Hi, Karen —

Richard Williamson is a bishop in the Lefebvrists, a group that protested the Novus Ordo Mass and other things from Vatican II. He is a validly ordained Catholic bishop, but ordained by a bishop who was asserting a kind of independence from Rome that some have said was schismatic. At the very least, it was a disobedient movement that bordered on schism, and his ordination was illegal. (the Pope is supposed to name bishops).

Mary Ann

Hi, Karen —

Williamson has never been a bishop in good standing with the Catholic Church. As my colleague noted, he was illicitly consecrated in an act that caused him to be automatically excommunicated from the Church, together with four other bishops. Rome is trying to reconcile with the breakaway group and part of that process, which is by no means complete, was a formal lifting of the excommunications of the remaining bishops, including Williamson.

Through an ignorant oversight they later admitted and pledged to avoid in the future, the Holy See was unaware of Williamson's deplorable positions at the time his excommunication was lifted. That said, there is nothing in canon law against denying the Holocaust, so legally they can't really re-excommunicate him.

Eric