BISHOP WILLIAMSON 2 FEB 2025

(Sermon given in Seoul)

1. “You have been found faithful,” do we all say about him, in response to his motto "may he be found faithful". The proof of this is that we are well provided as he leaves us, and perhaps next year, you shall see at last Fr Kim, who will take care of you better via a bishop provided by bishop Williamson.

2. Our Lord said to Peter, "if you love me, feed my lambs, feed my sheep", and the reverse is true: if one provides for the lambs and sheep of Jesus Christ, it means one loves Christ. That is why he was able to be provided in turn of the sacraments of the church, he was able to respond to auditive signs and communicate with his hands and feet, confirm he understood he was going and was able to bless us before he left. He provided and in turn, God provided him to be well surrounded by many visitors before he passed to his eternity.

3. Like Nelson, whose name he bears via his American mother, he was "poetry in action", a certain inspiration and a conformity to what beauty is: Integrity, Harmony and Clarity. He always insisted on the importance of poetry, music, arts because that was the catholic way of doing things, just like we put beauty in this chapel, sing as best as we can and use the poetry that the Church sings to her Spouse in the divine liturgy.

4. But this means integrity first. The first duty of a captain is to ensure the integrity of his ship, and like the Archbishop, the Bishop denounced and attacked the enemies of the Church, those who strived to endanger the hull integrity of the Bark of Peter. "Don't mind the maneuvers, go at them". He called a wolf a wolf and a rat a rat. "He is a traitor, he is a rat," said he in 2012, starting the necessary separation and survival operation of Tradition. Integrity must be ensured, just like when you bring a statue, you don't forget it's nose, otherwise forget about beauty.

5. Then, there is harmony, and that was something much more difficult to cobble than in the time of Archbishop Lefebvre, whose authority was great, while his authority was a bit lesser. Still, the bishop was able to cobble seven bishops and 130 priests, plus all the others we don't know yet... they keep on coming out of the woodwork. "Therefore, don't mind how imperfect some of them may be, as long as we go at the conciliar church" He understood that it would be the truth, the catholic truth that would build the harmony among those priests. He both understood on one hand the difficulty of our situation, with the papacy struck in the head with the heresy of modernism; he was wise on questions of opinion, and on the limitations of some of us at the rounded end of his crozier. But he kept the confidence that only the Truth has. Others would act hesitantly, or even cowardly in the circuмstances, while he simply opted for the truth... the divine harmony of things. Basically, he made perfect use of both ends of his crozier.

6. Lastly there is clarity or splendor, and he was a natural born teacher, a comedian on the podium of the Seminary, rarely boring, and always eager to make descriptive charts, breakdowns, summaries, diagrams, the whole thing abundantly illustrated with comparisons, like Our Lord, anecdotes taken from History and especially music and literature. His voice was clear. His repudiation of today's madness, and it was wonderful to see him in his prime, a few notches higher than his confreres. We can understand why the Archbishop favored him, why the media did not love him... and he did not love the media.

7. He was spared decrepit old age, died fighting and was present every week to comment and beg mercy for the Church. Enter into the joy of your Master, good and faithful servant, you provided all the clarity, harmony and integrity that could be provided in these dark, deformed and broken times. Catholics can hold on a clear doctrinal line and a reliable sacramental lifeline. All that is left to you is to see when and how the Faith will triumph over the world, one more time.