Richard Williamson

Uncommon card · No. 136006

Richard Nelson Williamson (8 March 1940 – 29 January 2025) was an English traditionalist Catholic bishop, conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier who was twice excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He was for many years a member of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Williamson opposed the changes in the Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, he was one of four SSPX priests consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for which Pope John Paul II declared all parties 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 a suspension from ministry remained in force. Immediately afterward, Swedish television broadcast an interview recorded earlier at the SSPX seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria. Therein...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Jim, the Photographer, CC BY 2.0