A reader writes:
I was a seminarian at the Econe, Switzerland seminary of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in the late 1970s. Richard Williamson was my spiritual director and confessor. He is a very refined and cultured man in a very British way. He plays Beethoven beautifully on the piano. But his political and religious views are very rigid and extreme. He claims to be a defender of THE TRUTH. I cannot see him recanting in any sincere way. He rejects Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Missae and sees the Council and the New Mass as the subversive products of a conspiracy of liberalism, modernism, Freemasonry, and Judaism in the Church.The central tenets of Catholic traditionalism are:
- Antisemitism
- Rejection of Vatican II
- Rejection of the Novus Ordo Missae
- The Catholic Church is the only true church. No salvation outside the Catholic Church.
I do not see how Williamson or the SSPX can be reconciled with the Church.
But they have been reconciled to this Pope. Is it not relevant to ask why?
The Dish 