Points to note:
1. On June 27, 2013, via a signed docuмent entitled "Declaration of Bishops of Society of St. Pius X," +Fellay, +Tissier, and +de Galaretta nominate themselves "Bishops of the SSPX."
2. On June 29, 2013 Bishop Richard Williamson included himself in the self-nominated "SSPX Resistance." He was the leading signatory on a docuмent called "SSPX Resistance Declaration." Wherefore, by his own self-nomination, on June 29, 2013, he is a member of the "SSPX Resistance."
3. On June 28, 2013 he published this statement: “Again I am being urged by a valiant participant in today’s Catholic “Resistance” to put myself at the head of it." Thus he admits that people perceive that he has explicitly refused to lead the Resistance. He does not deny a) that he has been asked to lead it; and b) that he has refused the request.
4. If we read June 28th in the light of June 29th, then may we conclude that he is currently a member of the "Resistance" but not its head? I would answer in the negative.
5. +Williamson has yet to admit that, though he says he refuses to, he nevertheless actually leads the "SSPX Resistance," in virtue of the universal recognition of his apostolic authority. As I said in another thread, +Williamson is actually and assiduously leading the "Resistance," whilst simultaneously insisting he is not. That is self-contradiction, which harms souls by throwing them into confusion. Indeed, to make sure it is perfectly clear that he refuses to admit that he leads the Resistance by virtue of his episcopal consecration, he states that he has answered a valiant man's arguments, which answers are "proposed to anybody but imposed on nobody." Now that statement, coming from an Apostle, should be disgusting to any red-blooded Catholic for a multitude of reasons.
6. We should give long and hard consideration to this also: Bishop Williamson chooses for his own self-justification (and even self-identification), the slogan Authority Crippled.
Whose authority is crippled? God's? +ABL's? +Fellay's? His own?
He states that "God gave the dying breath of true Church authority to Archbishop Lefebvre, whose successors have cruelly abused it."
That statement needs unpacking. The subject is God. The verb is "gave." The direct object is "true Church authority." The indirect object is "+ABL."
a. All authority comes from God.
b. No agent can produce an effect unless the effect is in the agent; a.k.a. nothing can give what it does not have.
c. God gave +ABL "true Church authority." How? Did God give authority to +ABL through his episcopal consecration or because he set up the SSPX? That is easily answered. He gave it to +ABL through his episcopal consecration.
d. The adjectival phrase "dying breath of," modifies the noun "authority," which is itself modified by the adjective "true." Thus +W would have us admit of the differences between "true" and "false" authority, and "living" and "dying" authority; though he gives us no teaching on the distinctions, only sets them up as existing.
Nor does he explain how, why, or which "true authority" is being modified by the adjectival phrase "dying breath of." Is it the true authority of Popes and Bishops, of +ABL, of the "SSPX Bishops," of the "SSPX Resistance Bishop," some or all of the above?
If you are confused by this EC, then perhaps it is because you retain some vestige of common sense. He never explains his meanings with precision; and that is a failure to write like a Catholic, let alone like a priest or a Bishop.
7. Here is another question: Did +ABL lose his "true Church authority" when he consecrated four bishops and because he consecrated four bishops? If we "read into" what is said in this EC, the answer is no, but it is a submerged and obscured "no."
+W poses the question, "Why should he give it again?" Here it is in context: "God gave the dying breath of true Church authority to Archbishop Lefebvre, whose successors have cruelly abused it. Why should he give it again? The crisis of the Church has far advanced between the 1970’s and the 2010’s."
More unpacking is necessary. +W mentions +ABL's successors in a way that justifies the following inference: What +ABL had - true Church authority - he gave to his successors: An agent produces effects that it contains within itself; a.k.a. it has the power to give what it has.
Nothing in +W's verbiage expresses any doubt that +ABL gave "true Church authority" to his successors. He indirectly affirms that +ABL's successors have "true Church authority," which they received from +ABL, by accusing them of having "cruelly abused" it.
+W entirely skips over the arguments for supplied jurisdiction to justify 25 years of SSPX expansion activities, including his own. Not calling supplied jurisdiction into question, we have to assume that his entire position rests on the implications of his idea of "cruel abuse of true authority."
8. So the question is now presented: Does cruel abuse of ecclesiastical authority metaphysically annihilate it? If the answer is "yes," then the sedevacantist position is correct. There is now no pope and only a few bishops left in the world. Of course, +W is staunchly not SV. In virtue of this, he has to affirm that the "true Church authority" of a BXVI and an FI continues in being.
If he affirms this, and also affirms that +ABL passed on to his successors "true Church authority," then he cannot simultaneously affirm that their "cruel abuse" of this authority metaphysically annihilates it. By his own reckoning, everyone gets to retain their "true Church authority," the bishops and Pope through actual jurisdiction, and he and his three fellow bishops through supplied jurisdiction. By his own reckoning, even "rats" can have "true church authority."
9. This leads into the next question: Does God take away what He has once given? No. Holy Orders are forever, and, as we have seen, authority remains even in those who abuse it. Therefore how can Bishop Williamson, with a straight face, ask the rhetorical question: Why should God give "true Church authority" again?
Does God "give again" what He never took away?
This EC is absurd!