Month: October 2020

Bishop Williamson is not quoted in my new book, but he has provided some interesting comments, which tie in.  In the October 10, 2020 edition of Eleison Comments he talks about vocations: “Now those necessarily include a priesthood, bishops and priests and in some sort of hierarchy, to ensure those sacraments which are essential to the life of supernatural grace of the Church’s members.”  What is some sort of hierarchy?

Canon 108: “Those who have been assigned to the divine ministry at least by the first tonsure, are called clerics. They are not all of the same grade, for they form a sacred hierarchy in which some are subordinate to others. By divine institution, the sacred hierarchy of orders consists of bishops, priests and ministers; the hierarchy of jurisdiction consists of the Supreme Pontificate and the subordinate episcopate. By institution of the Church other degrees have been added.”

Williamson has redefined the hierarchy and like other Traditionalist Bishops, he creates Sacramental Priests and Bishops.  This is a new invention of the Traditionalists.  And so these men form “some sort of hierarchy,” when Christ founded a set hierarchy of both Orders and of Jurisdiction as we have seen above.  Of course Traditionalists have no ordinary authority in the Church as they readily admit.

The Church has a hierarchy, which Jesus instituted of the Pope and the subordinate episcopate, that is the Bishops of the various dioceses.  There is a question whether or not Titular Bishops are part of the hierarchy in this manner, since they do not need to be called to an Ecumenical Council.  Of course Traditionalist bishops are neither Residential as a Bishop of a Diocese or Titular, because they have no title.  Traditionalists claim that their Bishops are not excommunicated for their consecration, because they were not consecrated for a diocese, but as sacramental bishops.  This author agrees that Father Anthony Cekada’s argument in this regard produces at least a probable opinion their bishops are not excommunicated.

There is more in this Eleison Comments: “Vatican II changed Church doctrine”  Since this is true, the Vatican II Church cannot be the Catholic Church, so why does he accept the pope and subordinate episcopate as legitimate Catholic Bishops?

He does agree with Pope Leo XIII, who stated in Satis Cognitum: “But the Episcopal order is rightly judged to be in communion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it be subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it necessarily becomes a lawless and disorderly crowd.”  Williamson states: “One great lesson of this Church crisis is that the Catholic Church can no more do without the Pope than a puppet can do without its puppeteer – it becomes a jumbled heap of strings and bits of coloured wood.”

In his Eleison Comments DCXC, Bishop Williamson says: “In the Foreword to his book on The Heresy of the 20th Century, Jean Madiran begins with the direct statement that it is the Catholic bishops who are responsible for the heresy of the 20th century (p.17 in the 2018 re-edition of the book from via.romana@yahoo.fr). Knowing that he will be accused as a mere layman of speaking out of turn, he states defiantly (28) that when the shepherds or bishops have turned into wolves or destroyers of the Faith, he needed as a baptised Catholic neither to ask for, nor to be given, any mandate to defend the Faith.”

The main argument launched by the Sedeoccupantists against Sedevacantism and Conclavism is that the laity cannot speak against heresy, nor take action.  If Jean Madiran, a layman, can speak on the heresy of the 20th Century, why can’t other faithful Catholics speak on this very subject?  Why can we not go further, when the clergy fail us and take action as we did, beginning in the mid 1960’s, when the problem first became known?  According to Williamson’s reasoning, we can.

Check our What People Can Judge In Regard to Heresy in Our new book.

See especially The Laity’s Duty In Regard to Faith.

For more information, read excerpts from Our new book.