Richard Williamson, a former bishop of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX, not in full communion with the Holy See), has revealed that in 2021 he secretly consecrated another bishop for his independent Catholic Tradition movement. The ceremony, which took place in January of that year in England, marks the fourth time that Williamson has illicitly ordained someone to the episcopate since his expulsion from the SSPX (“Lafebvrists”) in 2012. 

"For the survival of Catholic Tradition, the necessity arises for the consecration of bishops without Roman Authority... to maintain (Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s) defense of the faith above all," wrote the 82-year-old Englishman announced on New Year’s Eve.

In the December 31 issue of his regular website updates, "Eleison Comments", he said he consecrated Italian priest, Giacomo Ballini, "when the false Covid crisis... was in full swing". He said the crisis was "possibly created by the Jews" – a position that is part of Williamson’s long history of Holocaust denial and antisemitism.

The legacy of Lefebvrism

Williamson was one of the four men that the late Archbishop Lefebvre illegitimately ordained bishops in 1988 for the SSPX, a priestly community that opposes the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The ordinations earned Lefebvre (d. 1991) and the three new bishops automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication from the Church of Rome. 

Williamson continues to say that the 1988 ordinations were a necessary "'Operation Survival' for Catholic tradition".

Pope Benedict XVI reached out to the SSPX in 2009 and lifted their excommunications on the condition that they "accept the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of the popes since John XXIII". While discussions are still underway for the other three SSPX bishops, Williamson has always refused this rapprochement with Rome. His positions – negationist on the one hand, and too radical vis-à-vis the Catholic Church on the other hand – led the SSPX  to expel him in 2012.

"Truth" versus "Authority"

He then founded the St. Marcel Initiative, bringing together some 60 priests around what he considers to be "Catholic Truth". According to the British bishop, this "Truth" should be hand in hand with pontifical "authority". But he claims that ever since Vatican II, the so-called "neo-Church" has "its own leaders splitting their Catholic Authority from Catholic Truth".

This is the reason why Williamson has placed his Church in opposition to this "authority". He claims to be "the Truth of Tradition" above the "Authority" of Rome "embodied in neo-modernists", as his letter puts it.

Williamson says his followers "may not be numerous, but by their rare grasp of the unchanging Catholic Faith they have for the future of the Church a rare importance". And to promote that faith, the British bishop has illegitimately consecrated four bishops – without a papal mandate – which led to his being excommunicated again latae sententiae (in other words, by the mere fact of the act).

A fourth bishop illegitimately consecrated

He first consecrated Jean-Michel Faure, a former French member of the SSPX in March 2015. A year later he consecrated a Brazilian to the episcopate and in May 2017 a Mexican-American. Giacomo Ballini thus becomes the fourth bishop in his traditionalist movement. In his Dec. 31 letter, Williamson praised "how bravely" Bellini looked after "the Mass and the Faith of all time" during the COVID-19 crisis.

In fact, the Italian priest led a procession and a Mass in Dublin – where he has been living for several years – on December 8, 2020, the day of the Immaculate Conception. The purpose of this procession? To exorcize the Irish government and its prime minister at the time, Micheál Martin, precisely in relation to the public policies related to COVID-19. The latter had decided to prohibit in-person Masses, in keeping with the various lock-downs decreed in the country.

The new bishop should now continue to spread the message of the St. Marcel Initiative. Williamson has announced that he will soon "ordain a new priest for the Catholic Tradition".