Benedict's letter to bishops on the SSPX bungle...

This is a letter from a humble shepherd.

Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry!

The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many Bishops felt perplexed by an event which came about unexpectedly and was difficult to view positively in the light of the issues and tasks facing the Church today. Even though many Bishops and members of the faithful were disposed in principle to take a positive view of the Pope’s concern for reconciliation, the question remained whether such a gesture was fitting in view of the genuinely urgent demands of the life of faith in our time. Some groups, on the other hand, openly accused the Pope of wanting to turn back the clock to before the Council: as a result, an avalanche of protests was unleashed, whose bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment. I therefore feel obliged to offer you, dear Brothers, a word of clarification, which ought to help you understand the concerns which led me and the competent offices of the Holy See to take this step. In this way I hope to contribute to peace in the Church.

An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four Bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Church’s path. A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council -- steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support. That this overlapping of two opposed processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the Church, is something which I can only deeply deplore. I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility. Precisely for this reason I thank all the more our Jewish friends, who quickly helped to clear up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust which -- as in the days of Pope John Paul II -- has also existed throughout my pontificate and, thank God, continues to exist.

Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication. The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the College of Bishops with the Pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment -- excommunication -- with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council. Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: 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.

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" -- the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope -- to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Popes. The collegial bodies with which the Congregation studies questions which arise (especially the ordinary Wednesday meeting of Cardinals and the annual or biennial Plenary Session) ensure the involvement of the Prefects of the different Roman Congregations and representatives from the world’s Bishops in the process of decision-making. The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 -- this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life. [hahahahaha!]

I hope, dear Brothers, that this serves to clarify the positive significance and also the limits of the provision of 21 January 2009. But the question still remains: Was this measure needed? Was it really a priority? Aren’t other things perhaps more important? Of course there are more important and urgent matters. I believe that I set forth clearly the priorities of my pontificate in the addresses which I gave at its beginning. Everything that I said then continues unchanged as my plan of action. The first priority for the Successor of Peter was laid down by the Lord in the Upper Room in the clearest of terms: "You… strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22:32). Peter himself formulated this priority anew in his first Letter: "Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you" (1 Pet 3:15). In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) -- in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.

Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith -- ecumenism -- is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light -- this is interreligious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love "to the end" has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity -- this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who "has something against you" (cf. Mt 5:23ff.) and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents -- to the extent possible -- in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? 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? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things -- arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them -- in this case the Pope -- he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. [Boom.]

Dear Brothers, during the days when I first had the idea of writing this letter, by chance, during a visit to the Roman Seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another." I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses which we occasionally find in Saint Paul. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this "biting and devouring" also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom? And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love? The day I spoke about this at the Major Seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in Rome. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide -- even in turbulent times. And so I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to all the many Bishops who have lately offered me touching tokens of trust and affection, and above all assured me of their prayers. My thanks also go to all the faithful who in these days have given me testimony of their constant fidelity to the Successor of Saint Peter. May the Lord protect all of us and guide our steps along the way of peace. This is the prayer that rises up instinctively from my heart at the beginning of this Lent, a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, one which invites all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.

With a special Apostolic Blessing, I remain

Yours in the Lord,

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

From the Vatican, 10 March 2009

Williamson hits a homerun in the Der Spiegel interview...

Bishop Richard Williamson's denial of the Holocaust has done serious damage to the Catholic Church. In an e-mail and fax exchange with SPIEGEL, the ultra-conservative bishop says that he is willing to "review the historical evidence."

SPIEGEL: The Vatican is demanding that you retract your denial of the Holocaust, and it is threatening to not allow you to resume your activities as a bishop. How will you react?

Williamson: Throughout my life, I have always sought the truth. That is why I converted to Catholicism and became a priest. And now I can only say something, the truth of which I am convinced. Because I realize that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must now review the historical evidence once again. I said the same thing in my interview with Swedish television: Historical evidence is at issue, not emotions. And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.

SPIEGEL: How can an educated Catholic deny the Holocaust?

Williamson: I addressed the subject in the 1980s. I had read various writings at the time. I cited the Leuchter report (eds. note: a debunked theory produced in the 1980s claiming erroneously that the Nazi gas chambers were technically impractical) in the interview, and it seemed plausible to me. Now I am told that it has been scientifically refuted. I plan now to look into it.

SPIEGEL: You could travel to Auschwitz yourself.

Williamson: No, I will not travel to Auschwitz. I've ordered the book by Jean-Claude Pressac. It's called "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers." A printout is now being sent to me, and I will read it and study it.

SPIEGEL: The Society of Saint Pius X has set an ultimatum for the end of February. Are you not risking a break with the group?

Williamson: In the Old Testament, the Prophet Jonah tells the sailors when their ship is in distress: " Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." The Society has a religious mission that is suffering because of me. I will now examine the historic evidence. If I do not find it convincing, I will do everything in my power to avoid inflicting any further harm on the Church and the Society.

SPIEGEL: What does the repeal of the excommunication by Pope Benedict XVI mean to you?

Williamson: We just want to be Catholic, nothing else. We have not developed our own teachings, but are merely preserving the things that the Church has always taught and practiced. And in the sixties and seventies, when everything was changed in the name of this Council (eds. note: the Second Vatican Council), it was suddenly a scandal. As a result, we were forced to the margins of the church, and now that empty churches and an aging clergy make it clear that these changes were a failure, we are returning to the center. That's the way it is for us conservatives: we are proved right, as long as we wait long enough.

SPIEGEL: People at the Vatican claimed that they didn't know you. Is that true?

Williamson: Most contacts pass through Bishop Fellay and the General Council, of which I am not a member. But three of us four bishops attended a private dinner with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in 2000. It was more about getting to know each other, but we certainly talked about theological issues and even a bit of philosophy. The cardinal was very friendly.

SPIEGEL: The Second Vatican Council counts as one of the great achievements of the Catholic Church. Why do you not fully recognize it?

Williamson: It is absolutely unclear what we are supposed to recognize. An important document is called "Gaudium et spes," or Joy and Hope. In it, the writers rhapsodize about the ability of mass tourism to bring people together. But one can hardly expect a conservative society to embrace package tours. It discusses fears and hardships. And then a nuclear war between the superpowers is mentioned. You see, much of this is already outdated. These Council documents are always ambiguous. Because no one knew what exactly this was supposed to mean, everyone started doing as he wished shortly after the Council. This has resulted in this theological chaos we have today. What are we supposed to recognize, the ambiguity or the chaos?

SPIEGEL: Are you actually aware that you are dividing the Church with your extreme views?

Williamson: Only violation of the dogmas, that is, the infallible principles, destroys faith. The Second Vatican Council declared that it would proclaim no new dogmas. Today the liberal bishops act as though it were some sort of all-encompassing super-dogma, and they use it as justification for a dictatorship of relativism. This contradicts the texts of the Council.

SPIEGEL: Your position on Judaism is consistently anti-Semitic.

Williamson: St. Paul put it this way: The Jews are beloved for the sake of Our Father, but our enemies for the sake of the gospel.

SPIEGEL: Do you seriously intend to use Catholic tradition and the Bible to justify your anti-Semitism?

Williamson: Anti-Semitism means many things today, for instance, when one criticizes the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip. The Church has always understood the definition of anti-Semitism to be the rejection of Jews because of their Jewish roots. This is condemned by the Church. Incidentally, this is self-evident in a religion whose founders and all important individuals in its early history were Jews. But it was also clear, because of the large number of Jewish Christians in early Christianity, that all men need Christ for their salvation -- all men, including the Jews.

SPIEGEL: The pope will travel to Israel soon, where he plans to visit the Holocaust Memorial. Are you also opposed to this?

Williamson: Making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a great joy for Christians. I wish the Holy Father all the best on his journey. What troubles me about Yad Vashem is that Pope Pius XII is attacked there, even though no one saved more Jews during the Nazi period than he did. For instance, he had baptismal certificates issued for persecuted Jews to protect them against arrest. These facts have been distorted to mean exactly the opposite. Otherwise, I hope that the pope will also have an eye and a heart for the women and children who were injured in the Gaza Strip, and that he will speak out in support of the Christian population in Bethlehem, which is now walled in.

SPIEGEL: Your statements have caused great injury and outrage in the Jewish world. Why don't you apologize?

Williamson: If I realize that I have made an error, I will apologize. I ask every human being to believe me when I say that I did not deliberately say anything untrue. I was convinced that my comments were accurate, based on my research in the 1980s. Now I must review everything again and look at the evidence.

SPIEGEL: Do you at least recognize universal human rights?

Williamson: When human rights were declared in France, hundreds of thousands were killed throughout France. Where human rights are considered an objective order for the state to implement, there are constantly anti-Christian policies. When it comes to preserving the individual's freedom of conscience against the democratic state, then human rights perform an important function. The individual needs these rights against a country that behaves like a Leviathan. But the Christian concept of the state is a different one, so that the Christian theories of human rights emphasize that freedom is not an end in itself. The point is not freedom from something, but freedom for something. For good.

SPIEGEL: Your statements and the lifting of your excommunication have triggered protests worldwide. Can you understand this?

Williamson: A single interview on Swedish television has dominated the news for weeks in Germany. Yes, it does surprise me. Is this the case with all violations of the law in Germany? Hardly. No, I am only the tool here, so that action can be taken against the SSPX and the pope. Apparently Germany's leftist Catholicism has not yet forgiven Ratzinger for becoming pope.

Vatican Clarification on Lefebvrites, Holocaust

"The Holy Father Asks Accompaniment in Prayer"

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a note issued today by the Vatican Secretariat of State regarding last month's lifting of the excommunication of four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X.

* * *

In the wake of the reactions elicited by the recent decree from the Congregation for Bishops, with which the excommunication of four prelates of the Fraternity of St. Pius X were lifted, and in relation to negationist or reductionist declarations on the Shoah from Bishop Williamson of that same fraternity, it is considered opportune to clarify certain aspects of the issue.

1. Remission of the excommunication.

As has already been published previously, the decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated Jan. 21, 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father graciously took in the reiterated petitions from the superior-general of the Fraternity of St. Pius X.

His Holiness wished to remove an impediment that adversely affected the opening of a door to dialogue. Now he expects that the same willingness be expressed by the four bishops, in total adhesion to the doctrine and discipline of the Church.

The most grave penalty of excommunication latae sententiae, which these bishops incurred June 30, 1988, afterward declared formally on July 1 of the same year, was a consequence of their illegitimate ordination by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The lifting of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a most grave canonical penalty, but it has not changed in any way the juridical situation of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, which for the moment does not enjoy any canonical recognition in the Catholic Church. Neither do the four bishops, though liberated from the excommunication, have a canonical function in the Church and they do not licitly exercise a ministry in it.

2. Tradition, doctrine and the Second Vatican Council.

For a future recognition of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, the full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition.

As has already been affirmed in the decree of Jan. 21, 2009, the Holy See will not cease, in the ways in which it judges opportune, to go deeper with the interested parties in the questions that remain open, in such a way that a full and satisfactory solution to the problems that have given rise to this painful fracture can be reached.

3. Declaration on the Shoah.

The viewpoints of Bishop Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself noted last Jan. 28, when, referring to that savage genocide, he reaffirmed his full and indisputable solidarity with our brother recipients of the First Covenant, and affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide should induce "humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the human heart," adding that the Shoah remains "for everyone a warning against forgetting, against negating or reductionism, because violence committed against even one human being is violence against all."

Bishop Williamson, to be admitted to episcopal functions in the Church, must also distance himself in an absolutely unmistakable and public way from his position on the Shoah, which was unknown to the Holy Father in the moment of the lifting of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks accompaniment in prayer from all the faithful, that the Lord may enlighten the path of the Church. May there be an increase in the determination of the pastors and all the faithful in support of the delicate and heavy mission of the Successor of the Apostle Peter as "guardian of the unity" of the Church.

From the Vatican, February 4, 2009

John Allen on 'The Lefebvrite case' (bad PR stunt)

[Fr. Z's commentary]

The Lefebvrite case: What was the Vatican thinking?
By John L Allen Jr Weekly
Created Jan 30 2009 – 12:58

On the lecture circuit, I’m sometimes asked for my opinion about the Vatican’s communications strategy. My glib answer generally is, "As soon as they have one, I’ll be glad to tell you what I think of it." [He got it right.]

The line usually draws a few chuckles. However, this week’s furor over the lifting of the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, including one who’s a Holocaust denier, offers a reminder that the lack of PR savvy in Rome is actually no laughing matter.

The story has followed a familiar arc, which one might call the "Regensburg syndrome." The pope says or does something obviously destined to set off fireworks; nonetheless, the Vatican purports to be surprised by the reaction; then, damage control follows. [The premise is that they are not doing this on purpose.]

The containment strategy this time featured a Jan. 27 apology [2] from Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior of the traditionalist Fraternity of St. Pius X, for the incendiary comments of Bishop Richard Williamson, who denied in an interview with Swedish television that the Nazis used gas chambers and asserted that no more than 300,000 Jews were killed in World War II. In a statement released by the Vatican, Fellay also said that Williamson has been barred from further comment on political or historical subjects.

The next day, Benedict XVI recalled the deaths of "millions of Jews" in the Nazi death camps, and expressed his "full and indisputable solidarity" with the Jews. He also said that lifting the excommunications was an act of "paternal mercy" which he hopes will lead the traditionalists to embrace full communion in the church, including acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

As welcome as those statements obviously are, they’ve come only in response to a crisis that clearly should have been anticipated. Claims that the Vatican was caught off-guard don’t cut it; well before Williamson appeared on Swedish TV, he had a public record of Holocaust denial and antagonism toward Jews which a 30-second Google search would have unearthed. [right]

At the outset, let’s stipulate several important bits of nuance:

* First, Benedict XVI sees himself as a friend of the Jewish people, and has no sympathy whatsoever for anti-Semitism or attempts to deny or diminish the Holocaust.
* Second, Williamson’s views don’t represent the whole traditionalist movement. The vast majority of ordinary Catholics attracted to the Latin Mass, or who harbor reservations about doctrinal innovations in the church, are neither bigots nor crackpots.
* Third, the motive for lifting the excommunication is the noble end of fostering unity in the church, striving to heal the only formal schism in the wake of Vatican II.
* Fourth, lifting the excommunication does not mean the Lefebvrites have been "rehabilitated." Canonists say the four prelates remain suspended a divinis, which means they can’t legitimately ordain anyone, establish parishes, and so on. The Fraternity of St. Pius X still has no juridical status. The bottom line, in the words of a Jan. 25 statement from French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, a member of the Vatican’s "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, is that this marks "not the end, but the beginning of a process of dialogue."
* Fifth, part of Benedict’s strength as a leader is that he’s not shackled to the short-term considerations of tomorrow’s headlines. No one should expect him to shrink from making a decision simply because some people might misconstrue his motives.

I want to put all this on the record, [HARK] because I don’t want to be accused of over-simplification or partisanship when I submit the following: The way this decision was communicated was a colossal blunder, and one that’s frankly difficult to either understand or excuse.

To be clear, my point has nothing to do with whether the excommunications should have been lifted in the first place. There’s legitimate debate on that front, and not just due to its implications for Catholic/Jewish relations. There’s also intra-Catholic discussion about what it means for the interpretation of Vatican II, and for the broader direction of the church. Instead, my argument is that even granting that the aim of restoring unity in the church justifies this step, its presentation was stunningly inept.

I take at face value the assurances of Vatican officials that they were unaware of Williamson’s interview, but they hardly needed Swedish television to alert them that something was amiss. In 1989, Williamson narrowly escaped prosecution in Canada for praising the writings of Ernst Zundel, a German-born Canadian immigrant whose works include The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die?, both mainstays of Holocaust denial literature. All this was documented in press coverage at the time. In 1991, Williamson published an open letter referring to "the false messianic vocation of Jewish world-dominion, to prepare the Anti-Christ’s throne in Jerusalem." In 2000, Williamson went on record asserting that the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are legitimate. His reputation was so well-known that in 2008, Shimon Samuels, director of international relations at the Simon Weisenthal Center, told the Catholic Herald in England that Williamson is "the Borat of the schismatic Catholic far-right." [Remember that whole Google search part?]

Further, it’s not as if the Vatican can claim to have been surprised by Jewish reaction. In September 2006, Benedict set off a similar firestorm in the Muslim world with his lecture at Regensburg, in which he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor to the effect that Muhammad had "brought things only evil and inhuman." Regensburg should have brought home the lesson that when the pope does something likely to cause alarm in another religious community, you have to see the train wreck coming in order to avert it. [Unless, of course, they did it on purpose that way.]

What might a more effective communications strategy have looked like? [A valid question.]

Rather than dropping this decree on an unsuspecting world, the Vatican could have called a press conference to present it, with senior officials such as Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews—so that the interpretation would be simultaneous, not after-the-fact. At that time, four key points could have been made:

* This move is not an endorsement of the personal views of these four bishops. In particular, in light of Williamson’s past comments, the pope wishes to clearly repudiate any attempt to diminish or deny the horror of the Holocaust.
* Catholicism’s commitment to fighting anti-Semitism, and to good relations with the Jewish people, is unchanged.
* Lifting the excommunication gets the traditionalists in the door, but it does not mean they have arrived. If they are to be fully reintegrated, they must accept official Catholic teaching, including religious freedom and respect for other religions.
* The pope feels he’ll have more leverage to nudge traditionalists in this direction by opening a dialogue, rather than keeping them on the outside.

That might not have been enough to short-circuit all the negative reaction, but it surely would have softened the blow. All four points were implied in the Jan. 25 statement from Ricard, as well as the Jan. 28 comments by Benedict XVI, but coming only in the wake of negative public reaction they inevitably smack of spin.

In short, the Vatican under Benedict XVI still has not learned the lessons of Regensburg. The terrible irony of these meltdowns is that they’re a boon for people hostile to the pope or the church, who can cluck about how "I told you so," while they fall hardest on those most inclined to be sympathetic. [He has a point.]

Of course, if this cycle continues, there may not be many people left in that second category to worry about. [ouch]

* * *

As noted above, Williamson’s views should not be used to discredit every Catholic who feels the tug of classical liturgical forms, or who takes a traditional doctrinal stance. Many of the people drawn to the Society of St. Pius X, or any of the various traditionalist groups already in communion with Rome, are simply Catholics hungry for a clear sense of spiritual identity in a rootless world.

On the other hand, it would be equally misleading to style Williamson as a "lone gunman," an isolated crank with no connection to broader currents of thought in the traditionalist world.

The folly of that view was illustrated on Thursday by Fr. Floriano Abrahamowicz [5], a well-known priest of the Society of St. Pius X in northeastern Italy, who gave an interview to an Italian paper in which he defended Williamson. Abrahamowicz said he wasn’t sure that gas chambers had been used by the Nazis for anything other than "disinfection," seemed to cast doubt on the number of six million Jews killed, complained that the Holocaust has been exalted by Jews at the expense of other acts of genocide, and called the Jews a "people of deicide," referring to the death of Christ.

The fact that Abrahamowicz would voice these sentiments even after Fellay had apologized, and after Fellay insisted that the Society of St. Pius X has no competence to speak on anything other than faith and morals, illustrates how deeply entrenched they are in some quarters of traditionalist Catholicism.

The Abrahamowicz interview prompted the Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, to go on Vatican Radio to say that "whoever denies the fact of the Shoah knows nothing of the mystery of God, nor of the Cross of Christ." Holocaust denial is "even more serious," Lombardi said, when it "comes from the mouth of a priest or a bishop, meaning a Christian minister, whether or not he’s in union with the Catholic church."

Meanwhile, Fr. Pierpaolo Petrucci, a prior within the Society of St. Pius X, told reporters on Thursday that traditionalists still believe that many aspects of Vatican II "contradict the teaching of previous popes." In particular, Petrucci said the Lefebvrites remain "scandalized" by Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 trip to Turkey, in which the pope paused for a moment of silent prayer in the Blue Mosque alongside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul. Petrucci said that popes before Vatican II had rejected inter-religious relations as a matter of principle, implying that Benedict XVI (like John Paul before him) is some sort of apostate.

In the wake of all this, the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X in Italy has canceled an upcoming national meeting, in order to avoid "further polemics and confusion." Translation: the leadership wasn’t sure it could keep a lid on what might be said on the floor of the meeting, or around the edges. [good thinking]

What recent events make clear is that there are two camps in the small universe that rotates around the Society of St. Pius X. The first, represented by Fellay, is composed of traditionalists whose concerns are solely liturgical and doctrinal, and who see the future of their movement as a leaven within the formal structures of the church; the second, represented by Williamson and Abrahamowicz, includes people for whom theological traditionalism bleeds off into far-right politics, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories, and who are far more suspicious of any "deal" with the post-conciliar church.

Benedict XVI’s calculation seems to be that the former represent the majority, and that the best way to isolate them from the latter is to open the door wide enough that only the real intransigents will refuse to walk through it.The risk, of course, is that the outside world won’t see the pope trying to steer the traditionalists toward moderation; it will instead see the pope rolling out the red carpet for a group that includes Holocaust deniers and hate-mongers.

All the more reason that somebody in the Vatican must think now about how to present the next act in this saga, rather than waiting for misunderstanding and heartache to erupt before cranking into motion.

The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is jallen@ncronline.org

Rome & Traditional Anglicans get ready for union

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

History may be in the making. It appears Rome is on the brink of welcoming close to half a million members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into membership of the Roman Catholic Church, writes Anthony Barich. Such a move would be the most historic development in Anglican-Catholic relations in the last 500 years. But it may also be a prelude to a much greater influx of Anglicans waiting on the sidelines, pushed too far by the controversy surrounding the consecration of practising homosexual bishops, women clergy and a host of other issues.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to recommend the Traditional Anglican Communion be accorded a personal prelature akin to Opus Dei, if talks between the TAC and the Vatican aimed at unity succeed, it is understood.
The TAC is a growing global community of approximately 400,000 members that took the historic step in 2007 of seeking full corporate and sacramental communion with the Catholic Church – a move that, if fulfilled, will be the biggest development in Catholic-Anglican relations since the English Reformation under King Henry VIII.
TAC members split from the Canterbury-based Anglican Communion headed by Archbishop Rowan Williams over issues such as its ordination of women priests and episcopal consecrations of women and practising homosexuals.
The TAC’s case appeared to take a significant step forwards in October 2008 when it is understood that the CDF decided not to recommend the creation of a distinct Anglican rite within the Roman Catholic Church – as is the case with the Eastern Catholic Churches - but a personal prelature, a semi-autonomous group with its own clergy and laity.
Opus Dei was the first organisation in the Catholic Church to be recognised as a personal prelature, a new juridical form in the life of the Church. A personal prelature is something like a global diocese without boundaries, headed by its own bishop and with its own membership and clergy.
Because no such juridical form of life in the Church had existed before, the development and recognition of a personal prelature took Opus Dei and Church officials decades to achieve.
An announcement could be made soon after Easter this year. It is understood that Pope Benedict XVI, who has taken a personal interest in the matter, has linked the issue to the year of St Paul, the greatest missionary in the history of the Church.
The Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls could feature prominently in such an announcement for its traditional and historical links to Anglicanism. Prior to the English Reformation it was the official Church of the Knights of the Garter.
The TAC’s Primate, Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, told The Record he has also informed the Holy See he wants to bring all the TAC’s bishops to Rome for the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman, also an Anglican convert to the Catholic Church, as a celebration of Anglican-Catholic unity.
Although Cardinal Newman’s beatification is considered to be likely by many, the Church has made no announcement that Cardinal Newman will be beatified.
Archbishop Hepworth personally wrote to Pope Benedict in April 2007 indicating that the TAC planned a meeting of its world bishops, where it was anticipated they would unanimously agree to sign the Catechism of the Catholic Church and to seek full union with the Catholic Church.
This took place at a meeting of the TAC in the United Kingdom. TAC bishops placed the signed Catechism on the altar of the most historical Anglican and Catholic Marian shrine in the UK, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, before posting it up in the main street in an effort to gather public support.
Archbishop Hepworth, together with TAC bishops Robert Mercer and Peter Wilkinson, presented the signed items personally to Fr Augustine Di Noia OP, the CDF’s senior ecumenical theologian, on October 11, 2007, in a meeting organised by CDF secretary Archbishop Angelo Amato.
Bishop Mercer, a monk who is now retired and living in England, is the former Anglican Bishop of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Bishop Wilkinson is the TAC’s diocesan bishop in Canada.
TAC’s Canadian Bishop Peter Wilkinson has close ties to the Catholic hierarchy in British Columbia, which has also met the CDF on the issue. He has already briefed Vancouver archdiocesan priests.
One potential problem for the Holy See would be the TAC’s bishops, most of whom are married. Neither the Roman Catholic nor Eastern Catholic churches permit married bishops.
Before he became Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger discussed the issue of married bishops in the 1990s during meetings of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission exploring unity, before the Anglican Church’s ordination of women priests derailed it.
One former Anglican priest who became a Catholic priest told The Record that the ideal end for the TAC would be to become the 28th Rite within the Catholic Church, along with the Eastern Churches, which have the same sacraments and are recognised by Rome.
The TAC’s request is the closest any section of the Anglican Church has ever come to full communion with Rome because the TAC has set no preconditions. Instead it has explicitly submitted itself entirely to the Holy See’s decisions.
Six days prior to the October 11 meeting between TAC bishops and the Holy See – on October 5 – the TAC’s bishops, vicars-general of dioceses without bishops, and theological advisers who assisted in a plenary meeting signed a declaration of belief in the truth of the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The declaration said, in part: “We accept that the most complete and authentic expression and application of the Catholic faith in this moment of time is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium, which we have signed, together with this letter as attesting to the faith we aspire to teach and hold.”
Statements about the seriousness of the division between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church caused by issues such as the ordination of women priests were emphasised at the wordwide Lambeth Conference held in the UK in 2008.
At the conference, three Catholic cardinals – Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and the Prefect for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Ivan Dias, the Pope’s personal envoy, all addressed the issue.
Cardinal Dias, who favours welcoming traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church, bluntly told the Anglican Communion’s 650 bishops that they are heading towards “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and “ecclesial Parkinson’s”.
“By analogy, (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson’s.”
Cardinal Kasper warned Anglican bishops that Rome would turn to smaller ecumenical communities if the Anglican Communion at large proved unapproachable ecumenically.
This is bad news for the Anglican Communion, but good news for the TAC.

More over-reaction from Israel on Williamson's idiotic remarks...

[comments by Father Z]

Israel’s chief rabbinate severs Vatican ties
Jan 28 04:04 PM US/Eastern
By IAN DEITCH
Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s chief rabbinate severed ties with the Vatican on Wednesday to protest a papal decision to reinstate [he is NOT reinstated! NOT! The excommunication for something completely unrelated was lifted. That’s all.] a bishop who publicly denied 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Jewish state’s highest religious authority sent a letter to the Holy See expressing "sorrow and pain" at the papal decision. "It will be very difficult for the chief rabbinate of Israel to continue its dialogue with the Vatican as before," the letter said. Chief rabbis of both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews were parties to the letter. [How unjust are these fellows? If a person is going to be shown mercy about an entirely unrelated issue, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with them, btw, why deny him mercy on that score simply because you don’t like his views about some completely different issue?]

The rabbinate, which faxed a copy of the letter to The Associated Press, also canceled a meeting with the Vatican set for March. The rabbinate and the state of Israel have separate ties with the Vatican, and Wednesday’s move does not affect state relations. [Ohhhh… it probably will eventually…]

Pope Benedict XVI, faced with an uproar over the bishop, said Wednesday he feels "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews and warned against any denial of the full horror of the Nazi genocide.

The remarks were his first public comments on the issue since the controversy erupted Saturday.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican hoped that in light of the pope’s words, "the difficulties expressed by the Israeli Rabbinate can be subjected to further and deeper reflection."

Lombardi expressed hope that dialogue between the two parties can continue "fruitfully and serenely."

Oded Weiner, the director general of the chief rabbinate’s office, welcomed the pope’s remarks, calling them "a big step toward reconciliation." [What about their steps? How about the benefit of the doubt once in a while, relaxing the suspicion that the Vatican or Pope are just looking for way to hurt or insult Jews?]

With his comments, the pope reached out to Jews angered by his decision to rehabilitate bishop Richard Williamson, who told Swedish TV in an interview broadcast last week that evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews being deliberately gassed." He said 300,000 Jews were killed at most, "but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber."

About 6 million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. Many were gassed in death camps while others were killed en masse in other ways, including shooting and starvation. About 240,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel.

Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Israel’s quasi-governmental Jewish Agency, denounced the Vatican for bringing a Holocaust denier back into the fold.

The Vatican quickly distanced itself from Williamson’s comments and said removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared his views. [But will that be accepted?]

Williamson and three other bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago after they were consecrated by an ultraconservative archbishop without papal consent—a move the Vatican at the time called an act of schism.

Benedict said Wednesday he had lifted the excommunication because the bishops had "repeatedly shown their deep suffering over the situation."

The German-born Benedict expressed his "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews.

He recalled his visits to the Auschwitz death camp—including as pope in May 2006—and the "brutal massacre of millions of Jews, innocent victims of blind racial and religious hatred."

The Vatican and the rabbinate launched formal relations in 2000 when Pope John Paul II visited Jerusalem. Since then, delegates from the Holy See and the rabbinate have met twice a year to discuss religious issues. This is the first time ties have been severed.

The Vatican and the state of Israel have had their own relationship since establishing diplomatic ties in 1993.

Elie Weisel - bitter grievence-monger?

[comments by Father Z]

Elie Wiesel attacks pope over Holocaust bishop [What a dreadful title]

Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:33am EST

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict has given credence to "the most vulgar aspect of anti-Semitism" by rehabilitating a Holocaust-denying bishop, said Elie Wiesel, the death camp survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Wiesel also said there was no way the Vatican could have not known about the bishop’s past and it may have been done "intentionally." [Of course the lifting of the excomm was "intentional". But the issue of the excommunication didn’t have anything at all to do with denying the Holocaust. Now… I can understand that a survivor of a deathcamp would be upset at a man who denies the extent of the massacre of Jews in WWII… but does it even sound rational to keep a man in the state of excommunication incurred for one thing because you don’t like his ideas about something entirely unrated?]

"What does the pope think we feel when he did that? [The issue of feelings aside, and I don’t deny that feelings are important, I think the Pope must have assumed that people would be able to reason through the move. He did the same with the famous Regensburg Address. He assumed that smart people would overcome their initial reaction to see what the point was.] That a man who is a bishop and Holocaust denier—and today of course the most vulgar aspect of anti-Semitism is Holocaust denial—and for the pope to go that far and do what he did, knowing what he knows, is disturbing," Wiesel said by telephone from New York.

"The result of this move is very simple: to give credence to a man who is a Holocaust denier, [I deny the premise: I don’t think that lifting the censure gives credence to any of Williamson’s ideas about anything not having to do with the Church. I don’t think Pope Benedict’s move increased Williamson’s worldwide prestige in the field of Jewish Studies or among historians or even people with a basic reading level.] which means that the sensitivity to us as Jews is not what it should be," he said late Tuesday. [Yah? And their sensitivity to us as Catholics isn’t either. And, by the by when will the relentless and baseless attacks on Pius XII stop?]

Speaking at his general audience Wednesday, the pope reaffirmed his "full and unquestionable solidarity with Jews," condemned the "pitiless killing of millions of Jews" and said the Holocaust should remain a warning against "denial."

British-born Richard Williamson, one of four traditionalist bishops whose excommunications were lifted Saturday, has made several statements denying the full extent of the Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.

Williamson told Swedish television in an interview broadcast a week ago: "I believe there were no gas chambers" and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of 6 million.

His interview, taped in November, caused an uproar among Jewish leaders and progressive Catholics, many of whom said it had cast a dark shadow over 50 years of Christian-Jewish dialogue.

"It’s a pity because Jewish-Catholic relations, thanks to John XXIII and John Paul II, had never been as good, never in history," Wiesel said, referring to the popes who revolutionized relations with Jews after 2,000 years of mistrust.

VATICAN "HAD TO KNOW"

Asked if he believed it was possible that the Vatican did not know that Williamson was a Holocaust denier, Wiesel, who won the Nobel in 1986 and survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, said:

"Oh no! The Church knows what it does, especially on that level for the pope to readmit this man, they know what they are doing. They know what they are doing and they did it intentionally. What the intention was, I don’t know." [He doesn’t know, but he is suggesting that it was a bad intention.]

Since the furor over the pope’s decision to lift the excommunication, the Vatican has condemned Williamson’s comments as "grave, upsetting (and) unacceptable," restating the Church’s—and Benedict’s—teachings against anti-Semitism.

Wiesel said he could not offer the Vatican any advice on how to put things right with Jews but something had to be done.

"The Vatican created the situation. [hmmmm] It’s up to them to resolve it. As it is, it is a very sad situation. So unexpected because we had high hopes for the relations between Jews and Catholics because they had been so good under those two popes … and now it’s the opposite," said the 80-year-old. [So, what… now they have the opposite of what… of high hopes? Do they now deep despair?]

Wiesel recounted his experiences in death camps in the book "Night." Asked what the controversy meant to him personally as a survivor, he said: "Puzzlement, shock, and immense sadness."

Tuesday, Williamson’s superior in the traditionalist movement publicly apologized to the pope and said William had been disciplined and ordered to remain silent on political or historical issues.

But Wiesel agreed with other Jewish leaders who have said the episode would have long-lasting ramifications in the fight against anti-Semitism.

"One thing is clear. This move by the pope surely will not help us fight anti-Semitism. Quite the opposite," he said. [I cannot see how it is going to stir up anti-semitism either. Were there anti-Jewish riots after Summorum Pontificum or when Pope Benedict changed the Good Friday prayer? I really don’t think Hamas is taking cues from Apostolic Palace either.]

Pope Benedict responds in a general audience:

Before greeting the Italian pilgrims, I still have three announcements.

The first: I have learned with great joy the election of Metropolitan Kirill as new Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias. I invoke upon him the light of the Holy Ghost for a generous service to the Russian Orthodox Church, trusting him to the special protection of the Mother of God

The second.

In the homily pronounced on the occasion of the solemn inauguration of my Pontificate, I said that it is the "explicit" duty of the Pastor "the call to unity", and, commenting upon the Gospel words regarding the miraculous catch of fish, I said, "although there were so many, the net was not torn"; I continued after these Gospel words, "Alas, beloved Lord, with sorrow we must now acknowledge that it has been torn!". And I continued, "But no – we must not be sad! Let us rejoice because of your promise, which does not disappoint, and let us do all we can to pursue the path towards the unity you have promised. Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise. Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!"

Precisely in the accomplishment of this service of unity, which qualifies, in a specific way, my ministry as Successor of Peter, I decided, a few days ago, to grant the remission of the excommunication in which the four bishops ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988, without pontifical mandate, had incurred. I fulfilled this act of fatherly mercy because those prelates repeatedly manifested to me their deep suffering for the situation in which they found themselves. I hope that this gesture of mine will be followed by the solicitous effort by them to accomplish the ulterior steps necessary to accomplish full communion with the Church, thus testifying true fidelity and true recognition of the Magisterium and of the authority of the Pope and of the Second Vatican Council.

The third announcement.

While I renew with affection the expression of my full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers receivers of the First Covenant, I hope that the memory of the Shoah leads mankind to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man.

May the Shoah be for all a warning against forgetfulness, against denial or reductionism, because the violence against a single human being is violence against all. No man is an island, a famous poet write. The Shoah particularly teaches, both old an the new generations, that only the tiresome path of listening and dialogue, of love and of forgiveness lead the peoples, the cultures, and the religions of the world to the hoped-for goal of fraternity and peace in truth. May violence never again crush the dignity of man!

Papal Homily at Conclusion of Unity Week

"Why Have You Wounded the Unity of My Body?"

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave today at the celebration of vespers for the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. With this ceremony, held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity concluded.

Representatives of Churches and ecclesial communities of Rome were present at the event.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is a great joy every time we find ourselves gathered at the tomb of the Apostle Paul on the liturgical feast of his conversion to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I greet all of you with affection. I greet in a special way Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the abbot and the community of monks who are hosting us. I also greet Cardinal Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. I greet along with him the lord cardinals who are present, the bishops and the pastors of the various Churches and ecclesial communities gathered here this evening.

A special word of recognition goes to those who worked together in preparing the prayer guides, experiencing firsthand the exercise of reflecting and meeting in listening to each other and, all together, to the Word of God.

St. Paul's conversion offers us a model that shows us the way to full unity. Unity in fact requires a conversion: from division to communion, from broken unity to healed and full unity. This conversion is the gift of the Risen Christ, as it was for St. Paul. We heard this from the Apostle himself in the reading proclaimed just a moment ago: "By the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Corinthians 15:10).

The same Lord, who called Saul on the road to Damascus, addresses himself to the members of the Church -- which is one and holy -- and calling each by name asks: Why have you divided me? Why have you wounded the unity of my body?

Conversion implies two dimensions. In the first step we recognize our faults in the light of Christ, and this recognition becomes sorrow and repentance, desire for a new beginning. In the second step we recognize that this new road cannot come from us. It consists in letting ourselves be conquered by Christ. As St. Paul says: "I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it, since I have indeed been conquered by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12).

Conversion demands our yes, my "pursuit"; it is not ultimately my activity, but a gift, a letting ourselves be formed by Christ; it is death and resurrection. This is why St. Paul does not say: "I converted" but rather "I died" (Galatians 2:19), I am a new creature. In reality, St. Paul's conversion was not a passage from immorality to morality, from a mistaken faith to a right faith, but it was a being conquered by Christ: the renunciation of his own perfection; it was the humility of one who puts himself without reserve in the service of Christ for the brethren. And only in this renunciation of ourselves, in this conforming to Christ are we also united among ourselves; we become "one" in Christ. It is communion with the risen Christ that gives us unity.

We can observe an interesting analogy with the dynamic of St. Paul's conversion also in meditating on the biblical text of the prophet Ezekiel (37:15-28), which was chosen as a basis for our prayer this year. In it, in fact, the symbolic gesture is presented of two sticks being joined into one in the prophet's hand, who represents God's future action with this gesture. It is the second part of Chapter 37, which in the first part contains the celebrated vision of the dry bones and the resurrection of Israel, worked by the Spirit of God.

How can we not see that the prophetic sign of the reunification of the people of Israel is placed after the great symbol of the dry bones brought to life by the Spirit? There follows from this a theological pattern analogous to that of St. Paul's conversion: God's power is first and he works the resurrection as a new creation by his Spirit. This God, who is the Creator and is able to resurrect the dead, is also able to bring a people divided in two back to unity.

Paul -- like Ezekiel but more than Ezekiel -- becomes the chosen instrument of the preaching of the unity won by Christ through his cross and resurrection: the unity between the Jews and the pagans, to form one new people. Christ's resurrection extends the boundary of unity: not only the unity of the tribes of Israel, but the unity of the Jews and the pagans (cf. Ephesians 2; John 10:16); the unification of humanity dispersed by sin and still more the unity of all who believe in Christ.

We owe this choice of the passage from the prophet Ezekiel to our Korean brothers, who felt the call of this biblical passage strongly, both as Koreans and Christians. In the division of the Jewish people into two kingdoms they saw themselves reflected, the children of one land who, on account of political events, have been divided, north from south. Their human experience helped them to better understand the drama of the division among Christians.

Now, from this Word of God, chosen by our Korean brothers and proposed to all, a truth full of hope emerges: God allows his people a new unity, which must be a sign and an instrument of reconciliation and peace, even at the historical level, for all nations. The unity that God gives his Church, and for which we pray, is naturally communion in the spiritual sense, in faith and in charity; but we know that this unity in Christ is also the ferment of fraternity in the social sphere, in relations between nations and for the whole human family. It is the leaven of the Kingdom of God that makes all the dough rise (cf. Matthew 13:33).

In this sense, the prayer that we offer up in these days, taking our cue from the prophecy of Ezekiel, has also become intercession for the different situations of conflict that afflict humanity at present. There where human words become powerless, because the tragic noise of violence and arms prevails, the prophetic power of the Word of God does not weaken and it repeats to us that peace is possible, and that we must be instruments of reconciliation and peace. For this reason our prayer for unity and peace always requires confirmation by courageous gestures of reconciliation among us Christians.

Once again I think of the Holy Land: how important it is that the faithful who live there, and the pilgrims who travel there, offer a witness to everyone that diversity of rites and traditions need not be an obstacle to mutual respect and to fraternal charity. In the legitimate diversity of different positions we must seek unity in faith, in our fundamental "yes" to Christ and to his one Church. And thus the differences will no longer be an obstacle that separates but richness in the multiplicity of the expressions of a common faith.

I would like to conclude this reflection of mine with a reference to an event that we older people here have certainly not forgotten. In this place on Jan. 25, 1959, exactly 50 years ago, Blessed Pope John XXIII announced for this first time his desire to convoke "an ecumenical Council for the universal Church" (AAS LI [1959], p. 68). He made this announcement to the cardinals in the chapter room of the Monastery of St. Paul, after having celebrated solemn Mass in the Basilica.

From the providential decision, suggested to my venerable predecessor, according to his firm conviction, by the Holy Spirit, there also derived a fundamental contribution to ecumenism, condensed in the decree "Unitatis Redintegratio." In that document we read: "There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of heart. For it is from renewal of the inner life of our minds, from self-denial and an unstinted love that desires of unity take their rise and develop in a mature way" (7).

The attitude of interior conversion in Christ, of spiritual renewal, of increased charity toward other Christians, created a new situation in ecumenical relations. The fruits of theological dialogues, with their convergences and with the more precise identification of the differences that still remain, led to a courageous pursuit in two directions: in the reception of what was positively achieved and a renewed dedication to the future.

Opportunely, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which I thank for the service it renders to all the disciples of the Lord, has recently reflected on the reception and future of ecumenical dialogue. Such a reflection, if on one hand rightly desires to emphasize what has already been achieved, on the other hand intends to find new ways to continue the relations between the Churches and the ecclesial Communities in the present context.

The horizon of full unity remains open before us. It is an arduous task, but it is exciting for those Christians who want to live in harmony with the prayer of the Lord: "that all be one so that the world believes" (John 17:21). The Second Vatican Council explained to us "that human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective -- the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ" ("Unitatis redintegratio," 24).

Trusting in the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, and encouraged by the significant steps made by the ecumenical movement, with faith we invoke the Holy Spirit that he continue to illumine our path. May the Apostle Paul, who worked so hard and suffered for the unity of the mystical body of Christ, spur us on from heaven; and may the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the unity of the Church, accompany and sustain us.

Vatican lifts excommunications from SSPX bishops...

Check Father Z's site for the latest...

... here are some links:

Bishop Fellay addresses his, now the Church's, flock.

Bishop Williamson comments; he's a little crazed.

Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FFSP) reacts...

A recap of what the lift means (as far as visiting SSPX chapels etc.)

Fellay responds to Williamson interview.

Fr. Z's thoughts on communion with SSPX.

A French and German bishop react.

Press release of the lifted bans.

A somewhat 'triumphalistic' pamphlet by the SSPX on the lifting of the excommunications.

Some reflections after the fact by Fellay.

Lifted bans coincide with 50th anniversary of Vatican II convocation by John XXIII.

Alas, more on Rowan and the tragedy that is the C of E...

Bishop Gene Robinson and his 'husband'... He said in an interview that he "always wanted to be a June bride".

In private correspondence, seen by the Daily Telegraph, Dr Rowan Williams, refutes the Anglican Communion's traditional teaching that homosexuality is sinful.

Furthermore, he expresses his hope that the Church will change its position to be more accepting of gay partnerships.

His comments – made in a letter written shortly before he became Archbishop of Canterbury – will infuriate the conservatives who boycotted the recent Lambeth Conference in protest at the presence of liberals who elected Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop.

Leading evangelicals have claimed that he is in an "untenable position".

"The Bible does not address the matter of appropriate behaviour for those who are, for whatever reason, homosexual by instinct or nature," Dr Williams writes.

"By the end of the 80s I had definitely come to the conclusion that scripture was not dealing with the predicament of persons whom we should recognise as homosexual by nature.

"I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had the about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness."

Although Dr Williams was known to have liberal views on the issue of homosexuality when he was appointed as archbishop in 2002, since moving to Canterbury he has tried to hold a traditional line for the sake of unity in the Church.

However, he makes clear in the letter that he believes that the Church could relax its strict teaching with time.

"The Church has shifted its stance on several matters – notably the rightness of lending money at interest and the moral admissibility of contraception so I am bound to ask if this is another such issue," he says.

"If I am really seriously wrong on this, I can only pray to be shown the truth."

Dr Williams is critical of those who have politicised the issue, "treating it as the sole or primary marker of Christian orthodoxy".

This will be perceived as an attack at conservative Anglican leaders who have since claimed that the Church is split following the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire.

Conservative Anglican leaders said that the disclosure of the letter revealed the true mind of Dr Williams and significantly weakens his position as he battles to save the Church from schism.

Read the rest of this truly tragic and never-ending tale....

A crazy but interesting analysis of Lambeth 2008...

The death of liberal Anglicanism
The Anglican church has sacrificed liberalism in order to achieve unity. Now it's just a slightly nicer version of Roman Catholicism [What???! Hilarious.]
By Theo Hobson

What has the Lambeth Conference accomplished? It has impressed Anglicanism more strongly with the spirit of its leader. Despite the boycott, it has given his vision new authority. A few years ago it looked like Archbishop Rowan Williams was an essentially solitary figure, doing an impossible tightrope dance. The weird thing is that he has persuaded mainstream Anglicanism to join him on the high wire. He has said: "My intensely awkward position is representative of the church at large" – and the church has agreed. Perhaps it has no other option, but dissolution.

A few years ago it seemed that Williams was asking liberal Anglicanism to make an impossible sacrifice. He was saying, "Let us bite our liberal tongues, for the sake of unity. Let us suffer the accusations of appeasing the homophobes, for the sake of unity. Let us put our desire for an inclusive church on hold, for the sake of unity. Let us be patient." It seemed outrageous. Surely most British Anglicans were committed to gay rights, and would not agree to compromise? Surely the liberals would not allow the identity of Anglicanism to be determined by the evangelical hard line on homosexuality? Surely this would do intolerable violence to the traditional openness of this church? It seemed axiomatic that the evangelicals were a minority movement – a pushy and growing one, but still a minority movement.

Yet liberal Anglicanism failed to make a stand. There were obviously lots of angry noises, but they didn't add up to anything. Amazingly enough, Williams' call for patience was generally heeded. The nature of liberal Anglicanism quietly shifted. It became meek before the rise of evangelical orthodoxy.

Is it still possible to be a liberal Anglican? Not in the old way. Liberal Anglicans have to follow Williams onto the high wire, to some extent. By staying within an institution that has taken an anti-liberal turn, they collude in his act. In other words, liberal Anglicans have been Rowanised. They buy his long-range hope for reform that the church as a whole can accept.

Why has this happened? Why hasn't a tougher liberal Anglicanism emerged that says that the truth of liberalism must not be sacrificed to "unity"? If Christian unity is so important (it would say), then surely the break with Rome was a mistake – surely Anglicans should repent of it right now. Isn't this version of Christianity one that tries to incorporate liberal principles? Why is such liberal Christian rhetoric more or less absent among Anglican clergy?

The answer, as I see it, is that institutional religion is not very compatible with liberalism, at the end of the day. It is addicted to some degree of authoritarianism, legalism. The Church of England concealed this, for centuries – thanks to its cultural establishment it was a fairly liberal Christian institution. But that era's over. It now follows the logic of Roman Catholicism – liberalism is a threat to unity.

As Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times, Christianity is an anti-legalistic religion. It emerges from a rejection of rigid moral rules. The current neo-conservative shift in the church ignores this – it "is all about the creation of a set of rules that will systematically make gospel faith all-but-impossible for Anglicans in the 21st century".

Maybe liberal Anglicans are waking up to the fact that liberalism and institutional Christianity are not gently compatible, as they were told by lots of well-meaning Anglican thinkers. That tradition is admirable, but it is dead. Williams is a deeply admirable man, but he has no vision for Christianity's renewal in the context of liberal culture. He is offering a slightly nicer version of Roman Catholicism – an international communion whose unity trumps all other concerns.

So a fairly stark choice has emerged: stay within Anglicanism, and be part of its post-liberal realignment. Or seek a new sort of Christian culture, accepting of liberalism, free of the old power-itch. Leave the ruins of Christendom behind, and build afresh, on new foundations.

Damian Thompson on Lambeth 2008

Split at birth?

The Anglican Communion's 10 year meeting is getting more crazy and interesting by the minute.

Thompson reports that Rt Rev David Rossdale, Bishop of Grimsby, wrote the following about the C of E recently:

"We have been a Church which has been held together by belief, as contained in the historic creeds, and not by agreeing to particular statements about that faith."

Excellent.

In other Lambeth Conference news...

A senior Vatican Cardinal visiting the Lambeth Conference has delivered an incredible rebuff to its 650 Anglican bishops, telling them they are heading towards "spiritual Alzheimer's" and "ecclesial Parkinson's".

The comments by Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for Evangelisation, must count as one of the rudest things a Vatican prelate has said to Anglicans since the dawn of the ecumenical era.

It can mean only one thing: Rome - and therefore the Pope - has given up on the Anglican Communion. Here is the quote, from Cardinal Dias's address to the conference yesterday evening:

"Much is spoken today of diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. By analogy, their symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer's. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson's."

Diaz is one of those Cardinals who favours welcoming traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church. I reckon that liberals will be deeply insulted by his barbs - not least on grounds of political correctness - but that traditionalists will be nodding their heads in agreement.

One thing I'd love to know: did Cardinal Dias clear his speech with Cardinals Kasper and Murphy-O'Connor before he delivered it? Don't bet on it.

Ecclesiology doesn't get more messed up than this...

The African bishops- laying down the smack on heresy in the Anglican Communion!

"For the Sake of Unity" by Austin Ivereigh

From the ultra-liberal (click for whole article) America Catholic magazine...
Being a member of the clergy in the C of E sounds like working in Washinton D.C.; lots of personalities, but no substance and little accomplished.

Here are some choice quotes from the article (I saved the best for last...)

During a recent debate at the Church of England’s General Synod, N. T. Wright, the Scripture scholar and bishop of Durham, summed up the crisis facing the Anglican Communion rather graphically. “We are living through, on many levels, a massive outworking of the law of unintended consequences,” he said. “Or, in plain English, a slow-moving train wreck.”

[snip]

As the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Primates, which is held every 10 years, meets in Canterbury (July 16-Aug. 3) against a backdrop of what journalists are calling the “summer of schism,” it is worth noting that the cause of the current Anglican crisis is not disagreement over homosexuality. Most Catholics as well as nonbelievers I know have strongly diverse views about same-sex blessings, civil partnerships and gay adoptions; homosexuality is one of the great divisive issues of our age.

But disagreements do not necessarily lead to divisions or crises. The real question is why the Anglican Church has not been able to contain the disagreements, and why they are causing the church to tear itself apart.

The current crisis is not, in other words, doctrinal; it is ecclesiological. As the center of Anglicanism has moved away from the Church of England to the global communion, the glue that has held the Church of England together has been exposed as inadequate for binding the Anglican Churches worldwide.

[snip]

He [describing Rowan Williams] exemplified this when—although personally he is convinced that the church will come to accept homosexual partnerships—he vetoed in 2004 the appointment of a gay friend, Jeffrey John, as Bishop of Reading, because he knew it would inflame disunity. The “pro-gay” lobby accused him of surrendering to evangelical pressure, but they misread the decision. Archbishop Williams was demonstrating that a move too soon—however principled—can destroy unity. [what 'principle' is being referred to here????]He has more than once quoted to both the Episcopal Church and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:33) to “wait for one another.” [what the hell does that even mean? If you know eventually that the C of E will slide into further relativism, why does it matter to wait? What cowardice. If it's the truth that gays should be bishops, then Williams has no principles to stand up for it, and if it's wrong (obviously) then he has shown a lack of character with those words. By the way, what kind of ecclesiology is this? And who ever accused the Catholic Church of clericalism? This is amazing!]

So far they have not. A willingness to “suffer for the sake of the unity of the church” [you'll never hear of the Catholic Church speaking an untruth for the sake of unity, but the C of E prides itself on it] is something many Anglicans assume only Catholics have to do. The openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, is in England, popping up on television and radio to declare that Jesus loves him and that history is on his side, while the Global Anglican Future Conference evangelicals are growling from abroad, convinced the Bible is on their side. Kenosis for the sake of unity is not on the minds of any of them.

But that does not stop two-thirds of the world’s Anglican bishops who are gathering in Canterbury. If at the Lambeth Conference they can listen to each other—and to God—long enough, there may be a chance for Archbishop Williams still to build the structures on which future global Anglican coexistence so obviously depends. Global Anglicanism after the Lambeth Conference may still look like a “slow-moving train wreck,” but there is a good chance, under Archbishop Williams, that it will still be on the rails [are we supossed to root for this train wreck to NOT happen? sounds pretty pathetic. The writer clearly doesn't get something.].

BEST QUOTE OF THE ARTICLE (an unintended consequence?)

The gravitational center of Anglicanism has drifted southward, to countries where the church is not part of a liberal political project, and where excessive compromise and nuance mute its proclamation of the Gospel.

The future of the Anglican Communion?

Do the Anglicans really think this is going to bolster the faithful????

"So much for the 'via media' approach, Dr. Williams."

More on the horrid leadership of Dr. Rowan Williams and the crumbling C of E.

This is from Damian Thompson:

Andrew Carey, son of Archbishop Carey, has produced a pretty devastating analysis of Monday night's "train wreck" on the American Anglican website Stand Firm:

"While Dr Williams has often given traditionalists hope that he would back a structural solution to their problems of conscience, he seems to have completely ruled out strong leadership on theological and ecclesial issues. Wearing permanently now, it seems, the persona of the mediator, Dr Williams was seen by Synod trying to have it both ways. 'I am deeply unhappy with any scheme... which ends up structurally humiliating women.' But he was equally unhappy about marginalising traditionalists. [uhhhhh... I want to have my cake and eat it too.] He therefore came 'not very comfortably to the conclusion', we needed a 'more rather than less robust form of structural provision'.

A SAD DAY: Church of England - now officially protestant forever

"We want female bishops not tradition. We want to ape the relativistic mores of the secular 'whatever feels good and is popular now' culture." That's what the C of E bishops voted today.

So much for reconciliation and real ecumenism. The C of E has officially decided to ape the secular culture's superficial ideas of feminism (all about power), and reject its roots with the Catholic/Orthodox churches and Scripture itself. Instead of seeking wisdom from the sources, the C of E will now fade away into time.
I cannot imagine a church shepherded by old women with a large and dynamic sheepfold.
We'll see how quickly the C of E declines... Sad.
The Anglo-Catholics have now been totally alienated, and as Thompson notes below, it would be foolish for them to stay.

Read it and weep.

A couple of hours ago, the Church of England decisively severed itself from its Catholic roots. By voting to ordain women bishops without significant safeguards for traditionalists, it reasserted its identity as a Protestant Church. Whether it will be a liberal or conservative Protestant denomination remains to be seen. But any hope of unity with Rome and the Orthodox has gone forever.

I'm not sorry. From the moment the C of E voted to ordain women priests in 1992, it cut itself off from the Catholic mainstream. But unexpectedly generous safeguards allowed traditionalists to cordon themselves off from the rest of the Church, persuading themselves that they, rather than the main body, preserved its true Catholic identity.

This was always a delusion, and now it is truly unsustainable. The General Synod tonight made a commonsense decision. If you have women priests, you must have women bishops - indeed, I remember Dr David Hope, then Bishop of London, telling me that the Church should in theory have started with women bishops and then moved on to priests. [Good point.]

What the Anglo-Catholics have lost tonight is their standing in the Church of England. They are no longer honoured traditionalists who have been allowed to preserve an (almost) watertight communion of their own, nurtured by powerful bishops who sustain their sacramental purity.

From now on, they will be the C of E's granny in the attic, whose eccentricities are tolerated only at family get-togethers. If, that is, they are silly enough to stay.

What a painful debate this was. This time round, in contrast to 1992, the Synod knew it was demolishing a wing of the building, and there was preciously little triumphalism. Dr Rowan Williams seemed especially crushed: he had argued - reluctantly - for tight safeguards for traditionalists, but the assembly ignored his advice. That doesn't bode well for Lambeth.

Here's what Rowan Williams said before the vote
... pathetic.

Well, I guess we'll see when and how and if traditional/orthodox C of E bishops will break with Canterbury.

Ecumenical news: Pope & Patriarch recite the Creed in Greek (without "and the Son")!

People, you really need to check out Fr. Z's blog... very insightful, and full of goodies like this...

Today during the Mass for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I recited the Creed together in Greek.

This is just a wonderful gesture, if nothing else. However, I think it's more than just a gesture, we're slowly getting somewhere here; I really believe it. We (Orthodoxy and Catholicism) need each other. I hate to say it, but I bet I know a few Orthodox who'd think this is stupid and/or dislike it. They'd say that the pope is trying to manipulate the patriarch into a deal by providing such gestures, or that the pope is a relativist because he's not reciting the Creed with the "filioque" as he should if he's truly Roman. Go figure. As Fr. Z. notes, this really, at the end of the day, should now be a non-issue. Maybe I'm naive, but it really should, after all we know about the Holy Ghost. No reason to keep pouring salt on this wound. It's a done deal. The Roman Church believes the same thing as the Orthodox Churches about the Holy Spirit, and everyone knows that as a fact (too many pointless, semantical battles); to pretend otherwise is just intolerance and hatred. I'd be hard-pressed to find a Catholic (a serious one too) who'd balk at the prospects of not reciting the "filioque" for ecumenical reasons; and I really don't think you'd have to call them a relativist either. Yet part of me would like to see the same thing from the Orthodox, but I doubt I'll ever see a patriarch recite the Creed in Latin with the "filioque". Dare to dream. It seems somewhat clear that part of the essence of being Orthodox (for SOME), part of the identity itself (sadly), is to be anti-Roman. That's just one practical reason (and other theological reasons such as the papacy, of course), why I could never consider converting to Orthodoxy - it's tempting if you love liturgy though, but liturgy and correctly painted icons are NOT the faith (albeit important). At the end of the day, SOME Orthodox, not all, are just down-right anti-Roman no matter what. Well, God bless the patriarch for such generosity during the commemoration of the Pauline Year.

[Here them reciting the Creed! AWESOME!!! Real ecumenism in action.]

This is interesting for several reasons.

First, for so long it has been nearly obligatory to have the whole congregation sing the Creed alternating with the Sistine Chapel "Choir".

Apparently it isn’t so obligatory as we thought that the whole congregation recite the Creed.

Second, the text of the Creed is that the 381 Council of Constantinople, and thus it is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed:

The Patriarch and the Pope both use the singular "I believe", rather than "We believe" of the conciliar formula. The conciliar form of the Creed was a group document, that needed a plural form. The liturgical form is a personal declaration made together with everyone else gathered.

This brings the third point: It did not contain the so-called "Filioque" clause. This is why they could recite it together easily. The Filioque clause has been a source of division from the time when the Latin Church and the Greek Church were talking past each, with a lack of comprehension on both sides of the theology of the Holy Spirit and His relationship to the Father and the Son. Now that there is greater comprehension about this relationship and what each side means when they talk about the Holy Spirit, there is far less reason to stress the differences that historically surround the Filioque clause.

Thus, the fourth point is notice how well the Holy Father reads the Greek text.

Fifth, could you local priest, seminary instructor, or bishop do the same, even with the Creed in Latin?

Thanks, Fr. Z.!