Courtesy of Respice Stellam https://respicestellam.org/page/2/




Life is Changed, Not Taken Away

Eulogy for Monsignor Richard Nelson Williamson
Delivered by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

Msgr. Richard Nelson Williamson
A 8 March MCMXL – Ω 29 January MMXXV
Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine,
vita mutatur, non tollitur;
et, dissolute terrestris hujus incolatus domo,
æterna in cælis habitatio comparatur.
For to your faithful, O Lord,
life is changed, not taken away;
and when the earthly dwelling place has ceased,
the eternal heavenly home is prepared.
Præf. Defunct.

A dear Friend, a venerated brother in the Episcopate, a comrade in battle has concluded his earthly pilgrimage and has passed into eternity. And in these hours of mourning, relieved only by the eyes of Faith, we cannot but mourn his passing, remember his strenuous fight, his fidelity, his work in the service of Holy Mother Church and resort to prayer in suffrage for his soul.
My fraternal friendship with Msgr. Williamson is relatively recent. It began when I found myself clashing with the Roman Authorities, after having matured the awareness of the conciliar revolution and its devastating effects, an awareness which His Excellency had reached well before me. From our meetings I retain the memory of his ability to reconcile unconditional adherence to the Catholic Truth with a breath of true Charity and a tireless strength in preaching the Word opportune importune . I remember his humble and affable manner. As a true British gentleman, he had a keen sense of humor . His vast culture did not prevent him from behaving in a simple and modest manner, even in the poverty of his clothing. I remember well the worn cassock he habitually wore and his reluctance to artificial pleasantries.
Converted from Anglicanism and educated in the traditional Faith at the school of a great Archbishop, Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, he was able to remain faithful to him even in the face of the concessions of his brothers, when human convenience and diplomatic calculations prevailed over the legacy of the French Archbishop. Monsignor Williamson was disobedient to an apostate Rome; disobedient to a weakened conservatism that had forgotten the true reasons for its existence; disobedient to a world incapable of hearing the truth spoken to its face. This apparent disobedience of his – which binds him inextricably to the figure of Monsignor Lefebvre, the “rebel bishop” who dared to challenge the modernism of Paul VI and John Paul II – was the reason why in 2012 he was abandoned and expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X to which he belonged, due to his unavailability to reach an agreement with conciliar Rome and the pseudo-conservatism of Benedict XVI.
From then on, Msgr. Williamson committed himself to building a “Catholic resistance” that could effectively counteract, on the one hand, the apostasy of the Roman authorities, and on the other, the compromises and concessions of the Society of Saint Pius X, whose Superiors were increasingly occupied with the search for canonical normalization. Msgr. Williamson was a free man, especially in not conforming to political correctness , and he was never concerned with the image that the press gave of him. In his lucid geopolitical vision, he anticipated many ideas that are now supported by facts, starting with the role of Zionism in the attack on Christian society. He lived through trials and humiliations without fuss, maintaining serenity of mind and in everything seeking only the glory of God and his own assimilation to Christ the Priest.
When, in 2020, I raised my voice to denounce the psycho-pandemic fraud, we had the opportunity to share the same vision of the world and its geopolitical travails, identifying globalism as the point of convergence of the ideologies of modern times, and the relationship between the deep state and the deep church as the real threat to humanity and to the Church.
He was a fervent devotee of the Blessed Virgin and especially of Our Lady of Fatima. His conviction of the victory of the Immaculate Heart, according to the promises of Our Lady, was the beacon of his interior life and his action, and the faithful recitation of the Holy Rosary was his invincible weapon.
The cerebral hemorrhage that struck him in the last weeks did not prevent him, by the grace of God, from receiving the comfort of the Sacraments and being accompanied by those who were close to him at the moment in which he slept in the Lord . Thus, in a quiet sleep of the body, the Lord wanted him to conclude a life as a fighter in the trenches of the Holy Church, missed by his friends and still respected by his adversaries.
The Catholic doctrine on Suffrages, wonderfully expressed in the traditional Liturgy that Msgr. Williamson has always jealously guarded and transmitted, draws from the Second Book of Maccabees of the Old Testament. For this reason Judas Maccabeus had the expiatory sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be absolved from sin (2 Mac 12, 45).
It is this expiatory Sacrifice that we celebrate with the solemn funeral of our venerated brother Bishop. A Sacrifice prefigured by the signs of the Ancient Law and accomplished in Christ in the New and Eternal Covenant. A Sacrifice that Msgr. Williamson celebrated daily, in the form preserved through the centuries by the Holy Church, because he rightly saw in it the fulfillment of ancient promises, and the promise of infinite Graces for the future.
It is the Holy Mass, ultimately, that which unites all Catholics and in particular us Ministers of God, in an uninterrupted procession that passes through every region of the earth and every time until the end of the world. It is the Apostolic Mass, the Mass of Saint Gregory the Great, of Saint Pius V, of Saint Pius X, of Padre Pio, of Monsignor Lefebvre. The Mass that is ours to the extent that it is a prayerful synthesis of our Faith, of the Faith of the Church. The Mass that is ours and of the faithful, and of which nonetheless conciliar and synodal Rome would like to deprive us, because it knows well that that venerable Rite refutes and condemns all its errors, all its fearful silences, all its vile complicities.
You are a priest in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech , says divine Wisdom. As long as there are priests and Bishops who follow the example of true Pastors like Monsignor Lefebvre and Monsignor Williamson, the perennial Sacrifice will not fail, and it will be thanks to it if we will be able to victoriously pass through these dramatic moments of tribulation that prelude the end times.
This assimilation of the Sacrifice cannot be limited to being merely ritual. Every priestly soul – I say this to you, dear brother clerics – must also become a mystical victim, on the model of the pure, holy and immaculate Victim, to complete in his own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the good of his body which is the Church (Col 1:24). This is what Msgr. Williamson did, who accepted to suffer persecution and exile for the love of Christ and so as not to deny the solemn commitments assumed in the fullness of the Priesthood.
In Heaven, gathered in adoration of the Lamb and the Holy Trinity in the eternal celestial Liturgy, all the Saints of all times are united by their love for the perfect Sacrifice. Let us pray that Msgr. Williamson may be welcomed into the celestial ranks, and that from there he may watch us repeat the sacred gestures and holy words that were on his lips until a few days before he left us.
Bishop Williamson’s episcopal motto was Fidelis inveniatur , taken from the First Epistle to the Corinthians: Let a man regard us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful (I Cor 4:1-2). For the steward is not the owner of the good, but he who must deliver it as he has received it to those who come after him. And this was precisely what our brother Bishop did, mindful of the words of the Apostle: For I am ready to be poured out as a libation, and the time has come for me to set sail. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who love his appearing (Tim 4:6-8).
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
January 31, 2025