Catholic World News News Feature
Vatican has replaced faith, SSPX bishop charges March 18, 2006
A bishop of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has said that he and Vatican officials "belong to two different religions."
In a monthly email message to supporters, Bishop Richard Williamson disclosed that he made that observation to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, during a meeting in Rome in August 2000. When Cardinal Castillon Hoyos replied that he and the SSPX leader shared a common faith in the Eucharist and the doctrines of the Catholic Church, Bishop Williamson recalled, he answered that "we do and we don't; mainly we don't."
Bishop Williamson is one of the four bishops who were ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in June 1988 in defiance of orders from the Vatican. The illicit ordinations prompted the Vatican to announce a sentence of excommunication on Archbishop Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated.
Since 2000, Vatican officials have conducted a series of talks with SSPX leaders, hoping to restore full communion with the breakaway traditionalists. During a February 13 meeting with leaders of the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI reportedly introduced a concrete plan for reconciliation; discussion of that plan was expected to continue on March 23 when the Pope meets with the College of Cardinals. But the words of Bishop Williamson make it clear that some SSPX leaders will resist any bid to restore normal ties with Rome.
In his March message, Bishop Williamson said that Vatican officials have forsaken the traditional Catholic faith since Vatican II. Concentrating his criticism on the belief in religious freedom, the traditionalist leader said: "Whether they realize it or not, they are replacing the religion of God’s truth with the religion of man’s liberty, because religious liberty is the underpinning of their beliefs."
The commitment to religious liberty, Bishop Williamson continued, "undermines all objective truth in order to set up the religion of man." True Catholicism, he said, does not exalt religious freedom but "condemns the errors of the world."
Bishop Williamson, a native of England who now serves in Argentina, is generally regarded as the SSPX leader most hostile to Vatican entreaties. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior of the traditionalist group, has held "cordial" talks with Pope Benedict, but continued to insist that the SSPX cannot accept Vatican II teachings on religious freedom, ecumenism, and liturgical renewal.
