Description
In this interview, Thomas Williams talks for the first time publicly about the reasons he decided to step down from his prominent position as a leading priest of the Legionaries of Christ and to cease his priestly ministry to become a husband and a father to his son, Joshua, who has Down Syndrome. Williams was one of the leading priests in the Legion, the dean of the theological faculty of their Roman university, and a very prominent spokesman for the Legion worldwide, with appearances on CNN, BBC, Fox News, and other major global television networks. Williams now lives in Rome with his wife, Elizabeth Lev — the two were married in a church in New York on December 7 — and their son, Joshua, a few steps from the Vatican. Williams was a close associate of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, and knew the founder personally. In this interview, Williams agreed to talk about his own childhood and upbringing, his vocation to the priesthood, his ordination, his years as a leading Legionary in Rome, his relationship with Liz Lev which led to the birth of a son, his years of hesitation before deciding to leave his priestly ministry, marry Lev, and commit himself fully to raising Joshua. Williams speaks openly about the struggle he passed through, his emotional turmoil as he was torn between his duty to serve as a priest and his responsibility to care for the woman with whom he had fallen and love and fathered a child. In the end, Williams decided to leave the priesthood and commit himself to his wife and son, and in so doing, he found inner peace. The interview was conducted over several hours, and portions of it were published in the February issue of the monthly magazine Inside the Vatican. The iPad and Kindle edition is in the ePub format. For the iPad, we recommend you open the file in iBooks.
