I often think all the knocks against Bishop Williamson come from people who would object to and be scandalized by the following statement:
"To train their children in the practice of virtue and to pay particular attention to their domestic concerns should also be especial objects of their attention. The wife should love to remain at home, unless compelled by necessity to go out; and she should never presume to leave home without her husband's consent. Again, and in this the conjugal union chiefly consists, let wives never forget that next to God they are to love their husbands, to esteem them above all others, yielding to them in all things not inconsistent with Christian piety, a willing and ready obedience."
(Roman Catechism, "Duties of a Wife")
The sort of objections you sometimes hear about Williamson - that he panned some pop-culture movie or said women should wear dresses normally, seems right up there with objecting to the Church saying of wives: "she should never presume to leave home without her husband's consent", which I imagine many modern Catholics would.
My friend says he definitely has eccentricities in that department and would get too caught up in things like that. But that he wasn't as extreme on the council/Rome issue as he was protrayed.
I think the statement means that women should not take jobs outside the home unless it is necessary and the husband approves. I'm sure it doesn't mean we can't run to the mall without DH's permission! I know that sounds terribly retro...but you'd be surprised how many women, in many faiths, follow that advice.
"To train their children in the practice of virtue and to pay particular attention to their domestic concerns should also be especial objects of their attention. The wife should love to remain at home, unless compelled by necessity to go out; and she should never presume to leave home without her husband's consent. Again, and in this the conjugal union chiefly consists, let wives never forget that next to God they are to love their husbands, to esteem them above all others, yielding to them in all things not inconsistent with Christian piety, a willing and ready obedience."
(Roman Catechism, "Duties of a Wife")
Full bonus points for hitting the nail squarely on the head! According to many, Bishop Williamson is that "kook" who actually believes what is taught in the Roman Catechism. Can you get any kookier than that?
What is most amusing is the agreement between the neo-Catholics and the sedevacantists regarding Bishop Williamson's "split" from the rest of the SSPX bishops. Both groups fantasize about an imaginary split, and for very similar reasons.
Time will tell (and it probably won't be too much time). I am notoriously unable to predict the future even when it involves only myself and only what I'll be doing an hour from now, so I make no predictions about what Bishop Fellay or Bishop Williamson will be doing in the future.
Williamson is a world-class antisemitic lunatic who thinks women shouldn't go to College.
Well, let me say that my eminently sensible wife, who does not wear pants out of the house anymore, who needs to defend her traditionalist credentials to no one, and who has regularly attended Society chapels, was at a Mass where Bishop Williamson showed up. She does NOT think highly of him, and has heard him...for instance...expound on the sinfulness of wearing lacy underwear, and she almost walked out once when he started denying the Holocaust. The SSPX priest in residence even made a special point of prepping the congregration a week before he came to be careful about what they wore and said, etc. He was saying all this to SSPXers, mind you, who are generally not known for their tolerance of immodest fashions.
My wife and I talked about it this morning, and she's fairly convinced that a) he won't come back, and b) we're better off without him unless he works on his "problem" areas. She foresees a schism within the Society, with him on the other side.