About Richard Williamson
Richard Nelson Williamson (8 March 1940 – 29 January 2025) was an English traditionalist Catholic bishop, conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier who was twice excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He was for many years a member of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Williamson was born in London. He opposed the changes in the Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, he was one of four SSPX priests consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for which Pope John Paul II declared all parties had incurred ipso facto automatic excommunication. The validity of the excommunication has always been denied by the SSPX, who, citing canon law, argue that the consecrations were permissible due to a crisis in the Catholic Church. The excommunications, including that of Williamson, were lifted on 21 January 2009, but a suspension from ministry remained in force. Immediately afterward, Swedish television broadcast an interview recorded earlier at the SSPX seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria. Therein, Williamson expressed his belief that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust and that Nazi Germany did not use gas chambers. Based upon these statements, he was charged with and convicted of Holocaust denial by the district court of Regensburg, Germany. The Holy See declared that Pope Benedict XVI had been unaware of Williamson's views when he lifted his excommunication, and that Williamson would remain suspended until he unequivocally and publicly distanced himself from his stated position. In 2010, Williamson was convicted of incitement in a German court in relation to those views; the conviction was later vacated on appeal. He was convicted again in a retrial in early 2013. Williamson appealed again, but his appeal was rejected. After a number of incidents—including calling for the resignation of Bernard Fellay as superior general of the SSPX, refusal to stop publishing his weekly email newsletter, and an unauthorised visit to Brazil—Williamson was expelled from the SSPX in 2012. Afterwards, Williamson consecrated Jean-Michel Faure, Tomás de Aquino Ferreira da Costa, and Gerardo Zendejas as bishops in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Upon the first of the three consecrations, he was again automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church. On 24 February 2009, Williamson flew from Argentina to London, where he was met by Michele Renouf, a former model known for her antisemitic views, with whom he had been put in touch by Holocaust denier David Irving. He became a member of the Society of Saint Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic faction founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in protest against what Lefebvre saw as the liberalism of the Second Vatican Council. In 2003, Williamson was appointed rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina and according to The Guardian became a cult figure amongst the far-right seminarians.
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