• Bishop Williamson states: [T]he obligation to stay away from the NOM [i.e., new mass] is proportional to one’s knowledge of how wrong it is. Eleison Comments #445, January 23, 2016.

  Bishop Williamson’s statement fails to distinguish between a Catholic’s subjective and objective obligation. It could be that someone has the strange false notion that God obliges him to attend a Buddhist ceremony or a new mass, or commit some other objective evil. But everyone’s objective duty is to always stay away from the new mass and all other evil.

  Right-thinking Catholics must inform conciliar Catholics that the new mass is evil and urge them to stay away from it. We must tell them that if they don’t understand that the new mass is evil, they must inform their consciences better. We would give a similar response to a Buddhist about his evil ceremonies.

• Bishop Williamson continues: [W]ho will dare say that out of these multitudes there are none who are still nourishing their faith by obeying what seems to them (subjectively) to be their (objective) duty? Eleison Comments #445, January 23, 2016.

  It is not our duty to judge who is subjectively and interiorly culpable for the objective evil they commit. But Buddhist ceremonies and the new mass are always evil and any spiritual nourishment a person receives while immersed in any evil is not because of the evil—but is in spite of this evil.

• After noting that some persons come to Catholic Tradition after attending the new mass for years, Bishop Williamson continues: And if the NOM had in all those years made them lose the faith, how would they have come to Catholic Tradition? Eleison Comments #445, January 23, 2016.

  Bishop Williamson here seeks to conclude that the new mass can’t be evil for at least some people. His position is like saying that, if a person was harmed by attending Buddhist ceremonies for years, then how could a Buddhist ever convert to Catholicism?

  The answer is that God can move someone to the truth, even if he is now immersed in the evil of the new mass or of Buddhism. If a conciliar Catholic comes to the full traditional Faith and practice of the Catholic Church, perhaps it was because he recited the rosary daily. Whatever tools—such as the rosary—God uses, the man’s conversion certainly did not occur because the new mass is a source of good for him. The new mass is always evil.

  The situation is like a Buddhist converting to the Catholic Faith. Whatever tools God chooses to use, the Buddhist’s conversion certainly does not show that Buddhist ceremonies are good. Buddhist ceremonies are always evil.

• Bishop Williamson continues: [N]ot all the elements that can nourish faith are necessarily eliminated from it, viz., the new mass. Eleison Comments #445, January 23, 2016.

  No one is saying that all possible elements of the new mass are bad singly. But the new mass itself is always evil. In the same way, a Lutheran service is always evil and no one should ever attend it, even though it contains some good single element such as the “Our Father” (Lord’s Prayer).

  Again, it is always objectively evil to attend the new mass (as it is always evil to attend Buddhist ceremonies), however uninformed a particular person’s conscience might be.

• Bishop Williamson continues: [T]here is still something Catholic in what has become of the Catholic Church since Vatican II. Eleison Comments #445, February 6, 2016.

  Bishop Williamson confuses the Catholic Church as the pure Bride of Christ, and the Church’s human element.

  The Catholic Church, as the pure Bride of Christ, is completely holy and spotless. Only individual Catholics (including popes) sin:

  The Catholic Church is Holy. ... The misdeeds of some members, or abuses occurring within the Church are due not to the Church, but to the perversity of men.

  The Catechism Explained, Rev. Francis Spirago, p.244, TAN Books and Publishers 1993 (reprinting the 1899 edition).

  Thus, as the pure Bride of Christ, the Church remains entirely uncorrupted by Vatican II because nothing can corrupt Her. It is not (as Bishop Williamson says) that there is still something Catholic in Her. Rather, She is fully pure and Catholic. (Immediately below, we discuss the Church’s human element.)

• Bishop Williamson continues: [T]here is still faith in the Newchurch. Eleison Comments #445, February 6, 2016.

  Vatican II has greatly corrupted the Church’s human element, i.e., persons (including the hierarchy) who identify themselves as Catholic. There is a Catholic Church and also a conciliar church. They are:

  two churches which have the same heads and most of the same members, but who have different forms and ends diametrically incongruous: on the one hand eternal salvation seconded by the social reign of Christ, King of Nations, on the other hand the unity of the human race by liberal ecumenism, that is to say broadened to all religions, the heir of the conciliar decisions of Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Ætate, and Dignitatis Humanae, and which is the spirit of Assisi and the antithesis of the social reign of Christ the King. ... [A]ccording to the degree which the authorities and the baptized adhere to this new kind of church, that constitutes a new church.

  Quoted from Bishop Tissier’s analysis (emphasis added).

  Thus, the Catholic Faith can abide in a person who attends/says the new mass. We suppose this is what Bishop Williamson meant to say. However, he is wrong to say that the Catholic faith [is] in the Newchurch itself because persons constitute a new conciliar church in the measure that they are not acting and professing the true Faith. Id.

Let us pray for Bishop Williamson, that he makes the necessary distinctions in the future. He has done much good in the past and could still do much good in the future.