Fr. Hewko's Sermons: Requiem Mass for Bp. Richard Williamson - January 30, 2025

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✠ ✠ ✠  Requiem Mass for Bp. Richard Williamson ✠ ✠ ✠
January 30, 2025 (NH)

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Transcription of Fr. Hewko's Sermon for the Requiem Mass of +Bishop Richard Williamson

The Catholic Trumpet [slightly adapted and reformatted] | January 30, 2025


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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

This is the Requiem Mass for +Bishop Richard Williamson. He had suffered a hemorrhage in his brain and for several days he has been languishing on life support. And he finally passed away yesterday, which was also January the 29th, 2025, [the] Feast of Saint Francis de Sales.

So what a beautiful day to die on such a great Saint's feast day. Saint Francis de Sales, who was the model of bishops, who was a model of the defense of the faith against Calvinism and the Protestant heresy of the 1600s, that was ravaging in Geneva, Switzerland. Saint Francis de Sales converted thousands of Calvinists and had a tremendous influence, and he still does. His writings still influence most spiritual writers and even great foundations of religious orders were based on the good spirituality, the healthy spirituality of Saint Francis de Sales, such as Saint John Bosco, even naming his congregation, Salesians, after Saint Francis de Sales.

So what a day to die on for a bishop. +Bishop Williamson, he was one of the four bishops chosen by +Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to be consecrated [a] bishop. He wrote to them a letter and gave them, I think, a day of recollection or a miniature retreat before the consecration, reminding them that Rome is occupied by antichrists, in the plural. Not the Antichrist yet, but antichrists, that is, clergy prelates who are deliberately working against the social reign of Jesus Christ in his most Sacred Heart. He reminded them that Rome is in darkness and that he is consecrating these four bishops. He cannot give them jurisdiction, only the Pope can give that, but he would give them Holy Orders, the sacred orders of consecration of a bishop to continue Confirmations throughout the world, of which many are doubtful, especially out of the Novus Ordo, because they changed the words and even the oils.

And then he told them they will continue ordaining priests for the five seminaries at the time, five seminaries throughout the world. So there was [a great need for] bishops, because +Archbishop Lefebvre, up until his 80s, was traveling literally all over the world. He was in Australia, Canada, USA, often all throughout Europe, and needed auxiliaries. So he considered it a very happy day on June 30th, 1988, when he consecrated the four bishops. And I had the privilege to be there on that day and see them processing in as priests and processing out as bishops. And +Bishop Williamson, when he was consecrated, his first words in the hallway, where they had a banquet dinner and the bishops would speak, just a little speech, +Bishop Williamson got into the lectern and his first words were, very appropriate, “C'est la guerre!”, in French, which means, It's war, it is war.

And, of course, there was such a good spirit with +Archbishop Lefebvre's consecration of the four bishops. The whole world, those faithful to tradition, rejoiced on this day because Catholic tradition will continue, it was assured, because many groups by then already compromised with modernist Rome, and were being swallowed up by modernist Rome. And back then, in 88, it was really, you're either Novus Ordo or Tridentine Mass with +Archbishop Lefebvre. You either, as a priest, walked around in lay clothes or wore a cassock, which significantly only the Lefebvre's wore the cassock. So that even when we, as seminarians, walked throughout Europe, visiting shrines in Rome in that same year, I was there with three other seminarians, everybody knew, oh, you're with +Archbishop Lefebvre, you're in the cassock, you're with +Archbishop Lefebvre, and some would say “Bravo, bravo!”, and try to kiss the cassock.

Others would, because it was headline news, “Schismatic!”, +Archbishop Lefebvre's schismatic act of consecrating four bishops went through Europe like a shockwave, and many people scorned the cassock, and scorned +Archbishop Lefebvre. We were even in one shop, and someone broke out shouting, some Frenchman, “Lefebvre was the Antichrist, Lefebvre was the Antichrist!” So it was a very grave and serious move +Archbishop Lefebvre did for the sake of the Church. In fact, we all remember that on the very day of the consecration of the bishops, Cardinal Casaroli, a leading modernist in Rome, he was meeting with the communists in Moscow in a very friendly way with the enemies of Jesus Christ. So here's Rome wrapped in darkness, given to ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, the New Mass, all the errors of Vatican II, smashing tradition, and then Pope John Paul II, a day or two later, came out calling +Archbishop Lefebvre's act worthy of excommunication. So it was a punishment on tradition, and the punishment on tradition and the persecution still goes on. It's still going on, and violently as well, violently. From Rome, modernist Rome, and even now from friends, that is, those who were supposed to be traditional.

So +Bishop Williamson, I had him in the seminary. I consider it a blessing to have had him all my seminary training, from day one to ordination, and he was the one that ordained me. And he ordained many, many priests, and he prepared many seminarians in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where he was assigned as rector in 1983. And it's under him that the seminary would move in 1988 to Winona, Minnesota. We needed a bigger building, and they found a Dominican novitiate house on the top of the hill, Stockton Hill, in Winona, Minnesota. So all the seminarians had to pack up the whole library and load up trucks for all the altars and kneelers and statues and books to be shipped to Winona, Minnesota by big 18-wheeler trucks. So when the seminarians who did not go to the consecration of bishops, when they returned in the fall to resume studies in 1988, they knew Father Williamson as Father Williamson. Now he was +Bishop Williamson. So it was a great joy in the seminary to have this. Of course, all the ceremonies change. I was a sacristan, so when you have a bishop, everything changes for a Low Mass and for a High Mass and for a Solemn High [Mass], a Pontifical High [Mass], [and] Pontifical Vespers. So we had to prepare quite a bit every time the bishop said Mass. And it was always a joy, and it was a great joy.

And let's say the truth, +Bishop Williamson, he was a blessing for the United States and Canada and really for the whole church in his golden era.

In the United States, he put out every month a seminary, Letters to Friends and Benefactors. These are now compiled in a book, and you can read them, and they're very good. Very good, especially when he defends the Catholic doctrine, defends the Catholic tradition against Vatican II's attacks on Catholic tradition. He wrote many letters against religious liberty, because that's one of the key heresies condemned many times by the popes, and +Bishop Williamson used to write often about this. So I would encourage all of our hearers, all of the seminarians here, to at some point read these great letters, and some of them are just powerful. And some, of course, stirred up a lot of reaction, especially his three or four letters on women wearing pants. And he sure got a lot of mud thrown at him for those letters from the feminist liberal women who were arguing, “Why is a bishop telling us how to dress? He has no right to tell us how to dress. That's not his business.” Well, sorry, it is the church's business to remind women to dress modestly and also to dress as women and not as men.

And +Bishop Williamson, to back this up, he put out shortly after those letters, a letter in 1964 by Cardinal Siri in Italy, writing a letter to his diocese about women wearing pants. And he tells them, “Don't fall for these masculine fashions, which try to destroy the woman.”, which is one of the great goals of Freemasonry. If you destroy the woman and masculinize her and sensualize her, you destroy motherhood, you destroy the family, you destroy the heart of the home. And +Bishop Williamson understood this. Some thought he was crazy for putting out letters like that, but he was right. He was absolutely right.

And of course, his whole question on the World War II events, well, he was right. It sure raised a lot of hurricanes, but history is going to prove him right on the question of the so-called what happened in Auschwitz. He got roasted for that, but history will prove who was right on these questions. So +Bishop Williamson, we had the privilege, all of my class and all of our seminarians in our day, we had the privilege to have him. He taught us philosophy, introduction to philosophy. I had him for scripture class. I have all his notes and some just some wonderful scripture classes. We covered the whole Apocalypse with him and he drew out all the wisdom of the Fathers and Theologians and just wonderful, wonderful works. And +Bishop Williamson often gave conferences in the seminary, the spiritual conferences reminded the seminarians that this is war.

This is a spiritual battle. He would often praise +Archbishop Lefebvre. He once spoke about the Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and his life in the concentration camps, even had the book, The Gulag Archipelago, read at table, which is a very thick book and full of Russian names. So I can recall Father Cooper as a seminarian reading this book and coming across all these Russian towns and Russian names, which nobody can pronounce. And Father Cooper just passing over it saying “That place” and “In that place”, he would just pass over, not even trying to mention or pronounce these Russian words. But +Bishop Williamson, he made the point that we have to be ready to undergo concentration camps. We have to be ready to go undergo the Gulag for the sake of Christ crucified, which many priests and bishops and good laity in Ukraine and Russia suffered, immensely suffered in those concentration camps, of which there were thousands throughout Russia under Stalin, thousands. And they were brutal and most priests and bishops died in those camps, many hundreds, even thousands, and good bishops.

+Bishop Williamson spoke of a variety of topics. I remember when +Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991 and +Bishop Williamson, for one of the classes he played Beethoven's Eroica, E-R-O-I-C-A, one of his great symphonies, Eroica, which was written by Beethoven for a great man. So, +Bishop Williamson played it in class in honor of +Archbishop Lefebvre, in honor of a great man, a man of the Church, because +Bishop Williamson had a unique dimension. He could actually sit down, I've seen him play a beautiful piece of Beethoven on the piano. So, he was trained in music, he had a great appreciation for music. He wanted the seminarians to have that as well. In the rec room, he would always have played some pieces of classical music, [like] Mozart [and] Beethoven. Beethoven seemed to have been his favorite. He liked Wagner.

He was also well-versed in literature. Very many times he would quote Shakespeare and other literature authors. He would quote Charles Dickens and numerous other works in English. So, he was well-grounded in, we could say, the humanities, and it was actually +Bishop Williamson who established in the seminary a first year for humanities, to get seminarians who were just raised on TV and Dorito chips in some grounding of the human nature, understood through literature, understood through the wisdom of the ancient classics. So, remember, St. Augustine, his whole formation was the Greek culture and the Greek gods and all their stories. So, +Bishop Williamson certainly had a point.

And then he often stressed humility for the priests, “Be humble of heart, and do [your] duties for the love of God.” He once said in a conference, “A priest must have a simple faith, good robust health, and a willingness to go the extra miles.”

And that's exactly what the Society of Saint Pius X Priests were about, going the extra miles, trying to have some decent health amidst all the mass circuits and rigors of the apostolate, especially with teaching, especially with retreat houses and traveling. +Bishop Williamson was known all over the world. He went all over, he literally went all over the world, along with the three other bishops, giving Confirmation, ordaining priests, strengthening the faith. And in the United States, in Canada, everyone loved him. +Bishop Williamson was greatly loved, greatly appreciated wherever he went. And he could have been, he could be controversial. He could bring up controversial subjects. And some people didn't like that, some priests didn't like that, but under +Archbishop Lefebvre, as long as +Archbishop Lefebvre was alive, he was just great, he was dynamite.

After +Archbishop Lefebvre died, +Archbishop Lefebvre died in peace knowing that the Society of Saint Pius X would continue, he had already established four bishops, the faith will continue until Rome comes back to tradition. +Archbishop Lefebvre also warned the bishops, “Don't think, don't even think about any agreement with modernist Rome, until Rome professes the kingship of Christ, until Rome comes back to Catholic tradition, reestablishes the Tridentine Mass as the Mass of the Latin Rite, until the Pope condemns Vatican II and the New Mass.”

And then, you can say there was a golden period for the Society of Saint Pius X, where it spread all over the world, with retreat houses opening up, schools everywhere. Even the Masonic lodges in France were known to say, we fear more than most institutions, we fear the schools of +Archbishop Lefebvre, because they knew that the Catechism was being taught, the Faith was being given in our schools, and they were good schools.

France had some great boys' schools, and the nuns of the Dominicans had great girls' schools, and still continue. And then, the priestly apostolate throughout the world, establishing missions everywhere, new missions opening up, and drawing an influx of vocations. So many vocations, also, in this period of time, coming in. And +Archbishop Lefebvre said “Every vocation out of the modern world today is a miracle, is a real miracle.” Out of the modern world, which is flooded in filth, immorality, heresy, darkness, and toxic air from hell, it's a miracle that there's even one vocation.

+Archbishop Lefebvre believed in the power of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the power of the grace of God through the sacrifice of the Mass, through the breviary, through the Holy Sacraments, and the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He had full confidence in Almighty God that the priesthood would continue, the seminaries would grow, and the convents would grow, and monasteries would grow.

And he was right, because he saw it happen in Africa, he saw it happen in his whole years as a young seminarian and priest, and a bishop. So by the time 2010 came along, then we got rumors that Bishop Fellay was interested to establish contact with Rome, and Rome was wanting to establish dialogue with the SSPX. So in 2000, this all began with Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos meeting with some of the bishops of +Archbishop Lefebvre. +Bishop Williamson said something very true at that time. He said, “Your Eminence, there are two different religions here, and they cannot reconcile tradition and the conciliar church.” But Bishop Fellay was all smiles, and he fell for the carrot.

And then throughout the '90s, he sent priests to the GREC (Groupe de Réflexion et d'Étude des Catholiques) movements, the GREC meetings in France, which [are] the movements to establish compromise with modernist Rome. That's basically what it was, a movement, and their big fish that they wanted to capture was the SSPX. “Get the SSPX to tone it down, stop preaching so violently against the New Mass, against the errors of Vatican II, against the scandals of the popes, and their assisi meetings of ecumenism, and their scandalous masses with Jews and Protestants and Anglicans”, and so forth and so forth. That was the goal: “Shut down the SSPX, tone them down, [and] make them silent.” And +Archbishop Lefebvre warned the bishops, “I did not put myself under Rome because this was the greatest danger to the faithful. To put ourselves under modernist bishops, we would be forced to silence, we would be forced to a position of compromise.” And that's why he said, “No compromise, no agreements until Rome comes back to professing publicly the Catholic faith of tradition.” It couldn't be more clear.

In 2006, there was also the General Chapter meeting where this was laid as a principle by the SSPX, bishops and priests, [along with] the Superior General, that there would be no agreement with Rome until Rome is clear on doctrine. So no canonical agreements until there's a doctrinal agreement, until Rome professes the faith. But Bishop Fellay started to shake and waver, and had high hopes of an agreement with Rome.

In 2010, 2011, there [were] meetings, and then there was the famous meeting in Albano where +Bishop Williamson was excluded, and they went ahead and praised the steps forward in establishing dialogue with the modernists in Rome. In 2012, that was a victory for Satan to bring about the Compromise of the SSPX. It was a very sad event, very sad, heart-wrenching turn of events. And it was +Bishop Williamson, with +Bishop Tissier and Bishop de Galarreta who wrote Bishop Fellay at the time in 2012, “Do not take this route, do not open this Pandora's box, do not seek an agreement with Rome. +Archbishop Lefebvre warned us, this will be a disaster, it'll be harmful to souls, harmful to the faith, it'll cause disunity.”

But Bishop Fellay responded and said, “You're tending towards sedevacantism, this is a schismatic attitude, we're going forward, Rome wants it, Pope Benedict XVI wants the agreement, so we're going for it.”

So when Pope Benedict XVI found out that three bishops were not in line with Bishop Fellay’s liberal compromise, then Pope Benedict XVI backtracked. And it didn't go the way Bishop Fellay wanted, but they did compromise with the Doctrinal Declaration of April 15, 2012, which was public, it was doctrinal, it was a surrender to error. And it still has to be condemned by Bishop Fellay and the leaders of SSPX, the new SSPX. From then on, it became the conciliar SSPX. Most of us priests had to leave because we would not go with compromise.

And +Bishop Williamson was also, shortly after that, expelled from the SSPX because he did the crime of continuing to write letters, encouraging people to keep the traditional faith. At that time, +Bishop Williamson was still very strong, shining. He wrote a great letter, imitating the letter of St. Paul to the Galatians, where St. Paul says, “O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should fall from the faith?” So Bishop Williamson wrote a great letter along the same lines. “O senseless traditional Catholics, who has bewitched you that you should fall for these false compromises with modernist Rome.”

And he was right. He was right. In those days, +Bishop Williamson was strong. And it wasn't easy. It was a real tragedy for all of us priests. And seeing this split, so to speak, in the SSPX of liberals going with modernist Rome and those wanting to stay with tradition. At the time, we hoped +Bishop Williamson would rise up to just simply and quietly continue the work of +Archbishop Lefebvre, continue the seminary. He told Father Joe Pfeiffer at the time, yes, get a seminary going and there should be a seamless passing. If the liberals want to go with Rome, fine, we just continue the work of +Archbishop Lefebvre. But in 2012, +Bishop Williamson got an offer to deal and whatever this deal was, he started to shift in his teaching. And that's when in 2014, he started teaching new ideas about the New Mass, that “It nourishes your faith. The New Mass can be a source of grace.” That the New Mass miracles, he started promoting heavily the New Mass miracles.

And yours truly really criticized him for this because it was clearly dangerous to the faith, dangerous to the faithful and against the teaching of +Archbishop Lefebvre, who was very adamant. “You don't go to the New Mass. The New Mass does not give grace. The New Mass is sterile. It erodes the faith.”, etc., etc. So that was the birth of what we know as the fake resistance, which is fighting the fires, the forest fires of modernist Rome and modernism with a squirt gun. That's what it is. It doesn't work. Compromise with error in the New Mass doesn't work.

But we have to say, +Bishop Williamson, you know, these are confusing times. These are difficult times for any of us to navigate. It's hard for the laity. It's hard for us priests. It's hard on the bishops. When the Pope's a mess, the Church is a mess. That's how Christ built it. So none of us know what goes on in the interior of the soul and the tribulations people suffer. We don't know. God knows. But we wish the Pope was stronger. We wish the bishops of tradition were stronger. But they all kind of became soft.

And then in 2009, they wrote to Pope Benedict XVI, all four bishops, Bishop Fellay, Bishop de Galarreta, +Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, and +Bishop Williamson all wrote the letter, “Please lift our excommunication!”, which +Archbishop Lefebvre would never have done. Never! He would say, “Yes, lift my excommunication, but first come back to Tradition. First come back to the Faith of tradition and proclaim the Kingship of Christ and condemn Vatican II and the New Mass.” So those four bishops writing that letter, that was a compromise. That was a compromise. Say what you want. Objectively speaking, it was. Yes, it's nice to have the excommunication lifted, but what was the excommunication, which was invalid and null and void, What was it for? It was for keeping the faith! And now you're asking the enemies, please lift our so-called excommunication. It was a compromise. And that's when they all really began to slide, all four of them.

And then +Bishop Williamson, at least again, as I say many times, to his credit, he did consecrate six bishops. They are Bishop [Michel] Faure, Bishop Gérard Zendejas, Bishop Giacomo Ballini, Bishop Paul Morgan, Bishop Thomas Aquinas, the prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Brazil. And then lastly, there's a bishop in Poland, I don't know his name, I can't even begin to pronounce it, but he was consecrated, I guess, for Poland. So six bishops. We don't hear them much. We wish they were louder and used the means to reach souls, but be that as it may, let's pray for these six bishops, that at least one or two of them or three will rise up like +Archbishop Lefebvre and publicly preach the faith, publicly condemn the New Mass, publicly condemn Vatican II, publicly profess the faith. We have to condemn the errors. People expect this from the bishops.

It is the bishop's duty to preach the faith and condemn error. Just read any of the great popes, they're always telling the bishops, “Do your duty, feed the sheep, and condemn error.” Pull the wolves, shoot the wolves, shoot them, and watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing. You gotta tear the skin off and show them to be a wolf that they are. “Tear the mask off”, says Leo XIII about Freemasonry.

So let's pray, maybe now one of these bishops, or two of them will really shine. Let's pray for them. But at least he did continue the Episcopacy. So we are assured valid sacraments, valid Mass, and in the line of tradition without any doubt. So that's a wonderful thing! Bishop Fellay has not consecrated bishops, and they've [now lost] two bishops of the four. So when are they going to consecrate bishops? And they're not going to do it without Francis' approval, and Pope Francis will surely have to pick the one candidate, or two or three, to be consecrated bishops. So that's the problem. You compromise with modernist Rome, you get stuck in their teeth and digested in their stomach. And that's what's happened.

So +Bishop Williamson, he gave in his last years some very good conferences. There are some good points he makes. He certainly tried to preach the Catholic faith and oppose the errors of the modern world. We can say, in general, he kept the faith. He kept the faith, although he compromised, I think, on the New Mass and did a lot of damage on that point, and New Mass miracles, and “New Mass nourishes your faith”, all that. And we openly oppose that, because he openly taught it and promoted it, and many times, not just once, but in many letters, Eleison Comments, conferences, etc., etc. So, he's gone to his judgment. He died last night, [the] Feast of St. Francis de Sales, +Bishop Williamson. He was, overall, a great man, and a great prelate. So let's pray for him, pray for his soul, and beg the Virgin Mary to have pity on him. If he's in purgatory, he needs our prayers, and a wonderful thing is, all throughout the world, prayers are going up for him, rosaries, Masses, many priests are really offering Masses. His six bishops will offer Masses, and probably Gregorian Masses, so many prayers for his soul.

So, +Archbishop Lefebvre, he, no doubt, will be at the judgment of his four bishops and probably at his priests, at the moment they die. So let's pray that the angels will open paradise to +Bishop Williamson, that he will enter in glory. If his time in Purgatory is to be, let us pray that it's a short one, and that he enters into heavenly glory. He certainly knows now that the New Mass is nothing to play with, that it does kill the Faith, that it is poisonous, that it does stifle all grace. He certainly knows now, and that these, many of these so-called New Mass miracles are just phonies. So let's pray for his soul, and let's pray, just pray for Mother Church, as the battle continues, the fight of tradition continues. It continues until Rome comes back to tradition.

O Mother, Blessed Virgin Mary, destroyer of all heresies, intercede for us, crush the heresies gripping modernist Rome, give us a good Pope, restore Catholic tradition, restore the Tridentine Mass, restore the good Catholic doctrine that is anti-liberal and anti-modernist and give us good bishops and priests and prelates and vocations, and a pope who will be Catholic the way the Church always professed the Faith, with the Anti-Modernist Oath, the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, and the great Pascendi of Pius X.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him, and may the souls, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.