The Evil of Comfortably Tolerating Heresy

The Apostolic Fathers Rebuke the Conduct of Bishop Williamson’s Followers

Bishop Williamson continually increases his “collection” of heresies he promotes, as shown regularly in Catholic Candle

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Read Bishop Williamson’s own words on many issues on which he teaches heresy (cited to his own sources) on our website.

and elsewhere. For example, Bishop Williamson promotes the heresies that:

Maybe Bishop Williamson’s followers disagree with his heresies. But they maintain a cowardly

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Catholics must judge words and deeds objectively. But we must never judge a person’s interior, subjective culpability for sins, because that would be the sin of rash judgment. Read the explanation found here: Against sedevacantism

A person might have the superficial opinion that it is a sin of rash judgment for us to call “cowardly” the silence of Bishop Williamson’s followers. However, that opinion would be wrong.

The word, “cowardly” means:

being, resembling, or befitting a coward, e.g., a cowardly retreat.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cowardly (emphasis added).

Thus, “cowardly” is a fair description of the silence of Bishop Williamson’s followers, when he teaches heresy and scandal, because their silence resembles and befits a coward (since they fail in their objective duty to stand up for the true Catholic Faith). But we don’t judge their internal, subjective culpability for these objective mortal sins of silent betrayal of the Catholic Faith.

silence and cordial relations with him. This is un-Catholic!

The Rule of St. Paul

Faithful Catholics must avoid teachers of heresy. Here is what St. Paul commands us to do:

Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such, serve not Christ our Lord, but their own belly; and by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent.

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Romans, 16:17-18 (emphasis added).

Faithful Catholics boldly and openly oppose teachers of heresy. Here is how St. Irenaeus summarizes the Catholic attitude:

Such caution did the apostles and their disciples exercise that they might not even converse with any of those who perverted the truth; as [St.] Paul also said, “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3:10-11).

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St. Irenaeus teaches this in his book Against Heresies, Book III, quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Penguin Classics, p.116-117.

 

The Example of St. John the Evangelist

Here is how St. John treated teachers of heresy:

[St.] John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and seeing [the heretic] Cerinthus within, ran out of the bathhouse without bathing, crying, “Let us flee, lest even the bathhouse fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”

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St. Irenaeus gives this account in his book Against Heresies, Book III, quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Penguin Classics, p.116-117.

 

Bishop Williamson’s followers do the opposite! They lavishly praise him and comfortably tolerate his heresies.

Bishop Williamson’s followers banquet with him. They laugh when he scoffs at St. John Chrysostom’s warnings about hell.

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Read Bishop Williamson’s own words, cited to his own sources, here: Bishop Williamson Scoffs at St. John Chrysostom’s Frightening Warning about Going to Hell

See, e.g., this frame from a video of Bishop Zendejas’s consecration banquet, showing Bishops Faure and Zendejas smiling while Bishop Williamson mocks St. John Chrysostom. Id.

Where are the soldiers of Christ among Bishop Williamson’s followers? Did even one of them imitate St. John the Evangelist, crying out when he saw Bishop Williamson in the banquet hall:

Let us flee this banquet hall (the “bath house”) lest it fall, because Williamson the enemy of the truth, is within!

The Example of St. Polycarp

Here is how St. Polycarp treated teachers of heresy:

[St.] Polycarp himself, when [the heretic] Marcion once met him and said, “Knowest thou us?”, replied, “I know the first born of Satan.”

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St. Irenaeus gives this account in his book Against Heresies, Book III, quoted in Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Penguin Classics, p.116-117.

 

How many of Bishop Williamson’s followers rebuked him as St. Polycarp rebuked other teachers of heresy? Did even one follower call this heresy-spewing bishop a “first born of Satan”?

The Fake Resistance’s Pattern of Lacking Zeal for the Faith

The Fake Resistance lacks zeal for the true Faith. Bishop Williamson tells his followers not be “too concerned” to convert souls to the Catholic Faith.

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Read Bishop Williamson’s own words, cited to his own sources, here: Faithful Catholics Have a Missionary Spirit; Bishop Williamson Tries to Destroy this Spirit.

His followers respond by not being “too concerned” to bring their own leader to the truth.

Conclusion

Let us pray for Bishop Williamson’s weak followers, that they begin to faithfully and boldly stand up for the Truth, without human respect for Bishop Williamson!

Human respect will not help Bishop Williamson. Praying for him and boldly opposing his errors, will help him convert.