Bishop Richard Williamson dies, ordered by Lefebbre and denialist of the Jewish Holocaust

Bishop Richard Williamson died on the night of January 29 at age 84, according to the San Pío X priestly fraternity (FSSPX – Lefebvristas). The prelate was one of the four bishops ordered illegally by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988 and was known for being a denialist of the Jewish holocaust.

He statement of the FSSPX He informs that Williamson was urgently transferred to a hospital because of a cerebral hemorrhage “the afternoon of January 24, after having received the extremeacción.”

Born on March 8, 1940 in London, England, Williamson was ordained a priest by Lefebvre in 1976. He worked at the Lefebvronist seminars of Weissbad, Écône, Ridgefield, United States and Argentina.

Without authorization of the Pope, Lefebvre was ordered by Bishop in 1988 and worked as the second general assistant of the FSSPX between 1988 and 1994. “Unfortunately, his path and that of society separated many years ago. Let’s entrust your fervent sentences the eternal rest of your soul, ”concludes the statement.

In 2009 Williamson caused controversy in an interview for his comments about the Holocaust. “I think there were no gas cameras … I think between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews perished in the Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in the gas cameras … Everything was a lie, lie, lie!” , as reported by the English newspaper The Telegraph..

Williamson criticized the FSSPX for his approach to the authorities of the Catholic Church, after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the four bishops ordered by Lefebvre in 2009.

Little more than three years later, in October 2012, the FSSPX expelled Williamson after the distancing of the bishop “of the management and government of the FSSPX for several years, and refusing to express respect and obedience due to their superiors legitimate. “

In March 2015 Williamson ordered Bishop Jean-Michel Faure, expelled from the FSSPX in 2014 in the state of Janeiro (Brazil).

Having the Pope’s authorization for ordination, both incurred excommunication automatic (automatic). The then bishop of Nova Friburg, Mons. Edney Gouvea Mattoso, said it was an “illegal and schismatic act.”

Williamson’s name returned in recent months to the Palestra after the case of the schismatic exmonjas of the Monastery of Belorado (Spain), who were linked to the Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro Da Silva sedevacantist, ordered priest in 2017 by the English bishop.

With the death of Williamson and Tissier de Mallerais in October 2024, only two of the four bishops ordered by Lefebvre survive: the Swiss Bernard Fellay and the Spanish Alfonso de Galarreta.