A storm a'brewing

On January 24, 2009, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Holy Father declared that the Lefebvrists - the four bishops who had been excommunicated in 1988 latae sententiae.

Since that time, Rome and many other parts of the ecclesial world have been all a-twitter (please excuse the pun) about this decision which although meant with all good intentions, has left many questions unanswered.

In the January 31, 2009 issue of The Tablet, Robert Mickens published a very good exposé on the matter in his article entitled Benedict's high risk strategy. The Holy Father's intentions were and are good. 'According to the Vatican statement issued last Saturday,' (January 24, 2009), ' the Pope hopes that full communion would be reached as soon as possible, but the decree has raised many questions about the relationship between the Society of Saint Pius X (otherwise known as the Lefebvrists) and the Vatican, concerns among the faithful about the impact on the Church and shock at the apparent welcome of one of the bishops, Robert Williamson, who has made outrageous anti-Semitic statements (which Vatican officials have roundly condemned).'

This morning, the Vatican Press Office issued a special statement of clarification which His Holiness has addressed to the bishops of the world. In his letter to his brothers in the episcopal ministry, His Holiness acknowledged that 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. What was intended as a gesture of reconciliation, ended up causing controversy because the Williamson case came as an unforseen mishap.

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.

His Holiness then goes on to explain that the remission of the excommunication (a disciplinary measure employed only in cases of extreme necessity) must be understood as different from the doctrinal realities which still need to be healed in the case of the Lefebvrists. The lifting of disciplinary measures could take effect because the four men in question had agreed in principle to recognize the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, althogh they still have some difficulty with acknowledging the validity of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

This process has evidently caused a great deal of pain and confusion for many. The act of reversing the excommunication is meant as a signal that reconciliation is en route, but in this case is not a sign that the work is complete.

Effective today, the Holy Father has joined the Vatican offices of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was created in 1988 as a means of opening a door to the possibility of reconciliation between the Church and the Society of Saint Pius X as well as other similar groups throughout the world, with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In this way, he hopes to signal the fact that the discrepancies still to be addressed are doctrinal in nature and not disciplinary, at least insofar as they pertain to the members of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Reconciliation is always tricky business, and measures advanced are often misunderstood, but the Holy Father reminds us that the call for reconciliation first echoed in the time of the apostles and invoked on the day of his pontifical innauguration, still remains at the heart of his ministry as Supreme Pontiff. These are certainly very painful times for Benedict to live. There have been both boquets and brick bats hurled at him over these past few weeks, and it will be some time yet before all the smoke clears over this most controversial matter.

Human nature has not changed much since the time when Paul first wrote to the Galatians: "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." (Gal 5:13-15)

At the conclusion of his letter, the Holy Father encourages his brothers, and all Catholics to pray for peace and to see the season of Lent as a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, inviting all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.