"Patience, serenity, perseverance
and trust are needed" as the Vatican continues talks aimed at full
reconciliation with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, said a
statement from the Vatican commission overseeing the discussions.
The Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," in a statement released Oct.
27, said the leadership of the SSPX had requested "additional time for
reflection and study" before responding to Pope Benedict XVI's latest
efforts to reintegrate them into the church.
"A culminating point along this difficult path" was reached June 13 when
the commission gave the SSPX a final "doctrinal declaration together
with a proposal for the canonical normalization of its status within the
Catholic Church," the statement said.
The Vatican initially presented what it described as a "doctrinal
preamble" to SSPX leaders in September 2011. While it never released the
text, the Vatican had said it outlined "some doctrinal principles and
criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary to
guarantee fidelity" to the formal teaching of the church, including the
teaching of the Second Vatican Council.
The SSPX gave the Vatican its response in April. The Vatican, in turn,
gave the SSPX the doctrinal declaration to sign in June and also
presented a proposal to establish for SSPX members a "personal
prelature," which is a church jurisdiction without geographical
boundaries. Currently, the church's only personal prelature is Opus Dei.
The Vatican said that "after 30 years of separation, it is
understandable that time is needed to absorb the significance of these
recent developments."
The statement called the efforts a "dramatic manifestation" of the
pope's ministry "to foster and preserve the unity of the church by
realizing the long hoped-for reconciliation."
Just three days before the Vatican statement was published, the SSPX
announced it had ousted British Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the
four bishops ordained by SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without
papal approval in 1988.
Bishop Williamson opposed the reconciliation talks with the Vatican and
had caused great embarrassment for the German-born Pope Benedict. On the
same day in 2009 that the Vatican announced Pope Benedict had lifted
the excommunication of Bishop Williamson and three other of the
society's bishops, a Swedish television station aired an interview with
Bishop Williamson in which he denied the extent of the Nazi Holocaust of
the Jews.
In a statement emailed to subscribers of his newsletter Oct. 27, Bishop
Williamson said many people thought his presence in the SSPX was "the
single biggest obstacle" to the SSPX's reconciliation with Rome.
While he said he didn't know if his expulsion was a condition set by the
Vatican, "it certainly favors" the reconciliation talks.
"Archbishop Lefebvre founded the SSPX to resist the (Second Vatican)
Council's destruction of the Catholic faith by its 16 documents, and of
the practice of that faith by the new Mass above all," he wrote. "To
undo a thing's nature is to undo the thing," he said, explaining why he
opposed the talks with Rome.