Bishop Williamson Exonerated!

From the British District Newsletter:

"As we have been honoured to have Bishop Richard
Williamson in residence at St. George's House since February 2009, (following a
certain interview accorded to Swedish TV in Germany), it will be of interest to
our faithful and readers to note that the court case against him has been
dropped by a court of appeal in Bavaria. Following His Lordship's second appeal,
'the First Appeals Bench of the Provincial Court of Nuremberg ruled on 22nd
February 2012 that:

1. Upon appeal of the accused, the 11th July 2011
judgement of the Regional Court in Regensburg is annulled.

2. The legal proceedings are stopped because of a
procedural obstacle to their continuing.

3. The costs of the legal proceedings and the expenses
necessarily incurred by the accused are to be paid by the
State.

The 22nd February ruling went on to say
that:

'The summons as we have it, not providing details
sufficient to present the required result of the investigation, does not contain
enough facts to constitute a punishable offence. Passages are quoted from the
interview given by the accused with the indication that the accused must have
reckoned with the content of the interview also becoming known in Germany. What
is not shown is that the content of the interview was in fact made public and
became known also in Germany. There are to be found no explanations of the time
and place of any such publication, nor of any means neither of publication nor
of any channels of communication.

But according to Article 130 it is a prerequisite that
the action involved should have been performed in public or at a meeting, so
some act of communication with a number of people also comes into it. Giving an
interview to a journalist inside an SSPX seminary with no public present
represents on the contrary no prior punishable act, because the legislator did
not include amongst the acts forbidden by Article 130 any attempt to reach the
public. Accordingly the summons mentions no punishable behaviour (as yet):
essential characteristics required by the law to constitute the inner and outer
facts of the criminal deed are not present."

Ignis Ardens wishes to join the list of Catholic new+views sources, websites and counter-cultural voices in offering our heartiest congratulations to His Lordship, and many more good fights fought in the future! In the meantime, we await the so-called mainstream ("vile!") Media to pick up the story, and to give it as widespread coverage as they did three years ago.

On second thoughts, perhaps best not to hold our breath...