The Vatican began talks on Monday with an ultra-traditionalist Catholic splinter group, one of whose bishops has denied the full extent of the Holocaust, with the aim of re-integrating it fully into the Church. Vatican officials and leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) discussed what a statement called “doctrinal differences still outstanding” between the group and Rome.

(Photo: Swiss guards at St. Peter’s Basilica, 25 Oct 2009/Tony Gentile)

The traditionalists reject many of the reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, which modernised many aspects of the 1.1 billion member Church, including its liturgy, its relations with other Christians and its view of Jews.

The group, numbering several hundred thousand members, insists that it represents the true faith, and opposes the way the Church has evolved over the past 40 years. The SSPX says the Vatican and the vast majority of the Church went off the rails at the Council.

Read the full story here.

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As planned negotiations between the Vatican and the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) near, the group’s Swiss leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, has spelled out his view of what the Roman Catholic Church must do to resolve the crisis he believes it is in. “The solution to the crisis is a return to the past,” he has told a magazine published by the SSPX in South Africa.

(Photo: Bishop Fellay in Ecône, Switzerland, 29 June 2009/Denis Balibouse)

Fellay said Pope Benedict agrees with the SSPX on the need to maintain the Church’s links to the past, but still wants to keep some reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). “This is one of the most sensitive problems,” he said. “We hope the discussions will allow us to dispel the grave ambiguities that have spread through the Catholic Church since (the Council), as John Paul II himself recognised.”

Benedict has, in fact, listed SSPX acceptance of Vatican II reforms was a Vatican conditions in the talks.

In the same interview with the magazine Tradition, he also indicated the SSPX was ready to add several new issues to the agenda of the talks that could drag on the sessions for years. The talks are due to start later this month.

Fellay, who was readmitted into the Roman Catholic Church in January with three other bishops after two decades of excommunication, said the Church was in such a crisis that it would take more than one generation of “constant efforts in the right direction” and possibly as long as a century to overcome it.

He said he had no idea how long the SSPX’s doctrinal discussions with the Vatican would take.  “This will certainly also depend on what Rome expects. They could take quite a long time.”

Fellay then indicated the SSPX could also contribute to dragging out these talks as much as possible. “The issues are vast,” he told the magazine. “Our principle objections to the Council, such as religious liberty, ecumenism and collegiality are well known. But other objections could be posed, such as the influence of modern philosophy, the liturgical novelties, the spirit of the world and its influence on the modern thought that holds sway in the Church.”

(Photo: St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, 24 Dec. 2007/Max Rossi)

Vast is certainly the way to describe that agenda. The questions are so broad they could take years of debate before agreement is reached, if at all. And the SSPX would presumably want to have these issues discussed and agreed on before negotiations about the Vatican II reforms could start. Does this amount to what is known in their beloved Latin as putting off something ad kalendas graecas (to the Greek calends), i.e. forever?

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(Photo: Video grab of Bishop Anders Arborelius on Swedish TV, 23 Sept 2009)

There’s nothing new about tit-for-tat and finger-pointing in diplomacy and politics but the Vatican is usually quite careful not to wash its dirty laundry in public. So it was surprising to see some of the principal characters in the the long-running saga of Richard Williamson, the traditionalist bishop who sparked a crisis in Catholic-Jewish relations when he denied the extent of the Holocaust on Swedish television, now spatting in public over it.

Just when the Vatican thought it had put the Williamson affair behind it, the story has came back to haunt the Holy See. On Wednesday evening, the Swedish television network SVT aired a follow-up to its January 2009 documentary about the Society of St Pius X (SSPX). That program sparked off a public controversy because the Vatican lifted excommunications on Williamson and three other SSPX bishops three days later, creating the impression the Church either didn’t know or didn’t care about his Holocaust statement. In the uproar that followed, Pope Benedict once again condemned Holocaust denial and said he hadn’t known about the statements in advance. Usually discreet Vatican officials publicly blamed others for not informing him.

(Photo: Bishop Richard Williamson, 28 Feb 2007/Jens Falk)

The new report on the “Uppdrag granskning” (Assignment: Investigate) program said the Vatican knew about Williamson’s views well before the bans on the SSPX bishops were lifted. To make matters worse, in conjunction with the new broadcast, the website of Stockholm’s Roman Catholic diocese posted a note saying Bishop Anders Arborelius and the Vatican nuncio to Sweden told the Holy See in November 2008 about the not-yet-aired interview that Williamson had given to Swedish television in which he said “I believe there were no gas chambers”. The interview was recorded in Germany in November 2008 and aired in Sweden on 21 January 2009. See our latest story on this here.

Now, in an interview with the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (excertps in German here and English here), the Vatican official at the center of the controversy, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, is fighting back. Castrillon Hoyos was until July the head of Ecclesia Dei, the department set up by Pope John Paul in 1988 to try to bring the traditionalists back into the fold. He said “None of us knew about Bishop Williamson’s statements. None of us!” and then he adds this: “And no one had the duty to know it!”

In the full text of the interview published only in the print edition, Castrillon Hoyos fired away at Bishop Arborelius for saying he informed the Vatican last November. “I regret this dubious statement very much because it is wrong,” he said. “Spreading this information is slander. We store digitally all documents that we get. So Bishop Arborelius should say how, to whom and when he communicated that, and whether this was done in writing or orally.”

(Photo: Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, 25 Dec 2005/Alessandro Bianchi)

Williamson’s interview and the story and reactions to it made headlines in the Italian and international media for days afterwards. Radio Vatican’s German service reported on it as early as January 23. While defending himself, the cardinal implied he was completely unaware of all that for two weeks: “I was only informed of his (Williamson’s) statements on Feb 5. The nunciature had informed the Secretariat of State, which then gave me the information in sealed envelope that I have kept.” In his defence, he added that no other bishops had ever told him about Williamson’s views.

After being presented as the guilty party by others, Castrillon Hoyos took his turn to point the finger — at Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Congregation of Bishops: “If anyone should have known about Williamson’s statements, he was the one. He was working for many years in the Secretariat of State. And now he runs the Congregation of Bishops, which has the task over watching over the bishops.”

The question of who knew what and when in the Vatican has never been fully answered and the broadside from Castrillon Hoyos did not shed much light. The Vatican press office has several times asserted that Pope Benedict did not know anything about Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust when the excommunications were lifted. “Affirming or even insinuating that the Pope was informed beforehand of Williamson’s position is absolutely groundless,” chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Wednesday when before the follow-up program that Swedish television was about to air.

(Photo: Cardinal Battista Re, 13 April 2005/Max Rossi)

According to Vatican sources, Lombardi himself was involved in a spat with Castrillion Hoyos earlier this year. He told the French newspaper La Croix in February that if anyone in the Vatican should have known about Williamson’s background, it was Castrillon Hoyos. The cardinal was reportedly infuriated and pulled rank and some sources say he demanded an apology from Lombardi, which he got.

The Vatican’s communications disaster, both internal and external, over the Williamson affair was clear from the start. Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the the Vatican office that oversees relations with Jews, was furious at the time of the lifting of the excommunications because he had not been informed ahead of time. Even the pope said that the Vatican had to learn how to use the internet. After the Williamson affair many journalists noted that his positions on the Holocaust and Jews were out there for all to see for some time.

What do you think the whole saga says about how the Vatican communicates internally and externally?

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Doctrinal discussions between the Vatican and the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) will begin in the second half of October, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi has said. He also confirmed the Vatican delegation will be made up of the Swiss Dominican Rev. Charles Morerod, the German Jesuit Rev. Karl Josef Becker and the Spanish vicar general of Opus Dei, Rev. Fernando Ocariz Brana. The Vatican Radio report gave no further details.

(Photo: St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, 24 Dec. 2007/Max Rossi)

This shoots down one part of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s interview last weekend in the Passauer Neue Presse, where he said the first meeting would take place “in the next few days.”

It says nothing about his other point, that the Vatican will insist the SSPX accepts “such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right.” That point is far more important than the date, which is why our news item on Sunday led off with that angle, and it remains the main issue at these talks.

The Vatican Radio report in Italian spoke of “conversations” (colloqui) between the Vatican and the SSPX, but I still think Schönborn’s use of the term “negotiations” (Verhandlungen) is more appropriate. The SSPX wants full reintegration into the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican has the power to decide if and how this happens. Sounds like a negotiation to me, no matter which language they use to describe it.

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Doctrinal negotiations between the Vatican and the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) are due to start “in the next few days,” according to Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, and Rome will not “let the Lefebvrists off easy for everything.”

In particular, he told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper in Bavaria over the weekend, “the SSPX will be told very clearly what is not negotiable for the Holy See. This includes such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right.” Here is our news story.

(Photo: Cardinal Schönborn, 16 March 2008/Herwig Prammer)

This is going to be interesting. The SSPX has been insisting for decades that it represents the true Roman Catholic faith while the Vatican and the vast majority of the Church took a wrong turn at Vatican II. By allowing wider use of the traditional Latin Mass and revoking the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops, Pope Benedict has taken two of the group’s main rallying points off the table. Now it comes down to the core issue of accepting the fundamental reforms of the 1962-1965 Council concerning Catholicism’s relations with other religions.

So will the SSPX accept the Vatican ultimatum, if indeed it turns out to be as clear as Schönborn portrays it?

Certainly not right away. Possibly not at all. Maybe only in part (if past practice is anything to go by).

In their public statements, SSPX bishops were triumphant after the decree lifting the excommunications was published and determined to stand firm in its meetings with the Vatican. It’s interesting to note that they describe these upcoming sessions as “meetings” or “doctrinal discussions” (entretiens doctrinaux), while Schönborn calls them “negotiations” (Verhandlungen). Since the full reintegration of the SSPX is at stake, the word “negotiations” seems more suited to these sessions.

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four readmitted, said the bishops had no intention of changing their views in these sessions.” No, absolutely not,” he said. “We do not change our positions, but we have the intention of converting Rome, that is, to lead Rome towards our positions.”

(Photo: Bishop Tissier de Mallerais/SSPX photo)

Bishop Richard Williamson, whose denial of the Holocaust-era gas chambers overshadowed the reporting of the ban lifting, wrote on his blog:“No doubt some Conciliarists in Rome are hoping that the Decree will serve to draw the SSPX back into the fold of Vatican II, but the Decree itself, as it stands, commits the Society to nothing more than to entering into those discussions to which the Society committed itself in 2000 when it proposed the liberation of the Mass and the ending of the “excommunications” as preconditions in the first place.”

SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay, who has said the negotiations would be “not necessarily short, maybe even long,” has been more nuanced. On the one hand, he told the Italian agency APCom (here in English) in July: “We will not make any compromise on the Council. I have no intention of making a compromise. The truth does not tolerate compromise. We do not want a compromise, we want clarity regarding the Council.”

On the other hand, at the ordination of eight new SSPX priests in Ecône, Switzerland held in June despite Vatican warnings, Fellay said: “The biggest problem is philosophical. Two philosophies meet: the classical scholastic philosophy and modern philosophy. The pope is very eclectic and we feel that he has been marked by a subjective philosophy — less when he talks about morality than when he speaks in the abstract. Our scholastic philosophy is more objective.” The pope and the SSPX, he said, may be speaking “about the same thing, but differently.”

The German SSPX chapter seems to be on a similar wavelength. In a report on its website, it said the three theologians reported to make up the Vatican team at the sessions “are all Thomists, so a fruitful discussion should be possible.”

(Photo: Bishop Fellay in Ecône, 29 June 2009/Denis Balibouse)

French religion writer Nicolas Senèze, author of a history of the SSPX called La crise intégriste (The Traditionalist Crisis), wrote on FaithWorld from Ecône that Fellay’s statement was “a timid opening.” Could it actually be an audacious opening gambit? Up until now, the SSPX only aimed to convince the Vatican that it was wrong about the Council. Now it also wants to persuade it that Benedict, a tireless preacher against relativism, is a subjective and faulty philosopher. Get ready for some long and difficult negotiations.

UPDATE: Jean-Marie Guénois at Le Figaro reports the talks will not start until mid-October.

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The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Nicolas Senèze is deputy editor of the religion service at the French Catholic daily La Croix and author of La crise intégriste, a history of the SSPX. He wrote this for FaithWorld (translation by Reuters) after covering the ordinations in Ecône for La Croix.

(Photo: Bishop Fellay greets children in Ecône, in Valais canton in southwestern Switzerland, 29 June 2009/Denis Balibouse)

By Nicolas Senèze

Bishop Bernard Fellay has gone and done it. On the morning of June 29, before crowds of the faithful gathered on the large meadow outside the Saint Pius X seminary in Ecône, Switzerland, the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX) ordained eight new priests. Just like Bishop Alfonso de Galaretta did on Friday in Zaitzkofen, Germany, and Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais 10 days ago in Winona, Minnesota in the United States. They went ahead and ordained these men despite the Vatican’s declaration that the ordinations were “illegitimate”, i.e. illegal according to the law of the Roman Catholic Church.

Was this a provocation by the SSPX against Pope Benedict, whose flag flies above the seminary? Absolutely not, a very self-confident Bishop Fellay responded to journalists who had journeyed to this Swiss Alpine village for the ceremony. “There is a tacit tolerance from Rome,” said the Swiss-born bishop, whose 20-year excommunication was lifted in January along with the three other bishops drummed out of the Church in 1988. “We did not have an explicit order not to do this. I have contacts with Rome, I’m not just making this up out of thin air. Rome knows this is not a provocation on our part.”

In any event, for Bishop Fellay, the SSPX is in the “state of necessity” which canon law mentions when it allows derogations from Church rules. “If everything went well in the Church, our gesture would have been disobedience. But all is not well in the Church,” he said calmly. “We see such scandals at Mass, we hear sermons so contrary to the faith!”

This is the same “state of necessity” that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre invoked in the 1970s and 1980s, when he went ahead with priestly ordinations without having the power to do so. At the time, the SSPX, which had been dissolved by the bishop of Fribourg with the endorsement of Pope Paul VI, had no official status in the Church. Pope John Paul had asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to settle the Lefebvre case. The CDF prefect at the time was named … Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

(Photo: Candidates for SSPX priesthood in procession before their ordination in Ecône, Switzerland, 29 June 2009/Denis Balibouse)

Early this year, the same person, who became pope in 2005, lifted the excommunications pronounced after the collapse of the talks he had conducted in 1988 with Archbishop Lefebvre. Again, the case will now be entrusted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - a sign that the differences with these fundamentalists are primarily theological. But that means there is also a red line not to cross — the fundamentalists must accept the authority of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the post-conciliar magisterium of the popes.

“The biggest problem is philosophical,” Bishop Fellay observed. “Two philosophies meet: the classical scholastic philosophy and modern philosophy. The pope is very eclectic and we feel that he has been marked by a subjective philosophy — less when he talks about morality than when he speaks in the abstract. Our scholastic philosophy is more objective.”

So Bishop Fellay thinks that Rome and Ecône may speak “about the same thing, but differently.” This is a timid opening, but it must be appreciated for what it is. Only a little while ago, the SSPX Council firmly rejected Vatican II as a council tainted by error.

In essence, Bishop Fellay is saying that the fundamental issue is less the Council itself than its interpretation. “There are differences of position within the Catholic Church that are larger and more serious than those we have with Rome,” he said. “The Council texts opened the door to interpretations. It may be necessary that the pope clarifies them, as Paul VI did on collegiality. But when the pope condemned the hermeneutic of discontinuity, he condemned 80% of what is happening in the Church!”

What’s your opinion? Is 80% of what goes on in the Catholic Church wrong?

(For readers of French, here are La Croix readers’ reactions to the ordinations)

The Vatican warning to the ultra-traditionalist SSPX not to ordain new priests this month without Roman approval had no discernible effect on the rebel Catholic group. Soon after the Vatican declared the ordinations would be illegitimate, Father Yves Le Roux, rector of the SSPX’s St Thomas Aquinas seminary in Winona, Minnesota, said the ordination of 13 new priests there would go ahead on Friday.

“Absolutely. We are doing it,” he told our Vatican correspondent Philip Pullella by telephone. “This is something the Vatican feels it has to say. It’s a political statement but the reality is totally different.”

(Photo: SSPX ordains deacons in Écône, Switzerland, 3 April 2009/Valentin Flauraud)

The SSPX seminary at Zaitzkofen, in the German state of Bavaria, declared its intention to go ahead with its June 27 ordinations in a statement posted on its website on Monday (here in German original and in English). It argued that Pope Benedict’s decision in January to lift the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops was a “confidence-building measure for the coming theological discussions with representatives of the Holy See” meant to thrash out an official position in the Church for the SSPX.” Further ordinations are due at the SSPX headquarters in Écône, Switzerland on June 29.

Defying a papal warning against ordaining new priests before its official status was clarified seems to be the opposite of a confidence-building measure on the SSPX’s part. As the BBC’s David Willey put it in his report from Rome tonight, Pope Benedict “gave them an inch and they took a mile.”

So the SSPX has thrown the ball back into the Vatican’s court. The Vatican statement said “the ordinations should still be considered illegitimate” and “doctrinal and, consequently, also disciplinary questions still remain open.” That leaves open the option of a further reaction from Rome, or possibly from Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Or there might be no reaction, just that curious Vatican silence that caused it such trouble after the Regensburg speech and the readmission of the Holocaust-denying SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. That would leave the narrow issue unresolved and pose wider questions about Pope Benedict’s leadership.

The Vatican has thrown down the gauntlet to the ultra- traditionalist Society of Saint Piux X (SSPX), which planned to ordain 27 new priests this month without approval from Rome. A statement by the Vatican press office today declared that the ordinations would be illegitimate. The four SSPX bishops were only readmitted into the Roman Catholic Church in January after 20 years of excommunication. If they go ahead and ordain the priests anyway, they could risk being disciplined — possibly even excommunicated — again.

The SSPX claims its fidelity to the old Latin Mass and rejection of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) reforms represent authentic Catholicism as opposed to the “modernism” practiced in the world’s largest church since then. It has also claimed to be loyal to the pope, although this was always hedged with reservations about his authority because of the doctrinal dispute over Vatican II. Having won its bishops’ readmission without making any concessions, it looked set to test the limits again by ordaining priests without Vatican permission.

The Vatican statement quoted a March 10 letter by Pope Benedict to Catholic bishops saying the SSPX did not have any official status within the Church and would have to negotiate it in discussions with Rome. “Until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church,” he wrote.

After quoting that, the Vatican statement said: “So the ordinations should still be considered illegitimate.” It added that there were “reasons to think that the definition of that new status is near” and that “doctrinal and, consequently, also disciplinary questions still remain open.”

(Photo: Pope Benedict, 17 June 2009/Max Rossi)

The statement comes at the last minute — 13 of the 21 were due to be ordained at an SSPX seminariy in Winona, Minnesota on Friday. The rest were planned in Ecône, Switzerland and Zaitzkofen, Germany on June 27. The ball is now in the SSPX’s court, to go ahead with them after all, or not.

Is Benedict listening more to his critics? His decision to readmit the SSPX bishops in January amid an uproar over Holocaust denial by one of them was a public relations disaster that reaped critical comments from several bishops’ conferences in Europe. In recent weeks, three German bishops — including Robert Zollitsch, president of their conference — openly criticised the planned SSPX ordinations and urged the Vatican to intervene. And now it has.

Several readers objected to the headline on our last post on this issue — “SSPX set to push the envelope against the Vatican again” and suggested that calling the ordinations a challenge was only my personal opinion. One quoted the great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas at length to try to show the SSPX was not actually being disobedient by ignoring the pope’s warning that it could not “legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.” As a reporter covering the Catholic Church, I have to assume the pope’s words carry weight. Measured against that warning, the ordination plan did indeed amount to a bid to “push the envelope against the Vatican again.” With this statement, the Vatican has identified the plan as a challenge and declared it illegitimate in advance.

Roma locuta, causa finita? (Rome has spoken, the case is closed?) — let’s see.

The ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), recently in the headlines for having a Holocaust denier as one of its four bishops recently readmitted to the Roman Catholic Church, looks set to push the envelope with Rome again by ordaining 21 new priests in three different countries on June 27.* Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, the German diocese where the SSPX seminary at Zaitzkofen plans to ordain three of those men, has declared the planned ordinations a violation of Church law and has urged the Vatican to warn the SSPX not to go through with them. He told Bavarian Radio on Sunday that he hadn’t heard back from Rome yet and would bring up the issue with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) personally on his next monthly trip there.

*CORRECTION: Not all will be ordained that day — 13 priests will be ordained in Minnesota on June 19.

(Photo: Bishop Müller, 21 Sept 2007/Michael Dalder)

In the subtle ways of the Vatican, a non-response from Rome to a bishop’s query is like the yellow signal on a traffic light. It’s neither yes nor no, in that vague way that says if it’s not openly forbidden, one might be able to live with it, but, uh, we don’t want to put that in writing, so over to you. The question now is whether the Vatican will opt to live with this latest challenge to its authority.

The Vatican has made several concessions to the SSPX, the biggest being the lifting in January of the 1988 excommunications of its four bishops. This meant they were back in good standing as Catholics, but they had no official function as bishops and therefore (presumably) should not use their episcopal privileges without permission from their ecclesiastical superiors. But once the uproar over the Holocaust denials by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson died down, the SSPX announced it would go ahead with the planned ordinations — three in Zaitzkofen, 13 at the St Thomas Aquinas Seminary at Winona, Minnesota and the rest at the SSPX headquarters at Ecône, Switzerland. “The benevolent act of the Holy See cannot be interpreted as a desire to asphyxiate the Society of St. Pius X,” it said in a statement.

Pope Benedict, in an extraordinary mea culpa letter after the uproar over Williamson, called the lifting of the excommunications a “discreet gesture of mercy” and “a gesture of reconciliation.” He then asked: “Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole?” He said that welcoming back other rebel communities had “changed their interior attitudes” and “enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole.” So Benedict seems to see the lifting of the excommunications as a magnanimous gesture that would be matched by more flexibility from the steadfast SSPX.

(Photo: Pope Benedict, 7 June 2009/Max Rossi)

In an June 1 interview with Vatican Radio, Bishop Müller said he contacted the Zaitzkofen seminary after learning of the planned ordinations. “I told them the ordinations violated canon law and that, in such a precarious situation, one must let Rome say how to proceed … One must simply suspend everything until this society’s position in canon law is cleared up. In the letter the society wrote to the pope in January, it said it fully accepted the pope’s primacy … they are not prepared to accept the consequences.”

On Bavarian Radio, he said the CDF “should say, in a theologically clear way, that both those seeking and those performing the ordinations are not acting legally and the ordinations are therefore not allowed, even if they are formally valid.” He said he wanted to ask the prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada, about this.

Do you agree with Bishop Müller that the SSPX decision to proceed with the ordinations is a provocation? Should the Vatican put its foot down and insist these bishops show the respect for authority that they pledged in their appeal for the excommunications to be lifted? Or should Rome let them go ahead, in the interest of healing the only schism resulting from the Second Vatican Council?

The Vatican’s official spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi S.J., has issued the following statement on the letter Pope Benedict has sent to Roman Catholic bishops around the world about the controversy over the readmission of four excommunicated ultre-traditionalist bishops to the Church. In view of the controversy surrounding that step and the Vatican’s admittedly clumsy handling of its announcement, we wanted to run the statement in full below. Again, any comments on how you see this controversy are welcome.

(Photo: rev. Federico Lombardi, 13 June 2007/Herbert Neubauer)

The difficult commitment to reconciliation

The “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre” is definitely an unusual document and deserves all our attention. Never before in his Pontificate has Benedict XVI expressed himself in such a personal manner and intensity on a controversial subject. There isn’t the slightest doubt: this Letter bears his mark, from beginning to end.

The Pope has lived this event, the remission of the excommunication, and the following reactions with an involvement and suffering that are manifest. He speaks of a “discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time”, and has felt the need to intervene to “contribute to peace in the Church”, a peace that has been disturbed.

With his usual lucidity and humility, he recognises the shortcomings and the mistakes which have had a negative influence on the course of events; and with great nobility, he doesn’t make others shoulder the responsibility, thus showing his solidarity with his collaborators. He speaks of insufficient information pertaining to the Williamson case, and lack of clarity in presenting the measure of remission of excommunication and about its meaning. However, this is not the most significant aspect of his reflexions.

Whereas the “Williamson case”, misconstrued as a denial of the path of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, is fortunately behind us, the Pope reminds us, with legitimate pride, that the sharing and promotion of all the steps accomplished for the reconciliation since the Council, have been “since the beginning the objective of his own theological work”; and he thanks the “Jewish friends” for their contribution in re-establishing quickly an atmosphere of trust, although a certain sadness still lingers because of the attacks coming from certain Catholics on this subject.

The Pope then sets out to clarify the nature, the meaning and the intentions of the remission of excommunication; he explains that, since excommunication was a punishment for persons who had accomplished an act that endangered Church unity by not recognising the Pope’s authority, therefore, now that the persons who were thus sanctioned have shown their acknowledgment of the Pope’s authority, the remission of the excommunication was a warm invitation to their returning within the unity of the Church.

The Pope makes a distinction as far as the problem of the juridical recognition of the Saint Pius X Fraternity is concerned, linking it clearly to doctrinal questions about the acceptance of Vatican II Council and the magisterium of the Popes since that Council. Until that happens, their representatives will not be able to fulfil any recognised ministry in a legitimate way in the Church.

A central point of the Letter concerning the Pope’s decision - in the light of the mainly doctrinal nature of the needed clarification - is the join the Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, for the relations with the traditionalist communities, with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, thus ensuring a better practice of collegiality in the procedure and decision making. With this perspective of a renewal in the Curia’s organisation, the Pope gives an answer to most of the objections concerning the making of the recent measure, especially to the episcopates more directly implicated.

However, there still remains the question of many people, in the light of the recent tensions: Was this measure of remission of excommunication really necessary ? Weren’t there in the Church questions of greater importance and urgency ?

The answer to this question makes up more than half of the Letter. The Pope’s writing becomes more and more intense. Benedict XVI feels deeply challenged in his responsibility as Pastor of the universal Church, and compelled to clarify, without hesitation, his brothers in the Episcopate, co-responsible of the well-being of the Church, about the priorities and the spirit in which he carries out his service.

In a nutshell, he recalls the great priorities of his Pontificate, which were anyway clearly said from the very first day: lead men to God, the God who revealed himself in the Bible and in Christ; Christian unity; dialogue between those who believe in God, at the service of peace; testimony of love according to the social dimension of Christian life.

However, the Pope then goes on to invite his interlocutors to a personal and ecclesial reflexion in a committed and urgent manner. That a gesture, intended to be merciful in view of reconciliation, should give rise to a situation of acute tension, is a paradox that should compel us to questioning so as to discern about the spiritual attitudes that have been manifest and at work in this event.

The first criterion that the Pope asks to reflect upon is the commandment of reconciliation with the “brother who has something against you”, according to what the Lord said on his ‘Sermon on the Mount’.

The Pope’s questions become pressing, animated by a vivid preoccupation for unity. Without losing any sense of realism, for he recalls the grave defects of the traditionalists, but equally critical in a realistic way, the Pope feels obliged to ….. in the conflict between members of the Church and of society who seem to oppose, with unyielding intransigence, every effort of reconciliation, or simply any recognition of positive elements in others. The spiritual realism reaches its zenith when he evokes saint Paul’s injunction to the Galatians “not to bite and devour each other”.

The reflexion concludes with yet another passionate invitation to love as an absolute priority for the Christian, and a profound aspiration for peace in the Church community.

Beyond the errors or mishaps, which are recognised in a fair manner and overcome when possible, beyond any human prudence that calls to avoid touching sensitive points, the Pope brings us back, with firmness and courage to the Gospel as fundamental and ultimate criterion, not only of Christian and Church life, but of the government of the Church as well.

For it is only through mutual conversion to this Gospel that we can hope to overcome the divisions, and to be able to understand the profound convergence between Tradition and Council.

Finally, we are led to understand that our Pope, by his personal commitment in these situations of crisis, brings us to rediscover the essential point, more profound and radical, which will enable us to resume our journey.

F.L.