I studied under Bishop Williamson for several years at St. Thomas Aquinas seminary. He is a terrific thinker and a brilliant man. I enjoyed many hours of individual conversation with His Excellency in addition to many hours in the classroom and listening to his spiritual conferences.
His Excellency had a MAJOR emphasis on returning intellectually to the objectivity of truth and traced all the modern theological problems to increasing subjectivity.
He was SPOT ON, and I lapped up every word of his. He gave many sermons about how what counts today is "nitheness" (niceness said with a heavy lisp) and not truth.
In fact, it's His Excellency's thinking that led me to reject the notion of Baptism of Desire without actual objective material Catholic faith ... though I don't want to digress here about that.
Consequently, I find his defense of the Vatican II popes on the grounds of "sincerity" and "nitheness" to be absolutely inexplicable. We can never judge the internal forum. Even Church theologians say that De internis Ecclesia non judicat, that the Church makes no judgments regarding the internal forum.
All we can go by is what we can see and perceive and objectively know, and by all those indicators Francis DOES NOT HAVE THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
That's why the Dimonds' latest take on sedevacantism is very interesting ... since it puts aside all these questions of "sincerity" and relies upon the Church's teaching that those who do not PROFESS the Catholic faith are not in fact Catholic. That's why St. Robert Bellarmine emphasizes the idea of MANIFEST heresy vs. formal / material heresy.
Bishop Williamson clearly has some emotional attachments to the legacy of Archbishop Lefebvre and had many bad experiences since having been the Archbishop's point man in dealing with THE NINE in the U.S. when that all came down.
But if His Excellency wanted to remain consistent with his CORE principles, he would reject these "sincerity" and "nitheness" arguments in defense of the V2 papal claimants. He's in self-contradiction on the subject. He points (so very rightly) to SUBJECTIVITY as the root cause of all the Vatican II errors, and yet His Excellency applies the very same considerations from subjectivity that LED TO ALL THE VATICAN II ERRORS ?????? How? It's the very theology of Church membership coming from "sincerity" that led to the V2 ecclesiology and soteriology. So then why does His Excellency use "Catholicism by sincerity" to include Francis in the Church?
If "nitheness" makes one Catholic, the "subsistit" ecclesiology of Vatican II is correct, Your Excellency.
If "nitheness" and "sincerity" are salvific, Your Excellency, then Religious Liberty is correct.
If "nitheness" makes one Catholic, Your Excellency, then we have many separated brethren among the Protestants and infidels, who are truly Catholic due to their sincerity.
Suddenly you have the Vatican II ecclesiology, with a subsistent formal/material core consisting of those who ACTUALLY have the Catholic faith along with all these invisible satellite members who are part of the Church by way of sincerity and nitheness.
Come on, Your Excellency; with all due respect, you're much more intelligent than that.