was also in opposition to reconciliation and left the society in 2013.

In an interview posted on the blog "Non Possumus", the priest said he was willing to be ordained a bishop despite the penalties because "we cannot leave the resistance without bishops".

"As Archbishop Lefebvre said, Catholic bishops are indispensible for the conservation of the true doctrine of the faith and the sacraments," he said.

In a commentary emailed to subscribers of his newsletter on February 28, Bishop Williamson said the Catholic Church in Rome – referring to it as "the nightingales' nest" – was unjustly occupied by "modernist cuckoos".

"Wherever the remainder of the true nightingales are visibly gathered, in whatever makeshift nest, they are in the Church, they are the true visible Church, and their beautiful song testifies to anyone who has ears to hear that the cuckoos are nothing but cuckoos who have stolen the Catholic nest which they presently occupy," he wrote.

He criticised the leaders of the SSPX for being "tone deaf" and unable "to distinguish the song of cuckoos from that of nightingales".

Meanwhile, the leadership of the SSPX issued a statement saying that the illicit consecration was "not at all comparable" to the consecrations by the society's founder Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988.

A communique issued by the general house in Menzingen, Switzerland, said: "The Society of St Pius X denounces this episcopal consecration of Fr Faure, which, despite the assertions of both clerics concerned, is not at all comparable to the consecrations of 1988. All the declarations of Bishop Williamson and Fr Faure prove abundantly that they no longer recognise the Roman authorities, except in a purely rhetorical manner."

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/03/19/bishop-williamson-is-excommunicated-after-illicitly-ordaining-a-bishop/

[Idaho Kid]

He's been excommunicated by the now toothless SSPX - http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=36025#p1

[Christopher Marlowe]

This is from the Cath Info site IK just linked:

While there are some slight differences in circumstances, the Menzingen line that they are not "at all" alike is the biggest crock of bovine excrement that I've ever read, to the point that I'm with Matthew in thinking that it had to be a deliberate lie. One difference is that +Williamson never bothered to even TRY to get permission from Rome ... as if that would have been forthcoming anyway.

Could you imagine Francis' response had +Williamson made an official request to do the consecration?

"Dear Holy Father, given that you are a modernist who's hell-bent on destroying the Church and undermining Catholic dogma, we request permission to consecrate a bishop in order to sustain our efforts to defend the Church from you. +Richard Williamson, Holocaust Denier"

This is essentially the formula that Williamson used in lieu of the Pope's permission.  Normally, when a Bishop is consecrated, the rite begins with the formal declaration from Rome:

http://stmarcelinitiative.com/email/en-concerning-the-episcopal-consecration-of-fr-jean-michel-faure.html
As many already know, among the very first spoken words of the Rite of Episcopal Consecration is the statement made to the consecrating bishop by his senior assistant:

"Most Reverend Father, our holy Mother the Catholic Church asks that you promote this priest here present to the burden of the episcopate."

In reply, the consecrating bishop asks whether the assistant has the "Apostolic Mandate."

The answer is, "We have," to which the consecrating bishop replies, "Let it be read."

(Those interested further may consult online a useful Latin and English Ordo, excerpted from the Pontificale Romanum, and published in 1910.)  https://archive.org/details/orderfollowedinc00cath

What was read in Thursday's ceremony in response to Bishop Williamson's invitation – serving as it did both a liturgical function and as a public explanation of the ceremon y's rationale as envisioned by the participants – is what follows. Readers may be interested to know that its first paragraphs closely follow the language used by Archbishop Lefebvre on June 30, 1988.

MANDTUM APOSTOLICUM

We have a Mandate to consecrate from the Roman Church which in its fidelity to Sacred Tradition received from the Apostles commands us to hand down faithfully that Sacred Tradition – namely the Deposit of the Faith – to all men by reason of their duty to save their souls.

For indeed, on the one hand, the authorities of the Church of Rome from the Second Vatican Council down to today are driven by a spirit of modernism which undermines in depth Sacred Tradition to the point of twisting its very notion: There shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, turning away their hearing from the truth, turning unto fables, as St Paul says to Timothy in his second Epistle (IV, 3,5). What use would it be to ask su ch authorities for a Mandate to consecrate a bishop who is going to be profoundly opposed to their most grave error?

And, on the other hand, to obtain such a bishop the few Catholics who understand his importance might have hoped, even after Vatican II, that he could come from the Society of St Pius X founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, like the four consecrated for them in 1988 by a previous emergency Mandate. Alas, when the authorities of that Society showed by their constant turning towards the Roman authorities that they were taking the same modernist road, that hope proved to be vain.

From where then could these faithful Catholics obtain the bishops essential to the survival of their true faith? In a world making political war day by day more on God and on His Church, the danger for the Faith seems such that its survival can no longer be left to depend on a single fully anti-modernist bishop. The Church herself asks him to appoint an associate, who will be Father Jean-Michel Faure.

By this handing down of the episcopal power of Orders, no episcopal power of jurisdiction is assumed or granted, and as soon as God intervenes to save His Church, which has no more human hope of rescue, the effects of this consecration and of its emergency Mandate will be without delay put back in the hands of a Pope once more wholly Catholic.