In his December 2, 2016 Eleison Comments, Bishop Williamson urged us to be broadminded. Here are his words: Traditional Catholics must be broad of mind.

Being broadminded (i.e., broad of mind) means being liberal and tolerant of error. Here are the two definitions Webster’s Dictionary gives for the word “broadminded”:

tolerant of varied views

inclined to condone minor departures from conventional behavior

This shows that a broadminded person’s focus is not on the fact that everyone has a duty to hold the truth. Instead, a broadminded person considers it a “virtue” to tolerate a variety of views, i.e., opinions, whether true or false. In other words, a broadminded person is tolerant of error.

Webster gives the following synonyms for “broadminded”:

nonconventional, nonorthodox, nontraditional, open-minded, progressive, radical, unconventional, unorthodox

Id. (emphasis added).

Webster gives the following antonyms (i.e., opposites) for “broadminded”:

conservative, conventional, hidebound, nonprogressive, old-fashioned, orthodox, stodgy, traditional

Id. (emphasis added).

Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary defines “broadminded” as:

Having or characterized by tolerant or liberal views.

All faithful Catholics are anti-liberal and are not broadminded because they adhere to the truth and hold that everyone has a duty to adhere to the same truth. Faithful Catholics hold that no one has a right to hold error and so they are not “tolerant of varied [erroneous] views”.¹

By contrast, conciliar Catholics are broadminded. They are ecumenical and hold that everyone should make his own decision about what is “right” for him, even if it is called “bad” by other people. In short, broadminded people— which Bishop Williamson urges us to be—are liberal and they follow Situation Ethics, which the Traditional Catholic Church condemns but Bishop Williamson promotes.²

In a September 25, 2016 conference in Texas, in which Bishop Williamson approved attending the Masses of sedevacantists, he did not mention the truth that the very grave error of sedevacantism is always objective schism from the Catholic Church.³ However, Bishop Williamson stressed what was important to him, viz., Traditional Catholics should attend the Masses of only tolerant sedevacantists. Here are Bishop Williamson’s words:

If he [i.e., the sedevacantist priest] is a dogmatic sedevacantist and slants everything towards sedevacantism and insists that souls attend only the Masses of sedevacantists—beware! He’s beginning [sic!] to go too far. But not all sedevacantists go that far. So, you’ve got reasonable [sic!] sedevacantists and then you’ve got fanatical sedevacantists.⁴ You might think twice [sic!] before attending the Mass of a fanatical sedevacantist; but a reasonable [sic!] sedevacantist if necessary, I’d say one could attend.

Id. (Bracketed comments added).

So the picture of Bishop Williamson’s mind emerges. Bishop Williamson urges Traditional Catholics to be broadminded and says they should not associate with sedevacantists who are not themselves broadminded. He approves of us attending the Mass of a sedevacantist priest but only if that priest is tolerant of the varied views of others—in other words, if he is broadminded.

We see here Bishop Williamson promoting the “religion” of broadmindedness instead of an overarching insistence that we and everyone must abide in the Truths of the uncompromising Traditional Catholic Faith.

In this way, Bishop Williamson is like the conciliar liberals,⁵ who gladly pray with the Lutherans, the Anglicans, etc., provided those heretics share the same broadmindedness and that none of them insist on agreement in belief. Similarly, Bishop Williamson urges Traditional Catholics to be broadminded (i.e., tolerant of the errors of others) and approves of their attending the Masses of tolerant sedevacantists.⁶

However, just as the conciliar liberals’ broadmindedness extends only to those who are broadminded, the same is true of Bishop Williamson. Although Bishop Williamson approves of attending sedevacantist Masses and (conciliar) new masses, he does his best to isolate and marginalize any Resistance Catholics who “intolerantly” insist on the overarching importance of the truth and therefore, insist that:

• No one should ever attend the new mass—viz., the liturgy of the new conciliar religion; and

• No one should ever attend sedevacantist Masses—viz., the liturgy of (objective) schismatics.

The great anti-liberal book, Liberalism is a Sin, informs us that because liberals don’t consider uncompromising Catholics to be broadminded, liberals often use (as an insult) the assertion that we are “narrow, intolerant and uncompromising”.⁷

Let us continue to pray for weak, broadminded Bishop Williamson!