W: was born an Anglican, the son of a vicar, in 1940. He went to Winchester College and read literature at Cambridge University, before teaching in Africa and converting to Catholicism in 1971. He became a member of the Society of St Pius X, which had been founded by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1970 to counter the reforms in the Church made by the Second Vatican Council during the previous decade. W. was a novice at the London Oratory, studied at Lefebvre's seminary, and was ordained a priest in 1976. Archbishop Lefebvre announced in 1988 that he intended to ordain W., and three other priests, as bishops, and did so despite warnings that he would be excommunicated. In 1988, the Holy See declared that W. had incurred automatic excommunication latae sententiae, i.e. as a direct and immediate consequence of his unauthorized consecration as a bishop by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Pope Benedict XVI lifted his excommunication in January 2009. 

In February 2009, the government of Argentina asked W. to leave the country 'over irregularities with his visa, and stating that his recent statements about Jews profoundly offend the Argentinean society, the Jewish people and all of humanity'.   

The relation between W. and the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, became more strained when in June 2012 he called in a conference for Bishop Fellay to be deposed as Superior General. In August 2012 he administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to about 100 lay people at the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, in an unauthorized visit to the State of Rio de Janeiro. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the society's superior, gave W. an ultimatum to take effect on October 23, 2012. On October 24, 2012, a communiqué of the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X confirmed his expulsion, stating that W. was declared excluded from the SSPX by decision of the Superior General and its Council. A press release from DICI.org on October 24, 2012 stated that due to W. refusing to show due respect and obedience to his lawful superiors, he was declared excluded from the SSPX by decision of the Superior General and its Council, on October 24th, 2012. 

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.

W. described as authentic the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' which purports to reveal Jewish plots to achieve world domination. W. has claimed that the United States planned the attacks of 9/11, and has accused Freemasons of conspiring against the Church. In November 2008, W. gave an interview to a Swedish television programme in which he disputed that six million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis, and claimed that none had died in gas chambers. He said: "I believe there were no gas chambers," and insisted that up to "300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers". In 2009, W. was convicted of incitement by a German court and fined €10,000. On 16 January of 2013, the German court convicted him again of incutement and fined €1,800. As of March 2014, appeal of W. is stlll hanging.

Bishop Williamson currently serves as the leader of the 'Resistance', a traditional group whose goal is to remain faithful to the principles of the SSPX's founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, while opposing the modern-day SSPX and its desire to obtain an agreement with Rome.

Werke von / Works of W.: Dinoscopus

Letzte Änderung / Last update: 16.04.2014 

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