Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Williamson goes 'independent'

Readers may or may not have heard of the phenomenon of 'independent' priests, priests with valid orders who, for one reason or another have kicked over the traces and no longer obey their bishops or superiors, but engage in some kind of pastoral work with a little group of followers. Of course there are Catholic priests who join the Anglicans, or the SSPX, or some other group on the wilder fringes, but these are the ones who don't want to be answerable to anyone at all. It seems Bishop Williamson, so graciously invited back to the fold by the Holy Father, who lifted the excommunication imposed on him for allowing himself to be consecrated as bishop without the Pope's permission in 1988, has now gone into this sterile wilderness, and is offering his episcopal services to others in a like situation. So I suppose he'll be offering confirmations, perhaps even priestly ordinations. He's by no means the first person with valid episcopal orders wandering around in this state, but he is by far the best known, and the validity of his orders is the most obvious. For these reasons he is going to cause a particularly acute scandal, and do a particularly grave amount of damage.

I don't normally post about this kind of thing but this is breaking news, and I urge readers to pray for him, and for those who find themselves involved in his set-up, however it evolves. The lunacy of the whole thing is obvious to perhaps all of my readers, but it clearly isn't obvious to them, for one thing they will include families with children who know nothing else. While we needn't follow their soap-opera antics, but we cannot be indifferent to what happens to them either.

More from the Sensible Bond.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:53 pm

    As you say, apart from the danger to himself, it is the danger to those who know nothing else that is worthy of fervent prayer.

    Pax et bonum.

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  2. He might even be offering episcopal consecration from what I have read.

    ReplyDelete