The Recusant: Bp. Williamson promotes Novus Ordo Divine Mercy ‘Messages from Heaven’

[Stone]

Taken from The Recusant #62 - Autumn 2024 [slightly adapted]:


Before you ask, same answer as before. We’ll stop pointing it out when he stops doing it. In the meantime, here is the latest scandal from the Great One. Expect no response from the Fake Resistance except total silence in public, and a weasel-worded defence in private.

Bishop Williamson promotes Novus Ordo Divine Mercy ‘Messages from Heaven’

Yes, you are reading that right.

In a series of four Eleison Comments spanning late April and early May 2024, (“Remarkable Messages” I, II, III & IV) the bishop effectively promotes some “revelations” given to a Novus Ordo nun who belongs to “the Mission of Divine Mercy,” a community dedicated to spreading the bogus, condemned “Divine Mercy” message.

The first of these three begins by informing the reader that:

“When it comes to apparitions and messages supposedly coming from Heaven, to be prudent is certainly wise…” (https://stmarcelinitiative.org/remarkable-messages-i/)

...but then proceeds immediately to warn:

“But one can be excessively prudent, especially when the normal Church Authority is itself in confusion.” (Ibid.)

So when it comes to crazy old ladies or Novus Ordo nuns telling everyone that Our Lord Himself is personally appearing to them with messages for the whole world, to be prudent is certainly wise, but on the other hand one ought not to be “excessively prudent”..? Have I understood that correctly?

Prudence is of course one of the four cardinal virtues and the idea that one can have an excess of any virtue is so ridiculous on its surface that we need not spend too long on it. Ought one also to avoid being “excessively just,” perhaps? If applied also to the theological virtues, can one also be guilty of “excessive” Faith, Hope and Charity? The idea is absurd.

In reality, this apparently contradictory and foolish opening statement is merely a rather clumsy attempt to prime the reader for what is to follow. “Yes, we should be wary of false apparitions, but just not in this case!” is in effect what he is seeking to say. He then proceeds to throw caution to the wind:

“Let us give to a series of recent Messages coming from backwoods Texas, USA, a hearing. The series began with an introductory Message supposedly from Our Lady – let the “supposedly” be taken for granted and not repeated in everything quoted henceforth in these ‘Eleison Comments’ from these Messages.” (Ibid.)

Why would we “give them a hearing” when no evidence has yet been given for their being authentic? (In fact, there are grounds for being very suspicious - read on!) He then says that he has: “no authority to guarantee the Texas Messages’ authenticity,” but that he is going to quote them at length for his readers anyway, adding, rather dishonestly: “Let readers judge on their own.”

The trouble that by quoting this supposed “message from Heaven”, Bishop Williamson has already put his finger in the scale and signalled to his readership that he thinks they are, or might well be, genuine. Most people would not expect Bishop Williamson to be quoting the message at length if he doubted its authenticity, nor would he dedicate four weeks in a row to quoting and discussing them.

We will not quote it at length. The gist is as follows. Generic end-of-the-world talk, the devil is doing battle with God, blah blah. An affirmation that the message itself is a crucial means of fighting back (in other words, the message talks about “these words” - itself in other words.

The claim that “there is no shepherd” - so, sedevacantism? Lots of generic talk about how everyone is “wounded” and needs “healing”. Finally, another self-endorsement: “Blessed is he who receives these Words and allows them to bear their fruit” - “these words” being another self-reference.

That was the “first message” as quoted by Bishop Williamson. The next Eleison Comments deals with the second message, which this time “is from God the Father.” Ha ha ha! Well, well. We won’t quote it either. Like the first message, it is all generic stuff which people will be able to “read into” - light vs darkness, truth vs falsehood, priests are being deceived and need to wake up, bishops aren’t doing their job properly, and so forth.

As with the first message, there is nothing about Vatican II, the New Mass, or any of it, in fact there is no specific detail about anything. Why might that be, do you think? To me at least it seems clear: specific details are easier to debunk that generic “truth and light” talk. By giving maximum generic fluff and minimum specific detail, the author of the “messages” makes it as easy as possible for the reader to “interpret” the meaning and thus find that it agrees with whatever he already thinks. Bishop Williamson sort of (almost!) does this at one point where there is a reference to “small battalions” of God’s army which remain spread across the world. He says:

“In the “small battalions” can anyone not recognise the scattered remnants of the so-called ‘Resistance’? ” (https://stmarcelinitiative.org/remarkable-messages-ii/)

Interesting words from one who has claimed consistently since 2014 (at least in public: earlier in private) that he doesn’t believe in the Resistance. Even here he has to use speech marks and “so-called” before he can bring himself to utter the dreaded R word..! But leaving that aside, notice how he says that it “could” mean the Resistance. Yes, but it also “could” mean the proponents of “Saint” Faustina and her condemned “Divine Mercy” devotion. It “could” mean conservative novus ordo or indulty types who don’t like Pope Francis and long for the halcyon days of Pope Benedict, or “Saint John Paul the Great”..! It could mean so many things. Why does Garabandal come to mind? These bogus messages always sound alarming at first glance, but on closer inspection one notices that the language is actually quite vague, rather like a tabloid horoscope - there’s plenty of room for the reader to fill in his own “interpretation”. Like Garabandal too, one is left with the impression that the messages are basically “preaching to the choir” and telling people what they want to hear.


A Dubious Provenance

But enough of the bogus contents. It is nothing more or less than one would expect after all. If the messages don’t mention Vatican II or the New Mass that can hardly be a surprise, indeed it would be surprising if they did condemn the New Mass given that they come from a Novus Ordo community!

And who knows - given his continual promotion of the New Mass, perhaps Bishop Williamson wouldn’t be so keen on these messages either!

What else can one gather? The community calls itself “The Mission of Divine Mercy” and is located in rural Texas. What a curious name. Could it just be a coincidence? Not at all. The whole purpose of this community is to spread “Saint” Faustina’s condemned devotion and bogus “revelations”. Their website, curiously enough, does not say anything about the Divine Mercy devotion, but the newsletters are full of it. A quick look at some of the pictures on the website tells the same story.

The founder is one Father John Mary Foster, a priest who used to be a member of the Community of St John, a somewhat “conservative”-looking Novus Ordo religious order founded in 1978 and heavily pushed by John-Paul II during the 1980s and 90s. Following the death of its founder it emerged that it had been the seat of all kinds of sexual abuse and that its founder had been a monster, a manipulative cult leader who took sexual advantage of a great many young women over several decades.

But we digress. Fr John Mary Foster, according to his own website, joined the Community of St John in 1981 and studied in Fribourg, meaning that, whilst not a founder-member, he was one of the early members and would almost certainly have known personally Fr. Marie Dominique Philippe, the founder who also taught at Fribourg, and may even have been one of his inner circle. Yet if there is a story there, it has yet to be told. As far as we are aware, there is no further connection between the two. Foster presumably left the Community of St John back in 2001, when the then- bishop of San Antonio, Texas gave his approval for the current “community” (the Mission of Divine Mercy) to be founded within his diocese.

The community is small and eclectic, as the website makes clear. It comprises a priest, a brother, two nuns, a layman and a lay woman. Notice that the idea of mixing up lay and religious, male and female, is itself something very Novus Ordo. What is also worth noting is
that the “community” seems to have started out about this size and seems not really to have grown in the last twenty-odd years. Doubtless the “messages” from heaven will have given them new hope that all that might be about to change. A cynic might suggest that the new community had not been the success its members had hoped and that these divine “messages” smack of a desperation - but far be it from us to suggest such things!

What is the Story Behind The Community of St John?

The history of the Community of St John is something of a rabbit-hole itself. Well-known in France, though less so in English-speaking countries, it was founded in 1978 by Fr Marie Dominique Philippe, OP. Conservative Novus Ordo, its members venerated their founder as something of a living Saint, right up to his death in 2006. In the last ten years it emerged that the founder had in fact been a serious sexual predator (young women, not boys). The male congregation still exists and has taken serious steps to erase the founder and all his influences from their constitution, reading and daily life. The congregation of nuns was dissolved by Benedict XVI, and Rome told reporters that the sisters had suffered manipulation which amounted to “sexual slavery” at the hands of senior priests of the order. The new male superiors commissioned an independent inquiry into what had really been going on. What came out was more horrific and far -reaching than anyone had suspected, reaching all the way back to the late 1940s.

Marie-Dominique Philippe had a biological brother, also a Dominican priest, Fr Thomas Philippe OP, who would later co-found “l’Arche” with Jean Vannier. Both priests had a blasphemous and heretical theology, which they taught in secret to an inner-circle and which they used to justify their own damnable conduct. Their uncle, also a Dominican priest, Fr Thomas Dehau OP, and their sister, Mother Cécile Philippe OP, were also part of the scandal. The former was, it seems, the main influence on his niece and two nephews. The latter used her position as superior of the Bouvines convent to supply her brothers with young female novices for sexual acts. When she was deposed, she was also found guilty of having sometimes supplied herself (incest) and of in effect having taken the place of her brothers (homosexuality). When one young woman, Anne de Rosanbo, became pregnant, she had an abortion which Fr Thomas Phillipe arranged for her.

The lurid details (yes, there are more), are horrific; more horrific still is the secret theology, a blasphemous heresy termed by some “porno-mysticism,” according to which, among other things, Our Lord had sexual relations with his Blessed mother. The Philippe brothers, it emerged, had been secretly teaching this to their inner-circle since at least the late 1940s.

When the Holy Office got wind of things in the 1950s, both priests (their uncle was dead by this point) were ordered into seclusion, suspended from any public ministry, and forbidden from any contact with each other or any of their little circle (they called each other the “tout-petits”). They seem to have secretly disobeyed. Fr Marie-Dominique Philippe, future founder of the Community of St John, was also forbidden from contact with any religious communities.

All of this remained largely [unknown] until it all came out around ten years ago. That was back in the 1950s. What happened after that is a familiar story. In the 1960s and 70s Rome turned a blind eye, and the Philippe brothers’ influence began to spread again. In the 1980s and 90s they were promoted enthusiastically by John-Paul II as founders of “new movements” which heralded the “renewal” of the Council. Hmm… why does that all sound so familiar? Why is one suddenly reminded of Legionaries of Christ? ...of the Divine Mercy? Community of St John? L’Arche..? There are so many examples that always seem to follow that pattern.


Further Reading:
https://freres-saint-jean.org/wp-content...n_2023.pdf
(Community of St John, full investigation report, in French)

https://brothers-saint-john.org/wp-conte...EALING.pdf (Summary of the above report in English)

https://commissiondetude-jeanvanier.org/...ex.php/en/
home-english/ (Full investigation report, commissioned by l’Arche, in English translation)


A Novus Bogus vibe...

Even without the condemned “Divine Mercy” permeating everything, the uncomfortable fact remains that this is a Novus Ordo community, whose only priest offers the New Mass. On their FAQ page, one can read the following:

“Do you offer the Traditional Latin Mass?

No. We offer the Novus Ordo Mass.”

Is further proof of Novus Ordo-ness needed? Maybe they’ve become “more Traditional” in recent years..? Well, let us take a look at one further piece of evidence on their own website.

Two years ago was the funeral of Margaret Foster, the mother of Fr John Mary. It has been given its own page on their website. The picture tells its own tale: white vestments and a white pall over the coffin. Beneath the audio file, a summary of the sermon is given thus:

• “John Mary states that without his mother, Margaret Foster, the Mission of Divine Mercy would not be here.
• Father recalls the importance of Purgatory which is a great school of love, where God’s children learn how to love what they were not able to learn during their life on earth.
• Purgatory is where souls are healed, made whole, restored in order to become the living tabernacle of His love and fullness.
• Our own lives, especially at these difficult ends, can be a special union with Jesus in His own suffering.
• Father introduces us to his mother, Margaret Foster.”

Purgatory being a place where souls are “healed” and “restored” - it all just sounds so, well, Novus Ordo, doesn’t it? Of course, there’s a sense in which that is true, but it is an incomplete explanation. Why is there no talk of expiation, of suffering, of paying the debt owed due to sin? Moreover, if she’s in purgatory, why the white vestments? So their theology is also Novus Ordo - meaning that even if they were one day to offer the Traditional Mass, what good would the Traditional liturgy be along side modernist, novus ordo doctrine?

Lifesite News, to their shame, have also been promoting these “messages” both on their own website (See here, for instance: “To view LifeSiteNews’ coverage of the alleged prophecies, click the following links: message one; message two; and message three.” etc. “Meet the Nun who allegedly received messages from heaven” reads another headline...) and via social media. And please, don’t anybody try to point to the word "allegedly” as though that somehow makes everything alright. As with Bishop Williamson, there has to be just enough equivocation to allow them to claim afterwards, should they ever need to, that they in fact never wholeheartedly endorsed these “messages”. But as with Bishop Williamson, is there any way they would be giving these “messages” so much free advertising if they thought they were false? Since they have now been given free publicity by both Bishop Williamson (four weeks in a row) and by LifeSite News, we must hope and pray that not too many otherwise well-meaning souls will be taken in by this.


Conclusion

What is one to conclude from all this? Bogus “messages” from a dubious Novus Ordo source are after all nothing new. What matters here is the response. John Henry Westen, owner of Lifesite News, ought really to know better. It would be wise for Catholics to be a little circumspect in future and take what he says with a pinch of salt. And if you get those begging-letter emails from him, don’t give him a penny, at least not until he has come clean and apologised for promoting this rubbish. In the meantime there are far more deserving causes for you to save your hard earned pennies towards. But he is only a layman, albeit one with rather more influence than most.

Bishop Williamson - let us say it again - is a bishop and therefore the responsibility and culpability are immeasurably greater in his case. Just think of all the souls led astray as a result: Our Lord will know where to place the blame for all of us when we die. It is enough to make one shudder. Anyone inclined to wonder whether we are exaggerating, go and have a look for yourself: the second and third Eleison Comments (https://
stmarcelinitiative.org/remarkable-messages-ii/ and https://stmarcelinitiative.org/remarkablemessages-iii/) are about 80% quoting directly from the “messages” without a single word of qualification or criticism. The fourth one is about 90% quotation, the only words by Bishop Williamson himself being the following:

“This fourth (and last for the moment) Message from Texas is specially appropriate for Catholics today, both by its understanding of their distress, and by its appealing for their trust. It is these ‘Comments’ that have highlighted certain words in black. By all means read the original Messages at mdm.”(https://stmarcelinitiative.org/remarkable-messages-iv/)

Tell me that that isn’t promotion. So let’s just add this to the list of why nobody should have anything to do with Bishop Williamson or allow him to influence them in any way (including being influenced by those who are working with him). Pederastic housemates, sending new converts to Tradition back to the new Mass, promoting Valtorta’s “Gospel as revealed to me” - another bogus “revelation” which like the “Divine Mercy” was condemned by the Holy Office in the days before Vatican II but then became widespread after Vatican II. Here we see him promoting not only a bogus revelation - the fact that the messages are certainly fake can be almost taken as read. What matters is that their provenance is a New Mass apostolate dedicated to spreading the condemned “Divine Mercy” messages and devotion. In promoting their messages, Bishop Williamson is promoting them. There is no way around that. So we must add to the list his, in effect, promotion of the condemned “Divine Mercy”. Where will this end?

As usual, don’t hold your breath waiting for any kind of response: a public silence is all we have come to expect. Although Bishop Williamson’s various errors and scandals have been documented here over the past nine years, only one or two of his unfortunate followers (Samuel Loeman, Sean Johnson, Hugh Akins...) have ever tried to defend him, and that was some seven years ago. Since then they seem to have given up and gone home and who can blame them? It is all so obviously wrong. Kyrie Eleison.