Joseph A. Williams
Joseph Andrew Williams was born on May 2, 1974, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the third of nine children of Dr. Gary and Mary McDonald Williams, and grew up in Stillwater, attending St. Croix Catholic School and Stillwater High School. He took a biology degree at the University of Minnesota, Morris (summa cum laude, 1996), studied philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and entered the Saint Paul Seminary in 1998. He was ordained a priest on May 28, 2002, at twenty-eight.
His priesthood was given, from the first, to Spanish-speaking Catholics. After the Cathedral of Saint Paul and Divine Mercy in Faribault, he pastored St. Mathias in Hampton and St. Mary in New Trier, then spent fourteen years as pastor of St. Stephen in Minneapolis, a heavily Latino parish whose park evangelization outreach he built. He became vicar for Latino ministry in 2018. In May 2020, as riots followed the death of George Floyd, he personally drove a parish family through blocked streets to safety and sheltered displaced families in his rectory.
Pope Francis made him an auxiliary bishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on December 10, 2021; consecrated on January 25, 2022, he took the motto Misericordiam volo - 'I desire mercy.' Named coadjutor bishop of Camden on May 21, 2024, he succeeded Bishop Dennis Sullivan on March 17, 2025, as the diocese ninth bishop. His first year was dominated by the inherited abuse settlement: the diocese dropped its objection to the state grand-jury investigation, and in February 2026 he announced a $180 million settlement for some 300 survivors.
- 2025-03-17Williams took possession of Camden by succession on the acceptance of Sullivan resignation, announced that day; the diocesan calendar shows his first Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception the same day at 12:05 p.m. He inherited two 1962-Missal sites: Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, and St. Gianna Beretta Molla, Northfield. No statement, decree or norms by Williams on Traditionis Custodes has been found at any point in his tenure. ↗
- 2025-08-15Mater Ecclesiae held its 25th annual Solemn Choral Mass for the Assumption at the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, as in every year of the TC era, and its Berlin church continued its full schedule of traditional Masses and sacraments through 2025 and into 2026 (parish website fetched October 2026). The diocese dedicated traditional church was left entirely undisturbed in his first year. ↗
- 2026-06-28The Sunday Traditional Latin Mass at St. Gianna Beretta Molla Parish, Northfield, was celebrated for the last time. Its celebrant, Fr. Anthony J. Manuppella, retired, and the permission of the Holy See under which the parish-church Mass ran - a three-year permission held by him personally, per the diocese - was not renewed for his successor. An unverified second-hand parishioner comment, relayed by Gloria.tv, alleges pleas from the retiring pastor and the congregation were refused; no request, petition, or refusal by Williams has been evidenced in the record searched. The successor administrator instead offers a Sunday noon Mass in Latin from the reformed Missal, celebrated ad orientem (parishioner reports, via Gloria.tv / Fr. Z blog). ↗
- 2026-08-19The Record (NorthJersey.com) reported the cancellation and the diocese official explanation, from spokesman Michael Walsh: the priest had the permission of the Holy See to offer the Latin Mass for a three-year period, retired, and 'had his dispensation retired'; the Mass 'is not to be celebrated in a parish church without the permission of the Holy See' and must be offered by a priest specifically trained for it. The diocese public framing is expiry, not suppression; no diocesan statement by Bishop Williams himself on the ending has been found. ↗
- 2024-05-21Pope Francis appointed Williams coadjutor bishop of Camden with the right of succession. He was received at a vespers service on September 9, 2024 and a Mass of Welcome on September 10, 2024. A coadjutor does not occupy the see: Bishop Sullivan retained full responsibility for the diocese throughout this entry, and no act of governance, on the old Mass or anything else, is attributable to Williams in this period. ↗
- 2025-03-17On the acceptance of Sullivan resignation, Williams succeeded automatically (CIC c. 409 para. 1) and this coadjutor entry closed; his ordinary tenure opens the same day. The diocese was never vacant and no administrator served. ↗
Williams came to a diocese whose old-Mass provision was already built, and built well: Mater Ecclesiae in Berlin, a diocesan church erected in 2000 exclusively for the traditional rites, and a Sunday Traditional Latin Mass at St. Gianna Beretta Molla parish in Northfield, running under a permission of the Holy See. For his first fifteen months he touched neither. He issued no decree and no statement on Traditionis Custodes — none has been found — and Mater Ecclesiae marked its twenty-fifth year, and its twenty-fifth annual Assumption Mass in Philadelphia's cathedral, entirely undisturbed.
In June 2026 the Northfield Mass ended. Its celebrant, Fr. Anthony Manuppella, retired after fifty years of priesthood, and the three-year Holy See permission under which the parish-church Mass ran was held by him personally; when he went, it went. That much is the diocese's own account, given to The Record in August 2026. The rest is inference, and the project does not build a posture on inference: whether the diocese sought renewal, and whether any plea reached the bishop and was refused, is not evidenced in the record searched. The diocese's public framing is expiry, not decision. The new administrator is said to offer a Sunday noon Mass in Latin from the reformed Missal, facing east. A real consolation, and not the same thing.
The verdict, on deeds: no_record. One of the two 1962-Missal sites he inherited was lost on his watch, but by attrition under the standing rule, not by an evidenced act of his: the permission was personal to the celebrant and retired with him, in the diocese's own account to The Record, and no evidenced request to renew or supply another celebrant — and no evidenced refusal — has been found. An unverified second-hand parishioner comment alleging refused pleas does not meet the project's bar for an evidenced choice. The diocese's flagship traditional church stands untouched; after June 2026 the map of the old Mass is one church smaller, and the loss is recorded as attrition, not as his act.