Dear brethren in the Episcopal ministry!
The lifting of the excommunication of the four bishops ordained by
Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 without a mandate of the Holy See has led,
both within and outside the Catholic Church, for a variety of reasons,
to a discussion of such vehemence as we had not experienced for a long
time. Many bishops felt at a loss before an event which came
unexpectedly and could barely be integrated positively among the
questions and tasks of the Church of today. Although many pastors and
faithful were willing in principle to value positively the Pope's desire
for reconciliation, against this was the question of the appropriateness
of such a gesture, given the real urgency of a believing life in our
time. Several groups, however, accused the Pope openly of wanting to
return behind the Council. An avalanche of protests was set into motion,
the bitterness of which made injuries visible which transcended the
moment. Therefore I feel pressed to address to you, dear brethren, a
clarifying word, which is meant to help to understand the intentions
which have guided me and the competent organs of the Holy See in this
step. I hope in this way to contribute to peace in the Church.
One mishap for me unforeseeable, was the fact that the Williamson case
has superimposed itself on the remission of the excommunication. The
discreet gesture of mercy towards the four bishops ordained validly but
not legitimately, suddenly appeared as something entirely different: as
a disavowal of the reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and
therefore as the revocation of what in this area the Council had
clarified for the way for the Church. The invitation to reconciliation
with an ecclesial group separating itself had thus become the opposite:
an apparent way back behind all the steps of reconciliation between
Christians and Jews which had been made since the Council and which to
make and further had been from the outset a goal of my theological work.
The fact that this superposition of two opposing processes has occurred
and has disturbed for a moment the peace between Christians and Jews as
well as the peace in the Church I can only deeply regret. I hear that
closely following the news available on the internet would have made it
possible to obtain knowledge of the problem in time. I learn from this
that we at the Holy See have to pay more careful attention to this news
source in the future. It has saddened me that even Catholics who could
actually have known better have thought it necessary to strike at me
with a hostility ready to jump. Even more therefore I thank the Jewish
friends who have helped to quickly clear away the misunderstanding and
to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust, which - as in the
time of Pope John Paul II - also during the entire time of my
pontificate had existed and God be praised continues to exist.
Another mishap which I sincerely regret, is that the scope and limits of
the measure of 21 January 2009 have not been set out clearly enough at
the time of the publication of the procedure. The excommunication
affects persons, not institutions. Episcopal consecration without papal
mandate means the danger of a schism, because it calls into question the
unity of the Bishops' College with the Pope. The Church must, therefore,
react with the harshest punishment, excommunication, and that is to call
back the persons thus punished to repentance and into unity. 20 years
after the ordinations this goal has unfortunately still not been
achieved. The withdrawal of the excommunication serves the same purpose
as the punishment itself: once more to invite the four bishops to
return. This gesture was possible after the affected had expressed their
fundamental recognition of the pope and his pastoral authority, albeit
with reservations as far as obedience to his magisterial authority and
that of the Council is concerned. This brings me back to the distinction
between person and institution. The releasing of the excommunication was
a measure in the field of ecclesial discipline: the persons were freed
of the burden of conscience of the heaviest ecclesial censure. From this
disciplinary level one has to distinguish the doctrinal area. That the
Fraternity of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical position in the
Church is not based ultimately on disciplinary grounds but on doctrinal
ones. As long as the Fraternity does not possess a canonical position in
the Church, its officials do not exercise legitimate offices in the
Church. One has therefore to distinguish between disciplinary level
affecting the persons as persons, and the level of doctrine, at which
office and institution are concerned. To say it once again: As long as
the doctrinal issues are not resolved, the Fraternity has no canonical
status in the Church and its ministers, even if they are free from
ecclesiastical censure, do not exercise in a legitimate way any ministry
in the Church.
Given this situation, I intend to connect the Pontifical Commission
"Ecclesia Dei", which since 1988 is responsible for those communities
and individuals who, coming from the Fraternity of Pius X or similar
groups, want to return into full communion with the Pope, in the future
with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This shall make it
clear that the problems now being treated are essentially doctrinal in
nature, especially those concerning the acceptance of the Second Vatican
Council and the postconciliar Magisterium of the Popes. The collegial
organs through which the Congregation works on the questions arising
(especially the regular assembly of the Cardinals on Wednesday and the
General Assembly every one or two years) guarantee the involvement of
the prefects of various Roman congregations and of the worldwide
episcopate in the decisions to be made. One cannot freeze the
magisterial authority of the Church in 1962 and - this must be quite
clear to the Fraternity. But to some of those who show off as great
defenders of the Council it must also be recalled to memory that Vatican
II contains within itself the whole doctrinal history of the Church. Who
wants to be obedient to it [sc. the Council] must accept the faith of
the centuries and must not cut the roots of which the tree lives.
I hope, dear brethren, that with this both the positive meaning as well
as the limit of the measure of 21 January 2009 is clarified. But now the
question remains: Was this necessary? Was this really a priority? Are
there not much more important things? Of course, there are more
important and urgent things. I think that I have made clear the
priorities of the pontificate in my speeches at the beginning of it.
What I said then remains my guideline unchangedly. The first priority
for the successor of Peter, the Lord has unequivocally fixed in the Room
of the Last Supper: "You, however, strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22,
32). Peter himself rephrased this priority in his first letter: "Be
ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope
which is in you." (1 Peter 3, 15). In our time, in which the faith in
large parts of the world threatens to go out like a flame which can no
longer find food, the first priority is to make God present in this
world and to open to men the access to God. Not to just any god, but to
the God who spoke on Mount Sinai, that God whose face we recognize in
the love unto the end (John 13, 1)- in the crucified and risen Jesus
Christ. The real problem of our historic hour is that God is
disappearing from the horizon of men and that with the extinguishing of
the light coming from God disorientation befalls mankind, the
destructive effects of which we are seeing ever more.
To lead men to God, to the God speaking in the Bible, is the supreme and
fundamental priority of the Church and the successor of Peter in this
time. From it then it follows on its own that we have to be concerned
for the unity of believers. For their strife, their internal dissent,
calls their talking about God into question. Therefore, the effort for
the common witness of faith of the Christians - for ecumenism -is
included in the highest priority. Then there is also the necessity that
all who believe in God seeking peace with each other, trying to become
closer to each other, in order to walk, in the different-ness of their
image of God, yet together towards the source of light - inter-religious
dialogue. Those who proclaim God as love unto the end, must give the
witness of love: devoted to the suffering in love, fending off hatred
and enmity - the social dimension of the Christian Faith, of which I
have spoken in the encyclical "Deus caritas est".
If then the struggle for Faith, hope and love in the world is the true
priority for the Church in this hour (and in different forms always),
then still the small and medium-sized reconciliations also belong to it.
That the quiet gesture of a hand stretched out has become a great noise
and thus the opposite of reconciliation, we have to take note of. But
now I have to wonder: Was and is it really wrong, also in this case, to
go to meet the brother, who "hath any thing against thee" and to try for
reconciliation (cf. Mt 5, 23f)? Does not civil society, too, have to try
to prevent radicalizations, to bind their possible supporters - if
possible - back into the major creative forces of social life to avoid
isolation and all its consequences? Can it be entirely wrong to strive
for the lessening of tensions and constrictions and to give room to the
positive which can be found and integrated into the whole? I myself, in
the years after 1988, have experienced how by the return of communities
previously separating themselves from Rome the interior climate there
has changed, how the return to the great, wide and common Church
overcame onesided-ness and lessened tensions, so that now they have
become positive forces for the whole. Can a community leave us totally
indifferent in which there are 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6
seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university institutes, 117 brothers, 164
sisters? Should we really calmly leave them to drift away from the
Church? I am thinking, for example, of the 491 priests. The plaited
fabric of their motivations we cannot know. But I think that they would
not have made their decision for the priesthood, if next to some askew
or sick elements there hot not been there the love of Christ and the
will to proclaim Him and with Him the living God. Should we simply
exclude them, as representatives of a radical marginal group, from the
search for reconciliation and unity? What will then be?
Certainly, we have long and have again on this occasion heard many
dissonances from representatives of this community - pride and a
patronizing know-it-all attitude, fixation into onesidedness etc. For
the love of truth I must add that I have also received a series of
moving testimonials of gratitude, in which was made perceptible an
opening of hearts. But should the great Church not also be able to be
magnanimous [in German its a play on words: "great Church - great of
heart"] in the knowledge of the long wind she has; in the knowledge of
the promise which she has been given? Should we not, like good
educators, also be able not to hear some bad things and strive to calmly
lead out of the narrowness? And must we not admit that also from
ecclesial circles there have come dissonances? Sometimes one has the
impression that our society needs at least one group for which there
need not be any tolerance; which one can unperturbedly set upon with
hatred. And who dared to touch them - in this case the Pope - lost
himself the right to tolerance and was allowed without fear and
restraint to be treated with hatred, too.
Dear brethren, in the days in which it came into my mind to write this
letter, it so happened that in the seminary of Rome I had to interpret
and comment the passage of Gal 5, 13-15. I was surprised at how directly
it speaks of the present of this hour: "Do not make liberty an occasion
to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another. For all
the law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself. But if you bite and devour one another; take heed you be not
consumed one of another." I was always inclined to regard this sentence
as one of the rhetorical hyperbole which occasionally there are with St.
Paul. In some respects it may be so. But unfortunately, the "biting and
devouring" is there in the Church even today as an expression of a
poorly understood freedom. Is it surprising that we are not better than
the Galatians? That we at least are threatened by the same temptations?
That we have always to learn anew the right use of freedom? And that we
have always to learn anew the first priority: love? On the day on which
I had to speak about this in the seminary, in Rome the feast of the
Madonna della Fiducia - our Lady of Trust - was celebrated. Indeed -
Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to the Son, in Whom we all may
trust. He will guide us - even in turbulent times. So at the end I would
like to thank from my heart all the many bishops who have given me in
this time moving signs of trust and affection, but above all the gift of
their prayers. This thank I extend to all the faithful who have shown me
during this time their unchanged fidelity to the successor of St. Peter.
The Lord preserve us all and lead us on the path of peace. This is a
wish that spontaneously rises from my heart, especially now at the
beginning of Lent, a liturgical time particularly propitious to inner
purification, and which invites us all to look with new hope towards the
radiant goal of Easter.
With a special Apostolic Blessing, I remain
Yours in the Lord
Benedictus Pp. XVI
From the Vatican, on 10 March 2009