Bishop Williamson Interview on Christmas Address

An interview with Bishop Williamson on

Pope Benedict XVI’s
Christmas Address to the Curia

Editor’s Note: On December 22 of last year, Pope Benedict XVI gave a Christmas greeting address to members of the Roman Curia at the Vatican. Given the possible importance of the address, CFN asked Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X for his thoughts and analysis. In light of these remarks, Bishop Williamson briefly comments on the present negotiations with Rome.

Bishop Williamson at the
Society of St. Pius X's
Pilgrimage of Reparation at Fatima,
August 22, 2005

CFN: Your Excellency, why should any special significance be attached to the December 22 address of Pope Benedict XVI?

Bishop Williamson: When a new Pope wishes to tell the world what he means to do with his pontificate, he usually presents his intentions in his first Encyclical Letter. Now Benedict XVI reportedly delayed the publication of his first Encyclical until the end of January, because he said he had important messages to be given during the Christmas holidays that he wanted the faithful to absorb. So the December 22 address in particular may be like a substitute first signpost of which way he intends to lead the Catholic Church.

CFN: So from the Curia address, which way does that seem to be?

BW: Altogether in line with the Second Vatican Council, relying in particular on the Council’s teaching on religious liberty. But that teaching was a major novelty of the Council, and a grave error, so the Pope’s Christmas address to the Curia suggests that the 40-year-old crisis of the Church is going to get yet worse rather than better.

CFN: In fairness to the Pope, could you sum up the rest of the address leading up to what he says about the Council and religious liberty.

BW: Briefly, he opens his remarks about Christmas and the teaching and example given by John Paul II. He comments positively on two of his predecessor’s 2005 initiatives: World Youth Day in Cologne and the Synod of Bishops on the Holy Eucharist. Finally he comes to the last event of 2005 on which he wishes to reflect, the 40th anniversary of the closing in 1965 of the Second Vatican Council.

CFN: Does he immediately then begin talking about religious liberty?

BW: No, he says firstly that the 40 years following the Council have seen much conflict, because two interpretations of the Council clashed. A bad interpretation wanted to follow “the spirit of the Council”, and not its letter, or texts. A good interpretation wanted the Church’s truth to remain unchanged, only re-thought and re-expressed. The latter interpretation has borne and is bearing good fruit, says the Pope.

CFN: Do you agree with him here?

BW: Alas, prior to John XXIII all popes agreed that to guard Catholic doctrine, it is dangerous to change even the words with which it is expressed, especially when those words have been hammered out over the ages. Freshen people’s understanding of old words, yes. Change those words, no! But from John XXIII onwards, each of the conciliar popes have wanted to change the words, which is why Catholic doctrine has been severely harmed. How many youths of World Youth Day held in Cologne last year know their catechism?

CFN: How did Benedict XVI come to the question of religious liberty?

BW: He went on to say that the problem before the Council was to reconcile the Church with modern man: how is one today to relate faith to science? Church to State, Catholicism to other religions? He said that the Council’s solution to all three essentially connected problems was its teaching on religious liberty, which was an example of true reform, because instead of changing Catholic principles, it merely applied the same principles afresh to modern circumstances.

CFN: Again, do you agree that Vatican II changed only application of Catholic principles, and not the principles themselves?

BW: No, it changed the very principles, which is why the Church is in such an upheaval. For instance Benedict XVI went on to say that as the medieval Church reconciled St. Augustine’s Catholic thinking with pagan Aristotelian thinking of that time, so Vatican II reconciled with modern (liberal) reason. To reconcile Augustine’s supernatural truth with Aristotle’s natural truth is one thing, but to reconcile Catholic truth with modern error is quite another. Because what Benedict XVI calls “modern reason” is the subjective philosophy of modern man, which cuts him off from all objective truth. How can such falsehood be made Catholic? Poor Benedict XVI has far too much respect for “modern man”!

CFN: Was there anything else in the December 22 address?

BW: The Pope finished with an appeal to go forward with the reconciliation and renewal of Vatican II, and addressed a few closing remarks about Christmas.

CFN: Then let us go back to the heart of the matter — What exactly is the Vatican II doctrine on religious liberty?

BW: In brief, any State must be neutral in matters of religion, it must not as State, favor any one religion over any other, but it must enable all citizens to practice, in public if they wish, the religion of their choice.

CFN: What is wrong with that?

BW: What is wrong with freeing States from any obligation to Christ the King is that implicitly you are denying that Jesus Christ is God. This is because the human creature who owes worship to his Creator is created to be by nature not only an individual, but also a social being (think of the “Wave” in a sports stadium!), so he owes to the true God not only individual but also social worship. If then a State refuses as State to have the religion of Jesus Christ, then it is implicitly saying that Jesus Christ is not the true God. If He were, the State would have to worship Him.

CFN: But do not most modern States operate on a basis of religious liberty?

BW: Yes they do, and that is why the modern world is godless. Religious liberty means, in effect, a declaration of independence from God, which is directly opposed to the First Commandment. Similarly, Archbishop Lefebvre was horrified, but horrified, at the pan-religious meeting of 1986 in Assisi, because of its flagrant violation of the First Commandment?

CFN: But it is argued: in a State with religious liberty, like the U.S.A., do not individuals remain free, as individuals, to obey the First Commandment?

BW: If man were only an individual being, that would be fine, but he is also — witness the “Wave”! — a social being. That is why, in a State of religious liberty, firstly he can give to God only an incomplete worship, and secondly, given the powerful influence of society over him as a social being, then the State’s social independence from God is gravely liable to undermine any citizen’s individual godliness, through just to take one example, godless State schools and universities.

CFN: But modern man will ask: how will you keep the peace in a State without religious liberty? Are you not always going to have religious wars?

BW: In States where Catholics are a minority, obviously they are not going to make war on non-Catholics. But even in States where Catholics are in the majority, the Church teaches Catholics not to use physical force to try to impose the Faith on non-Catholics, because it would be counter-productive to the salvation of souls — nobody believes against his will. However, where Catholics are in a sufficient majority, the State may physically prevent the public practice of false religions while tolerating their practice in private, insofar as, both such prevention and such toleration are conducive to the salvation of souls for eternity.

CFN: Did the Pope on December 22 give arguments to defend his principles of religious liberty?

BW: He gave at least three of the usual arguments, which are not difficult to refute. Firstly, “Render Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” But Caesar too must render unto God what is God’s, and that excludes the State’s declaration of independence from him, or, religious liberty. Secondly, he said, when the early Christian martyrs died for the faith they believed in, the Catholic martyrs were dying for freedom of conscience or religious liberty. But they did not die for the right to believe in any error, only in the truth, Jesus Christ and the one true Church He established. Thirdly, he said, by refusing to worship the Roman Emperor, the martyrs were refusing State religion. But they were only refusing a false State religion.

CFN: Nonetheless, if such arguments are all false, how can a Pope believe they are true?

BW: The world we live in, the modern world, is soaked in liberalism, meaning the right of man to be free, even from God, if he wishes. Unless we consciously resist, this liberalism soaks into the bones of all of us, which includes the highest churchmen. Benedict XVI puts altogether too much trust in the modern world.

CFN: Is that why many Catholics can have difficulty in getting a grip on religious liberty being a problem?

BW: Undoubtedly. It takes a modern mind a conscious effort to clear back to the First Commandment: God has an absolute right to all men’s worship and to that of all men’s States. Catholics know this doctrine as “The Social Kingship of Jesus Christ”, as taught by the consistent Magisterium of the Popes before Vatican II.

CFN: Does that mean that God takes away our free-will?

BW: Of course not. He gave it to each of us in the first place because He does not want robots in Heaven. But it does mean that if we misuse our free-will to have our State declare religious liberty from God’s Truth and God’s Church in this life, then we shall have hell to pay in the next life! But if we use our free-will to obey the First Commandment (and the other nine, etc.), then we shall go to Heaven, which is what God created us for.

CFN: Are you saying then that in this Christmas address, Pope Ratzinger was implicitly denying that Christ is God?

BW: Yes, and that is why the Catholic Church is in such a crisis.

CFN: Do you think that Pope Ratzinger explicitly denies that Jesus Christ is God?

BW: Absolutely not. Beyond doubt, he sincerely believes in God, in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Divine Institution of the Catholic Church.

CFN: Are you saying that he is so lacking in intelligence that what he explicitly believes, he implicitly denies, without realizing it?

BW: Pope Benedict XVI is a highly intelligent man, but his mind is dysfunctional through its adherence to what he calls “modern reason”, that modern thinking, in which he was soaked from the moment he entered the seminary after World War II (See his autobiography Milestones, in which he explicitly states that he had little love for the sound philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which is the official philosophy of the Catholic Church). Modern thinking, based on the faulty systems of modern philosophers, makes it possible for a mind to hold at the same time two propositions which contradict one another, just like the “doublethink” in George Orwell’s 1984. So when I am talking to Catholics, I can think, and say, that Christ is God, but when I am talking to the world, I can think, and allow it to believe that Christ is not God (to whose teachings and whose Church the entire world is in fact obliged to submit).

CFN: But on December 22, Benedict XVI was talking to the highest officials of the Catholic Church!

BW: Now you see why the Church is in such a crisis!

CFN: But can a doublethink-Catholic have the Catholic Faith?

BW: God knows! Normally, no, but when everything normal is abnormal, and vice versa, like today, then — only God knows.

CFN: Then how is the Church going to get on its feet again?

BW: With God, all things are possible. “Is my hand shortened, that I cannot redeem?” asks the Lord God, “or have I no power to deliver?” (Is. 50:2) However, the rescue of the Church does look, humanly speaking, almost impossible, be-cause once a mind falls into the trap of Kantian philosophy, it is extremely difficult to get out again.

CFN: Why?

BW: Firstly, because that philosophy suits human pride (man takes the place of the Creator), and secondly, because it makes life very easy for the Cardinals, bishops and priests, for instance.

CFN: How?

BW: Because they no longer need to work! Archbishop Lefebvre used to say, it’s like all the doctors suddenly deciding there is no longer any such thing as illness. That makes life easy for them. These Churchmen are saying, the modern world is fine, so there’s no problem if it rejects the Social Kingship of Christ, so we need no longer strive to get the world out of mortal sin, or back onto the road to Heaven. “God” will not mind.

CFN: Do you think that is why Pope John Paul II was so popular?

BW: No doubt! Imagine a locomotive unhooking from its wagons. It no longer has to pull. They no longer have to be pulled. Everyone is happy, except that nobody is going anywhere. And if Catholic Churchmen no longer pull souls to Heaven, then in the next life, all souls fall into hell, and the Churchmen responsible find out what that means when they come in front of the Judgment-seat of the true God.

What Archbishop Lefebvre
said in 1988 is always true:
Any agreement with post-Conciliar
Rome must have a price-tag!

CFN: What would Archbishop Lefebvre have said about this December 22 speech of Benedict XVI?

BW: When in 1986, the same Joseph Ratzinger, then Cardinal, issued a theological defense of the same principles of religious liberty, the Archbishop said that it was worse than the pan-religious meeting of Assisi, also in 1986. Whereas the latter was a one-off event which did not have to be repeated (even if it has been, many times!), the former was a statement of principle which by itself could justify any amount of false actions. So the Archbishop would no doubt have been horrified by the same man defending the same falsehood, but now as Pope.
The only question is whether the Archbishop would have gone on hammering the doctrinal questions, as he certainly did up to his death in 1991. The answer is surely that he would have done, because nothing is more deadly for the Church and for the salvation of souls than heresy at the top! When the sheep go on and on being slaughtered, what true shepherd would not go on and on crying out against the dangers of the wolves?

CFN: There are rumors flying around right now that his Society, the SSPX, is about to make a deal with Rome. What can you say about such rumors?

BW: Rumors are rumors. Until we know something with certainty, it is difficult to judge. However, we do have the experience of the last time that there arose the possibility of an agreement between Conciliar Rome and the SSPX, which was in 2000, 2001. At that time I did not see how Conciliar Rome could be aiming at anything other than the destruction and absorption of the SSPX’s defense of the true Faith. There was no agreement then, and the SSPX remained united. I wish I could think that Conciliar Rome was aiming at something different this time round.

CFN: But supposing that this time the agreement was not on doctrine or basic questions of the Faith, but merely on canonical regularization of the SSPX?

BW: In the gigantic war of religions, like that between Catholicism and Conciliarism, there is no such thing as “merely”. Once Conciliar Rome was “nice” to the SSPX, could there not be at least the temptation, if not the tacit expectation and understanding, to stop being “nasty” to their destructive Conciliarism? We shall wait and see, but surely what Archbishop Lefebvre said in 1988 is always true: any agreement must have a price-tag! The great temptation is to think, or wish to think, that we are not in the middle of all-out war.

CFN: Your Excellency, one last word?

BW: Watch and pray, watch and pray, Fifteen Mysteries every day!

• Cardinal Stickler Confirms: Tridentine Mass Never Forbidden

Reprinted from the February 2006 edition of
Catholic Family News
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