The Evangelical world is a big challenge for ecumenism, perhaps one of the most important ones. There is an open dialogue with the Orthodox world. This dialogue is mostly based on theology. It is a difficult path, but Patriarch of Costantinople Bartholomew I proved to be a great interlocutor. In fact, Bartholomew is carrying on the dialogue on the orthodox side. The patriarch backs Pope Francis’ initiatives and at the same time is trying to unite orthodox churches, supporting a Pan-Orthodox council. On the side of the Russian orthodoxy, there are still big hurdles. These are big hurdles for Pope Francis as well, who even tried to break the ice informally, sending signals of ecumenical peace to Patriarch Kirill. But there has been no movement or change.

Nothing is halted on the evangelical side, and Pope Francis surprisingly found some part of the traditionalist world on his side for what concern the dialogue with it. The dialogue with “evangelical” groups, especially pentecostals, has been called “the fourth ecumenism” by several authors, including the prominent Catholic sociologist Massimo Introvigne, an international authority on religious sects. A conservative and a defender of the Catholic faith, Introvigne wrote a long article on the Italian media outlet “La Bussola Quotidiano” to explain the reasons why the fourth ecumenism (that of the new Protestant sects born at the beginning of the 20th century) is perhaps the most fruitful ground for ecumenical dialogue.

This dialogue – Introvigne himself conceded – has some limits. For example, the search for interlocutors. Although the pentecostals are now three quarters of the world protestantism and one third of christianity, they are very fragmented. The big ecumenical organizations and the traditional protestant world look at the evangelical groups with as much suspicion as the evangelicals reciprocally look at them. And the big pentecostal organizations are in any case too diverse for a dialogue to take place smoothly.

This is the reason why – Introvigne underscored – it is easier to dialogue with the small realities, as the community of Giovanni Traettino, who, before his conversion and his baptism of the Holy Spirit, also had a brief stint in the Italian Communist Party.

The symbolic gesture of the meeting with Traettino comes at the end of a series of meetings Pope Francis had with evangelical leaders before beginning a rest leave to prepare him for the much anticipated trip to South Korea. All of the meetings took place in Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis resides.

The televangelist Joel Osteel, the pastor Tim Timmons and the president of the Evangelical Westmont College Gayle D. Beebe were the first to come for a visit, on June 4. On June 24, Pope Francis met with the televangelists James Robins and Kenneth Copeland, with the bishop Anthony Palmer of the Communion Evangelical Episcopal Churches, with the spouses John and Carol Arnott from Toronto and – among others – Geoff Tunnicliffe and Brian C. Stiller, respectively general secretary and ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance.

This latter gave an account of the meeting in a detailed article entitled “Lunch with the Pope,” since the three-hour meeting ended with a convivial lunch. Stiller goes to great lengths to explain to the evangelicals who were against the meeting with the Pope the reason why it was nevertheless appropriate to get personally in touch with the Pope. Always according to Stiller, the Pope reassured them that he had no intention to convert them, and that he had learned from his friendship with pastor Traettino that the Catholic Church, with her heavy presence, excessively hinders the growth and witnessing of these communities. This was also the reason – the Pope reportedly said – for the visit to the pentecostal community of Caserta, to «apologize for the difficulties given to the community.»

Hence, the deep sense of today’s trip to Caserta. The Italian prominent “vaticanista” Sandro Magister stated that Pope Francis wants to turn evangelicals «from rivals to friends,» and this is proven by this series of gestures.

Magister’s analysis is well founded.  Pope Francis himself admitted – during his trip back from the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro – that he used to look at charismatic movements with suspicion, and that he later changed his mind, and now he believes that «this movement does much good for the Church overall.»

Why did Pope Francis change his mind? Probably, because he has seen in the charismatic enthusiasm the only way for evangelization. In the press conference on the way back from Rio, he noted that his change of mind toward the evangelicals took place at the beginning of the eighties.

That period coincides with the “obscure biography” of Pope Francis, during which Bergoglio had been sidelined by the Jesuits he had been provincial of during the Seventies.

Intellectual debates, the big dynamics within the Jesuits, probably led Bergoglio to the conclusion that too much intellectualism can drive people away from faith, that there is the need for doing, more than for just thinking. And charismatic movements make things happen, they gather many people, collect money and use it for missionary work.

Bergoglio became aware of this at a time when the clash between the Church of Rome and Liberation Theology reached its climax. In Latin America, Liberation Theology shocked people’s conscience, and created social awareness. But it also ran a risk, and it was paying its consequences: it took out Jesus from the center of the message, and replaced Him with the human person. This choice favored the flourishing of evangelical sects, which took their faithful from the Catholic Church. The Pew Forum in 2006 estimated that 45 per cent of Evangelicals in Brazil were Catholic converts.

In Argentina, the situation was however different. Liberation Theology was featured in the form of the Theology of the People (Teología del Pueblo), which was less centered on the social-structural analysis and focused instead heavily on popular piety. That popular piety able to generate enthusiasm and to gather people around the Church’s message. Intellectual things are not important for the Theology of the People, either. Rather more important was to bring people the closest possible to Jesus, fill the churches with enthusiastic believers. This is the model which evangelization must follow.

Of this theology, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a long-term follower, being one of his mentors the “People’s theologian” Juan Carlos Scannone. When, in the mid eighties, Pope Francis moved to Germany to study for a PhD he never completed, he was probably disappointed with the intellectual world. He became absolutely convinced of the need to talk directy to the heart of the people, taking the intellectual framework out in order to target the gift and enthusiasm of faith.

In the meantime, in Rome, another clash was taking place. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published two instructions on Liberation Theology, praising the fundamental option for the poor, which is not questioned, but separating it from marxism. It is a precise work, which included years of education and a re-focus of the theological debate on Jesus. Benedict XVI faced this fundamental issue when he was elected Pope, writing three books on the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

When Benedict XVI goes to Brazil to take part in the Latin American Bishops’ Conference in Aparecida in 2007, he chose as its theme “Disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ” and added to the other phrase of the title – “That all may have life” – the words “in Him.”

These may seem to be small details. They are not. They give a specific orientation and a foundation to the faith of the Church. The final document of Aparecida – which Jorge Mario Bergoglio extensively contributed to draft – is very much focused on the missionary push. But the approach on the field is very pragmatic, and in fact some of the ideological limits remain. The advent of a Latin American Pope in 2013 might have led to thinking that Liberation Theology was now legitimate, at least in its practical approach. But this did not happen.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is Cardinal Gehrard Ludwig Mueller, very faithful to Benedict XVI. Mueller is a friend of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of Liberation Theology. Gutierrez developed a better apreciation for classical theology and helped Mueller understand Latin America’s main problems.

Mueller circumscribed the Liberation Theology debate, underscoring that everything must be focused on Christ and at the same time shed light on the fact that Liberation Theology is a «necessary regional theology.»

Perhaps, this last argument is somewhat weak, as noted by Martin Schlag, director of the Research Center on Market, Culture and Ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Schlag stressed that the question «is rather whether Liberation Theology is the right answer to poverty and the correct path out of it,» and he adds: «Unfortunately, my students who are lay people and clergy in Latin America give testimony of their experience in their parishes: wherever and whenever Liberation Theology has entered, people have lost their faith.»

Schlag concludes that «the quest remains as challenging as ever: to find a convincing way of strengthening the Christian faith in the face of poverty and of stimulating Catholics to use their freedom with responsibility, to create sustainable prosperity for all.»

This problem the evangelical world had overcome with the theology of prosperity (you are rich because you are loved by God. The richer you are, the more loved as well) and seeking an emotional response from people. That is not the way out of the problems, but it may help, as the number of conversions shows (even if some may be motivated by the lure of prospertity).

After the wave of evangelical evangelization of Catholics (it is estimated that 100 million Catholics have converted to evangelical believes), Pope Francis would seemingly like to evangelize the evangelicals. His spiritual ecumenism, his putting prayer at the center, even making it a diplomatic tool, represents the most logic meeting point with the Protestant world.

However, it is perhaps naive to think that enthusiastic witnessing will be followed by embracing the Catholic Church in its entirety. Real conversions are not based on emotions. They must have a structure of thought.

In the end, the Catholic Church is still alive because, despite the many narratives on it and within it, has kept uncorrupted the core of its announcement and belief. Mission has always been based on this. The Italian long-standing missionary Father Gheddo recalled this very well. «Until the Second Vatican Council – he wrote – there was a clear assertion of our identity: going to the encounter of non-Christian people, wherever the Holy See would send us, to announce and witness Christ and His Gospel, which everyone needs. Yes, we also spoke about works of charity, education, health, progress, rights, and justice for the poor and for those under exploitation. But above all was the enthusiasm for being called by Jesus to bring Him to people living unaware of the God of Love and Forgiveness.»

So, the missionary enthusiasm came from a well-defined faith. Missionaries were not thinking about numbers or about consensus with the secular world. The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church is rooted, in its entirety, in the Gospel. This is the reason why the dialogue with the “evangelical world” has been until now founded on the common grounds of religious freedom, defense of life from conception to natural death, defense of family and on other issues of mutual interest.

On any of these issues, the Church kept its peculiar difference, its theology which went beyond the charisms of individuals, beyond the numbers. The message of the Gospel was the core of any initiative.

Benedict XVI himself, in his memorable trip to Germany in 2011, warned about self complacency over the Church’s structures for the poor. He also alerted the Protestant world about the enthusiasm arising from the new evangelical labels.

Benedict XVI’s message was clear: we have to return to the roots of our faith, revive the enthusiasm we have lost, feed our work with our inner message. All of us, Catholics, Protestants, and all the Christian confessions. But if we lose sight of the Gospel, if we seek large numbers, if we seek charisms and not the truth, the risk is not only to evangelizing. We would risk, as well, losing our identity.

This is where the Pope Francis’ paradox lies in: the announcement of the Gospel risks to be set aside by thinking of evangelizing evangelicals, laying bridges in pursuit of that state of permanent mission which should bring new faithful to the Catholic Church. There is no Gospel without charism. Unfortunately, there can be charisms without the Gospel.

However, the beloved professor did not abandon them. He showed them the way. Fr. Stephan Horn, the president of the Schuelerkreis, met with Benedict at the beginning of June at the Vatican monastery where the Pope Emeritus resides. Pope Benedict confirmed to him that he would not take part in the Schulerkreis gathering. But he chose the theme for the meeting: «The question of God against the background of secularization.» He also chose the guest speaker: Remi Brague, a French theologian awarded last year with the Ratzinger Prize for Theology.

The theme is typically Benedict XVI’s. Since he was ordained priest, Joseph Ratzinger has reflected about the question of God against the background of secularization. As vice parish priest of the Church of the Most Precious Blood, Joseph Ratzinger listened to confessions very often.  He was ever more aware that there was a new paganism rising, that of people who called themselves Christians but were not, and lived as pagans. He wrote a book about it, «New Pagans and the Church.»

Looking back at that book can explain all of Benedict XVI’s work, from that of an intellectual and a theologian, passing through the years as bishop and then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to shepherd of the Universal Church.

Pope Benedict XVI often admonished about the eclipse of God. He did so, quoting Isaiah, in November 27, 2011, the first Sunday of Advent: «No one invokes your name, or makes an effort to take hold of you. For you have rejected us and handed us over to our own sins.» Benedict XVI cried out loud and with angst about the present times, and about a world of «anonymous cities» where «God seems to be absent, and the human being the only master, as if he were the author and maker of everything.»

It is in these cities where men may experience a sense of abandonment by God. In such a world that «seems almost perfect,» later on «disconcerting things occur, in nature or in society, and we think that God is something like retired, that He has in some way abandoned us to our own fate. In fact, the true master of the world is not man, but God.»

These themes have always been pivotal to Ratzinger’s thought. A major focus of his reflections is about a Europe that has put aside its identity and its faith. A Europe that must come to terms with this moral crisis, before its economic crisis. The Saturday before his lamenting cry, Benedict XVI had met with the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. There, he underlined that «sometimes we have worked for a more incisive presence of Christians in society, in politics and economics, but perhaps we have not paid equal attention to the solidity of their faith.»

Benedict XVI has always called for «authentic Christians,» and this is why, in Germany in September, 2011, and in October, 2011 in Assisi, the Pope praised «agnostics for whom the question of God leave them unease, and are thus closer to the Kingdom of God than routine believers.» In essence, Benedict XVI was calling for a freer Church to believe in God.

Joseph Ratzinger’s students are well aware of all of this. They will nevertheless miss their mentor. As recalled by Fr. Joseph Fessio, publisher and founder of the Ignatius Press and one of the members of Schuelerkreis, Ratzinger had in every meeting «something new to say, something nobody had ever thought about before.»

Remi Brague should be well placed, however, to give the discussion the required historical-critical-rational background.

Historian, medievalist and an expert on the history of Religions, Brague was the first to contrast secularity with secularism. «The advocates of secularity – he stated in an interview posted at the digital commons OpenDemocracy – specifically want to, or pretend, ignore that it appeared in the Middle Ages, a period that was emphatically not secularist.» Brague added: «The dividing line drawn between the Church and the State is a Christian invention that began among the Church Fathers, as a reaction against Constantine’s claim to control the Church and further culminated in medieval times.» Moreover, Brague asserts –  «this line was drawn by the Church, not by the State. The Holy See’s constant policy from the Investiture Controversy in the late 11th century consisted in sending the State (i.e. the Emperor or the Kings) back to its own merely this worldly—“secular” if you want—task: enforcing peace, justice, good social order. The State, on the other hand, was not “secular”, but claimed its share in sacrality. Secularity was a conquest of the Church.»

Brague turns to etymology to explain the difference between secularity and secularism. «Secular comes from saeculum, the Latin for “century”, which originally meant the longest duration of human life. Secularity is the attitude of people who think that human hopes can’t exceed one century and therefore—perhaps unwittingly and unwillingly—act so that mankind will last exactly as long… Secularists are unable to explain why it is good that there should be human beings on earth. Since they contend that human life is the product of chance, they can’t tell us why it should be good for us, who can decide consciously to carry on with the experience, to do so.»  

These will be the foundations for what should be a lively debate. Maybe a part of this debate will also take place at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery. Because, while it is true that Benedict XVI will not take part in public events, he will probably celebrate the final Mass with his former pupils. In last years’ homily, he launched the idea that truth «cannot be possessed» and the Schulerkreis meeting gave impetus to the ecumenical relationships with Lutherans and the Orthodox. Perhaps the Schuelerkreis meeting this year will show the way to overcome the eclipse of God.

The ecumenism of Benedict XVI is not one of negotiation, of reciprocal concessions of sovereignty, of the watering down of doctrine, for the sake of creating a structure acceptable to all. It is simply meant to revive fidelity to the roots of the mission of Christians in the world, as intended by Jesus Christ. It is meant to create unity on the basis of this fidelity.

Already as a theologian and a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger worked very hard to ensure that the ecumenical dialogue made headway and enriched it with useful theological reflections. His ecumenical action is expressed more clearly and deeply in his interpretation of the priestly prayer of Jesus, that all may be one, of which the Pope speaks in part two of his book on Jesus of Nazareth.

Even the new evangelization which the Pope has wanted in a particular way must have an ecumenical dimension. Benedict XVI made an explicit reference to this ecumenical dimension in announcing the establishment of the New Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization at the celebration of First Vespers of the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul in 2010: «The challenge of the new evangelization calls into question the universal Church and asks us to continue with commitment our search  for full Christian unity».

With his ecumenical commitment, Pope Benedict XVI witnesses in an exemplary way to what the ecumenical responsibility of every bishop in the Catholic Church consists of, described by the Code of Canon law: the diocesan bishop «is to act with kindness and charity toward those who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, fostering ecumenism as it is understood by the Church» (Can. 383 § 3). So, the promotion of the cause of ecumenism is implicit in the bishop’s pastoral ministry itself, which is essentially a service to unity.

Unreal criticism on Papal ecumenism

Among the many criticisms aimed at Benedict XVI, the one of ditching ecumenism no longer holds up, especially after his celebration of Vespers together with the archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Anglican Communion, Rowan Williams, on the evening of March 10 in the Roman monastery of San Gregorio al Celio.

With the Anglican Communion, the rapprochement that has been seen since Joseph Ratzinger became Pope is in some ways incredible. In the autumn of 2009, Benedict XVI promulgated an apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum Cœtibus to normalize the entrance into the Catholic Church of entire communities of faithful coming from Anglicanism, with their bishops and priests.

Some progressive Catholic currents condemned the initiative as a gravely anti-ecumenical act: that is, as a restoration of the ideology of the «great return» and as the intention of the Catholic Church to «expand its empire» by ripping away portions of rival Churches. But in the Anglican camp, the initiative did not provoke any rejection.
The announcement of Anglicanorum Cœtibus was made simultaneously from Rome and London, here through the initiative of Anglican primate Williams himself, although he had not been part of the preparation of the document.

This was followed by the entry into the Church of Rome of thousands of faithful and dozens of priests and bishops, accommodated in special «ordinariates», two of them so far, the first in Great Britain and the second in the United States.

When the Anglicanorum Coetibus was announced, cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, was in Cyprus, because the island was hosting, from October 16-23, the second round (after the first in Ravenna in 2007) of theological dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox on how to understand Papal primacy. An ecumenical dialogue of great importance, in which Kasper led the delegation from Rome.

«In Cyprus – Kasper explained – in order to avoid misunderstandings, I immediately told our Orthodox counterparts that this is not a matter of proselytism or a new Uniatism. [...] Uniatism is an historical phenomenon involving the Eastern Churches, while the Anglicans are from the Latin tradition. The Balamand document of 1993 is still valid, according to which this is a phenomenon of the past that took place in unrepeatable circumstances. It is not a method for the present or the future. The Orthodox were mainly interested in understanding the nature of the personal ordinariates for the Anglicans, and I clarified that this is not a matter of a Church ‘sui iuris’, and therefore there will not be the head of a Church, but an ordinary with delegated powers».

It means that while a «Uniate» Church has its own structured hierarchy, with a patriarch and territorial dioceses, none of this will apply to the former Anglican «personal ordinariates», which will provide pastoral care for the faithful but without their own ecclesiastical territory, a little bit like the military ordinariates.

The dialogue with Orthodox is living a splendid period. Here and then, the hypothesis of a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church comes out from the Vatican corridors. This meeting could have happened during the Papal trip to Croatia the last year, or could even happen in Bari, the Italian town dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Coming from Myra, Turkey, the bishop Nicholas has been considered an ideal «bridge» between Eastern and Western Christians (Orthodox and Christians) since his body had been translated to Bari. The friendship between Benedict XVI and the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia obviously aids the dialogue. Kyrill recently expressed «brotherly respect and affection» to the Pope. Everything seems to be easy on that side.

What kind of ecumenism is the Papal one? During his trip to Cologne in 2005, in his August 19 address to the representatives of the Protestant and Orthodox Churches, the Pope spoke several times off the cuff, and said that he did not believe in an ecumenism focused exclusively on institutions. For him, the serious question is how the Church should bear witness to the Word of God in the world: this is a problem Christianity has faced since the second century, and since then the question has been resolved through decisions which, according to Ratzinger, should still hold true for the Church of today.

Repairing divides

The criticism aimed at the Pope of ditching ecumenism, of putting the embrace with the Lefebvrists in front of dialogue with the other Christian confessions can no more hold up.  Even because the facts say the opposite. Those most unyielding in rejecting the pope’s offers of peace are precisely the followers of the schismatic archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. And they reject them precisely on account of the significant steps forward – for them, a concession to error – taken by Benedict XVI on the path of reconciliation with the Anglicans, with the Churches of the East, and even with the heirs of Martin Luther.

For the pope’s 85th birthday on Monday, his own brother showed up in Rome empty handed. But the brothers of the controversial Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) were more generous. They sent a letter – and its contents may be the greatest gift yet to the papacy of Benedict XVI. The Pope has long wanted to heal the schism with the SSPX and bring the conservative followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into the fold.

The Catholic traditionalist Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1969 in answer to the reforms pushed through by the Second Vatican Council. The group has grown to include tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of priests — a «painful wound in the body of the church» Benedict XVI  said.

Bernard Fellay, General Superior of the SSPX gave his answer to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after a meeting that he held with the top officials of the Congregation on Monday, 16^th of April 2012. After their last meeting, one month ago, Holy See gave to the SSPX a one month deadline to give an answer to the Doctrinal Preamble they sketched out about six months ago. A sort of take-it-leave-it conditions for welcoming again SSPX within the Catholic Church. The text of the Preamble remained secret. But what requested – insiders of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith assured – was just the minimum to be in communion with Catholic Church. That is to adhere to the Catholic Doctrine, to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and – finally – to acknowledge the validity of the Second Vatican Council.

A traditionalist answer

Even the text of the Fellay’s answer remained secret. But Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, described the text of the letter as «substantially different from the other answers the Fraternity previously gave» to the Congregation, albeit there are still «requests for further clarifications». But – Fr. Lombardi added – «this is encouraging».

Maybe the Fellay’s «friendly letter» has already been analyzed during the feria quarta meeting of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The feria quarta is a meeting to be held monthly on a Wednesday. During that meeting, the officials of the Congregation focuses on the current cases, and take decisions whether to condemn, admonish or not to take action toward books, doctrines, cases that they are called to study.

The conclusions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be delivered to Ecclesia Dei, the commission that is taking care of the dialogues of the Catholic Church with Lefevbrists and that – after the scandal followed to the revoke of the excommunication to four traditionalist bishops, one of those, Richard Williamson, publicly denied Holocaust and made anti-Semitic declarations – the Pope put under the guidance of William Levada, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada substituted card. Darìo Castrillòn Hoyos, who was very close to the Lefevbrist world and made several pressures to conclude the agreement before he would end his charge in Ecclesia Dei.

The Pope will make the final decision. And, after the Papal decision, a text issued by both Ecclesia Dei and SSPX will be published. This will be the only official text, and no mention – nor publishing – will be given to the original preamble. The preamble had been proposed the last September by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith as the primary condition to let the SSPX rejoin to the Catholic Church. After the preamble, the meetings had come one after another. The last meeting took place on March, 16^th. On one side of the table, William Levada. On the other side, Bernard Fellay. It was a two hours meeting to discuss what Fellay answered to the Commission Ecclesia Dei following the Doctrinal Preamble. Ecclesia Dei – as the official communiqué underlined –  did not deem satisfactory the Fellay’s answer, that «could not be sufficient to overtake the doctrinal problems which are on the basis of the breaching between Holy See and SSPX». In fact, what leaked out from the SSPX was that there had been a very intense debate. A debate in some way foxily leaded by Bernard Fellay.

Fellay, the story-teller

Bernard Fellay is a skillful story teller. In his speeches – delivered through a very efficient network – Fellay explains that Rome is the place where confusion and unfairness rule. More: the Roman Curia would not obey the Pope. Fellay acts as a divisive force, and he tries to allies with the ones that claim themselves «conservatives» within the Church. The reasons why SSPX and the «right-wing» of the Church should ally are not theological, but just formal. Sometimes, the revoke of the excommunication to four bishops ordained by Lefevbre in 1988 –Fellay was one of those bishops – is completely misrepresented. Once, the Pope opened his arms in order to give the chance to redeem to those who are wrong. Another time, Fellay insinuates that this opening is the first step to revise the Second Vatican Council. Or maybe it is not. Analyzing the Fellay’speeches means to find out that each issue oscillates from an extreme to another. The conclusion – ça va sans dire – is always the same: SSPX has the true faith, while inside the Vatican they had long time ago decided to be out of the rails.

So, when the first Fellay’s answer arrived in Rome, insiders widely previewed that this would have been an unsatisfactory response. After one month, Fellay arrived in the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith with another answer. Press anticipated that the second answer «not substantially» amended the preamble, thus letting think about an opportunity to treat the contents of it. This seemed to diminish in some way the effort of Benedict XVI, that – notwithstanding the polemics within the Church of Rome because of Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust, because of the Good Friday prayers for the conversion of the Jewish contained in the liberalized ancient rite – made everything he could to avoid the endurance of the schism. At the same time, the Pope reaffirmed with determination that the Second Vatican Council is not part of the discussion, as it is not part of discussion the obedience to the Pope and to the Church.

The German Cardinal Josef Becker, an advisor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a participant in the talks with the SSPX, said recently that it is difficult to find common ground in the positions held by the Catholic Church and the Society of St. Pius X. But, he added, each side must «try to understand» the other. He also said that the Church must re-examine all Vatican II texts to understand them from today’s perspective.

Fellay, for his part, in light of the letter he recently sent to the Pope, asked his followers to «double their fervor and magnanimity in prayer and sacrifice in these holy days and during the weeks following Easter, so that God’s will be done».

The “traditionalist” inside divide

It is no secret that there are oppositions within the Society and in the episcopates of countries where the traditional wing of the Society is more present, but also in a small group within the Vatican. In the more radical Lefebvrian groups, which in truth hold positions close to sedevacantism, the agreement is seen as surrendering to Rome’s offers instead of keeping up the fight to «convert» the Holy See and go back in time, to the Church of fifty years ago. The other side believes that Benedict XVI has been too generous in the spirit of reconciliation and should not have tolerated that any Catholic believer felt able to criticize the Second Vatican Council.

This difficult climate and the tensions that will inevitably rise in the next few weeks are exemplified by the leak of a confidential letter that the secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Mgr. Guido Pozzo, recently sent to the abbot Philippe Laguerie, superior of the Institute of the Good Shepherd, society of apostolic life based on the pontifical right, which celebrates mass according to the Latin rite. Pozzo’s letter included some observations and suggestions for the Institute following a canonical visit some time ago. Its release, according to abbot Laguerie, means that someone wants to put a spanner in the works and disrupt the dialogue between the Holy See and the Lefebvrists.

In the letter, Pozzo addressed mainly two points. The first concerns the «exclusive» use awarded to the Institute of Pius V missal. Ecclesia Dei suggested that in the charters of the Institute of the Good Shepherd it would be better to avoid the word «exclusive» and simply highlight that it is the Institute’s «own rite». «The matter of practicing the extraordinary form, as formulated in the charters – Pozzo writes – must be defined in the spirit of Summorum Pontificum. It would be better to simply describe this form as the Institute’s ‘own rite’, without mentioning ‘exclusivity’». The second concerns the criticism of the Second Vatican Council. «Rather than criticize – Pozzo writes – however rightly and constructively, the Vatican II, educators should channel their efforts in conveying the whole of the Church teachings, focusing on the hermeneutics of renovation within continuity and starting, as a base, from the integrity of the Catholic doctrine as exposed in the catechism of the Catholic Church».

The secretary of Ecclesia Dei so basically asked the conservative group already in communion with Rome to make an effort in closely following the indications of Benedict XVI concerning the interpretation of conciliar documents. But this confidential letter might have been leaked because it includes points that might discourage the Lefebvrians who are about to follow their superior Bernard Fellay on the way to full communion with Rome. Abbot Philippe Laguerie pointed it out in a statement released on several websites that «there are people in Rome who are very opposed to any form of agreement».

Toward a rapprochement?

How would the «encouraging» Fellay’s answer be evaluated in the Vatican? Benedict XVI made of his pontificate a pontificate for unity, trying to repair the divides within the Catholic Church Still when he was Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger committed for unity and – in particular – strongly tried to avoid the Lefevbrist schism.

Ratzinger took care of Marcel Lefevbre and his followers since the 80s. In 1988, it seemed that the solution was up to come. After a cardinal Edouard Gagnon’s visit to Ecône  - where the headquarter of SSPX is – on April, 8^th 1988, in a letter addressed to the then cardinal Ratzinger designed a proposal to let the SSPX get a regular collocation in the Church. This proposal dealt with an agreement – to be signed in May 1988 – about the Liturgical Books approved in 1962 and with the constitution of SSPX in «Society of Apostolic Life». In exchange. Marcel Lefevbre assured his obedience to the Pope and his acceptance of Second Vatican Council, thus acknowledging the validity of the new rites of the Mass.

The breach anyway occurred. Lefevbre was not authorized for an episcopal ordination – he wanted to ordain a new bishop that was intended to be his successor in SSPX (and this one was Fellay) – and so he backtracked and decided to ordain four bishops without the permission of Rome. The ordination had been fixed for June, 29th 1988. To prevent the illicit ordination, in June, 24 1988 John Paul II gave his permission for the ordination. It was not sufficient. The 15th of August, Lefevbre wrote in a letter that he did not need just one, but three bishops. The breach was unavoidable.

From then on, an important debate took place, until the revoke of the excommunication to bishops ordained without the Papal permission. It was since June 2008 that Lefevbrist asked for the revoke of the excommunication. Lefevbrist said in exchange that they would respond to the proposals of Benedict XVI to bring the SSPX into a new communion with Rome. In 2007, Pope also gave the opportunity to celebrate the Holy Mass according to the rite of 1962. What will be the future of Benedict XVI’s effort for unity?