One thing I can’t figure out: Is he now a “Catholic bishop”? If his ordination was unauthorized, I would say no, but everywhere I read “bishop” Williamson. Can someone please shed light on this?Bishop Williamson is indeed a bishop, not just now but from the very moment of his episcopal ordination. The reason why that is so goes to the very heart of the Catholic understanding of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. As Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., writes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, a bishop is "A successor to the Apostles who has received the fullness of Christ's priesthood."
The Sacrament of Holy Orders, like the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of Confirmation, changes a man forever; it leave an indelible mark on his soul. That is why the sacrament can be received only once for each level of ordination (diaconate, priesthood, episcopate), and it is the origin of the popular Catholic saying, "Once a priest, always a priest."
In other words, neither the priesthood nor the episcopate is merely an office that a man holds but something, once he has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders, that is essential to his very being. As Psalm 110:4 puts it, "The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech." In the New Testament, Saint Paul expounds upon the Christian understanding of this verse in the Letter to the Hebrews, especially chapters 5-7.
But what about the fact that, as the reader notes, the ordination of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X was unauthorized? Here, we get into the distinction between the validity of a sacrament and the licity of its application. A sacrament can be valid--that is, performed properly in its essentials and therefore effective in its application--and yet not licit, not authorized according to canon law or Church custom.
The irony, of course, is that, at the very moment that the four men received the Sacrament of Holy Orders on June 30, 1988, they became bishops (because the sacrament was valid), but they also incurred automatic excommunication, because the sacrament was performed illicitly--in contravention of canon law, which required that the sacrament only be performed with the permission of the pope.
In lifting the excommunications of the four bishops of SSPX on January 21, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI removed the ecclesiastical punishment for the illicit act. The extent to which any of the bishops will exercise their office has not yet been determined; until a final agreement is reached on the canonical status of SSPX within the Catholic Church, their faculties (powers) as bishops remain suspended; they cannot licitly exercise them.
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