Letter from Broadstairs 1

8^th June 2025.

Sermon of Bishop Paul Morgan from the funeral of Bishop Williamson.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Dear members of Bishop Williamson’s family, dear close friends, my Lords, I should say also, ladies and gentlemen, dear Fathers, dear seminarians, dear Brothers and Sisters, dear faithful, and anybody else I may have forgotten, we are gathered here today for the solemn funeral of His Excellency, His Lordship, Bishop Richard Nelson Williamson.

You will be saying, first of all, we are not in a church, we are not in a cathedral, we are not in a basilica, we are not in a chapel. We are in a simple hall, which was built actually as a drill hall, a place to practise marching for soldiers going to the front in the First World War. And the dear Bishop would certainly have seen the pleasant irony in the situation. As his Lordship often used to say we are at war against the world, the flesh and the devil. We are  at war also against all these modern errors, we at war for our salvation. And in so saying, Bishop Williamson repeated the words of the Just Man, Job of the Old Testament, “Life is a combat”.

And so having this funeral Mass here in a drill hall would have raised the good Bishop’s eyebrows and would have caused a little grin, which he always had in life, and for those of you were here yesterday evening, also in death. We used to call it amongst ourselves the Bishop’s ’Mona Lisa smile.

We are grateful for the presence of members of the family, in particular Mr. Harry Williamson, the older brother of Bishop Williamson, who represent other family members dispersed to different places, not least in New Zealand, whose kind  confidence has entrusted the funeral arrangements to ourselves. The family does not yet, unless I am mistaken, belong to the household of the Faith and so we appreciate their trust  and confidence in confiding to us the funeral Mass and burial  arrangements.

We see the hand of Providence in daily life, and the good Bishop certainly reminded us all, that our lives are not divorced from Almighty God, the Divine and the workings of His Grace in everyday life. It has been unfairly alleged however  that the bishop  was too given to supernatural occurrences and at the same time  too concerned with temporal considerations,  even going so far as to say that he fell into naturalism! There is here a clear misunderstanding as to what the word means. Naturalism means precisely anti-supernaturalism, and the good bishop was anything but anti supernatural or indeed anti anything concerning the God-given natural order of things. Rather it’s precisely by showing this harmony, this involvement, this participation, this tug of war, if you like, between the supernatural and the natural, between fallen man and the resurrected, restored man with grace, that this is what life is all about. The bishop’s conferences, sermons,  and correspondence constantly brought this to mind. And that certainly is the reason why so many people were touched by the good Bishop,  those who have the Faith, as well as those who do not have the Faith, and those who come to the Faith, because they saw in him the man of God, who preached the Truth with charity and good sense and great humanity.

Today we recall the work of Providence in the detail surrounding the good bishop’s death, dying not on the roadside, nor in an airport, nor in a foreign country, much as he loved going to foreign countries as the true apostle he was, but in his house, becoming sick with a stroke, in his own home, with dear Father Abraham promptly calling the ambulance. Before putting down the phone, the ambulance was there which  took him straight him off to hospital where he received Extreme Unction and was attended to the last by the visiting clergy, close friends,  faithful and family.

And after almost a week of this preparation for departing this life,  the nurses remarked how strikingly peaceful was his passing into death. What more wonderful, beautiful, encouraging scene could there be. And we see precisely realised the promises of Our Blessed Lord to assist in death those who have honoured His Sacred Heart in life, as well  the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There we have it, not just in the  just lives of the Saints, but close to us in the case of our dear bishop.

Today, and again providentially, it is the feast of St Ethelbert. Ethelbert is a name which is not normally given at baptism today, but could be perhaps, even should be.

St Ethelbert was the King of Kent. He reigned towards the end of the sixth century and  although not yet a Christian , he was married to a good wife, a Frankish, a French, Princess who had the Faith. How often would the bishop insist upon the importance of the role of the wife and mother and her place in the home!

The Pope in Rome, Gregory the Great, had a great concern, a preoccupation for these pagans in England, in Britain. England had been evangelised in the first centuries, in the Roman times. The Romans left in 410 AD.

And then the invasions, the Jutes, the Saxons, the Angles, and they were pagan, until the Faith went underground and then was pushed to the West, with martyrs, and persecutions. The great St Gregory  sent Saint Augustine, a Benedictine monk, with some  forty others to re-evangelise this country and to bring it back to the faith of our Fathers. They were received well, even  kindly and warmly by King Ethelbert. This kingdom of Kent which was the most important of the kingdoms South of the Humber at the time, and this would lead, I believe, even the following year of 597, certainly soon after the missionaries’ arrival, to the King being converted and baptised, and his kingdom with him.

And the capital of King Ethelbert’s kingdom was here, Canterbury. Monks sent by the pope  were made subsequently made Bishops by the Pope, precisely to save souls, to instruct, to sanctify, to guide souls on the road to Heaven, to combat the evils of the day. And so, it is that we find ourselves providentially in Canterbury. It was not the idea, not the initial plan to be here. We had hoped to be closer precisely to the Bishop’s home in Broadstairs, and yet things did not work out. And so here we are in the drill hall, turned into a makeshift cathedral for the occasion. Our many and special thanks go  the generous souls have done so much in transforming in  just a couple of hours this place into a worthy and fitting place for this holy Mass.

Gathered around the altar, centred upon the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,  we are honoured  today to have received a special letter. This will be the second point, if you like, of this little eulogy. By the way, a more personal eulogy, will be given by Mr. Harry Williamson at the very end of the religious ceremonies, in homage to, and appreciation of, his brother, the great Bishop Williamson, who remains controversial  in death as he was in his life. (  Hence we are asking people not to take photos to avoid people being caught on camera. We have a professional filmmaker filming the event, for a future release. So, thank you for your current co-operation in this regard both, for the faithful and also for the clergy. We all as clergy love to have a scoop, and to be the first to include the most recent news in our newsletters and bulletins, so thank you too for complying with this request.)  The special letter of tribute comes from another great and courageous Bishop, Archbishop Vigano from his, I was about to say, internal exile in Northern Italy, and he has sent this letter for it to be read at the dear bishop’s funeral:

“The land of Canterbury was consecrated to Christ by the blood of Saint Thomas Becket, martyred on the 29th of December, 1170, in the Cathedral which has now become Anglican. At that time, Archbishop Thomas opposed the Constitutions of Clarendon, with which King Henry II attacked the liberties and independence of the Catholic Church. He paid with his life for this courageous defence of the Catholic Church, and today the Saintly Bishop, saint Thomas, looks down on us from heaven as we celebrate the suffrages of another Bishop, Richard Nelson Williamson, whom we consider a witness to the Faith and Catholic Tradition in times no less troubled and hostile.

Bishop Williamson was not killed by four assassins of King Henry II. He did not shed his blood by being struck while celebrating the Holy Sacrifice at the altar of his Cathedral, Canterbury cathedral. The Cathedral in which he would have celebrated, Bishop Williamson, was denied to him by a Hierarchy that is now allied and complicit with the same enemies of the past, which excommunicates not the enemies of the Papacy, but those who denounce the betrayal of a usurper. Bishop Williamson also was betrayed: not by four assassins, but by those who wounded him in the heart, betraying the legacy of Archbishop Lefebvre.

I hope that the heroic example of Saint Thomas Becket and the testimony of his white martyrdom given by Bishop Richard Williamson may awaken in us the feelings that they both shared: first and foremost, the love of God; the love of the God-Man, Our Lord Jesus Christ; the love of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church; and the love of man for the sake of the love of God, from which flows the apostolic zeal of true Shepherds toward their sheep, who recognise in them the voice of the Divine Shepherd.

This earthly life is indeed a battlefield, in which we fight without quarter against a mortal enemy. This enemy has already been defeated by Our Lord, on the Cross, the Royal Road, the Via Regia, to the eternal glory of Heaven. This is what the prophet Hosea meant when, referring to Christ, he pronounced these words: O mors, ero mors tua; morsus tuus ero, inferne. O death, I will be thy death; I will be thy mortal blow, O hell. Giving one’s life, giving all one’s life and all one’s energy for Our Lord Jesus Christ and for the Holy Church, and doing so in a daily crucifixion, allows us to be cooperators in the Redemption. Our human weakness, when placed at the service of the Gospel, allows Grace to accomplish great things; it allows us to face each day, even the last day, without giving up fighting the bonum certamen, the good fight, and repeating, with the Prophet: O death, I will be your death; I will be your mortal blow, O hell.”

Tempora bona veniant. May the good times come. Pax Christi veniat. May the peace of Christ come. Regnum Christi veniat. May the reign of Christ come”

            + Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

A good pastor, a great pastor, a good Shepherd until the very end, dear Bishop Williamson, living and dying, as a priest and as a bishop for the Church. What a privilege, dear faithful, dear friends to have known, admired, accompanied, rejoiced  and suffered with him, this true successor of the Apostles.

The third point of this eulogy concerns the solemn blessing given immediately following the Requiem Mass.  (I’m looking at my watch. Normally it is the faithful who look at their watches, during the sermons, I am told, but this is because we have a time frame to keep with the burial. The burial itself will take place privately, per the wishes of the dear family, in a semi-private cemetery, about less than an hour’s drive from here. Don’t be looking at your maps to see where it might be! This was also the particular wish of the Bishop to be buried in this place, but for a number of reasons the burial will be private, with just some of the clergy attending.  The family meanwhile will stay on here for the buffet,  which will follow for everybody after the funeral rites and blessings.)

The last part of the ceremony consists in a very special blessing given for deceased bishops, prelates, cardinals, and maybe even the Pope himself, and it is called the Five Absolutions. Obviously when we pray at a funeral it is  firstly and fore-mostly for the bishop’s soul now in eternity.

They say in French, that les obsèques sont un temps de trêve, a funeral is a time for a ceasefire. When people precisely come to pray for the deceased in eternity, it is because they can no longer pray for themselves. The Holy Souls require our prayers, holy Masses, suffrages, sacrifices, good works and indulgences. And as the good bishop did so much for us in his lifetime, the least we can do dear faithful is to pray for the repose of dear Bishop Williamson’s soul now in eternity. The five absolutions normally are performed by five bishops, and there are five places indeed prepared today for five bishops. In the event of one or the other bishops being indisposed, it is possible, say the rubrics, to have one or the other senior priest to perform the same blessings but without wearing pontifical vestments. (Those of you present at the vigil yesterday night would have seen the mortal remains of the bishop in full pontifical vestments including the mitre in the open coffin.)

Respect shown to the body is also a profession of faith in the Resurrection on the last day of our bodies, as we say in the Creed. But the prayers of course surrounding the body, the blessings, the incensations and the prayers offer the benefit primarily to the soul in eternity, but remind us also that the body itself, having been sanctified by the sacraments, by Holy Communion, by the priestly and episcopal ordination and consecration, remains something sacred. These blessings consist in prayers and sacred chants sung solemnly or simply depending upon the time available, along with the blessing of the mortal remains by means of holy water and incensations (which will have to be performed discretely because of the alarm system.) We read the following in one of these prayers which sums up the spirit of the five absolutions ceremony:

O God, in whom all things live, through whom our bodies do not perish by dying, but are changed into something better as suppliants. “We entreat thee to order the soul of Thy servant, Richard, Bishop, to be gathered up with the hands of the blessed angels, let down in the bosom of Thy friend Abraham the Patriarch, and brought back to life on the last day of the great judgment, through the indulgence of Thy tender mercy, wash away whatever stain of Thy he mayeth under the sway of the Devil have contracted through Christ our Lord”.

 A beautiful prayer. And the five prayers repeat these same sentiments, the same petitions. We should think also, that whilst we ask Almighty God to have pardon on those now in eternity, we should recall the words of the Our Father, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us”. Hence the funeral should not just be a ceasefire for the day, but also  a moment, a time, when we  think about the injuries, the insults, real or imaginary, we may have received or rendered. It is also a time for pardon, for being forgiving to others because that will be the gage of the eternal Divine Forgiveness given to the souls for whom we pray.

 Lastly, may I finish with a prayer composed by the dear Bishop himself, which in many ways resumes his whole life, ministry, apostolate, greatness, legacy, influence and example:

“Our Lady of the Apparitions, Lourdes, La Salette, Pontmain, and others more recent, I thank you for appearing and caring for us, your wayward and modern children. Please keep me faithful both to your divine son and to the stray souls for whom He died. I have only one wish, which is to do my best for Him and for You. Amen.

The bishop has been found faithful to his episcopal motto., Faithful by the grace of God to the very end having prayed for the gift of  holy perseverance, and the grace of fidelity. May that charity which marked the dear bishop to his many dear friends, as well as towards his enemies, (and heaven only knows how many enemies he had) attract and draw souls to the truth of the Faith and to Almighty God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Donations towards the official continuing apostolate of Bishop Williamson can be made here –

https://respicestellam.org/donations