Page 4, 17th July 2009

17th July 2009

Page 4

Page 4, 17th July 2009 — CDF given task of reconciling the Lefebvrists
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CDF given task of reconciling the Lefebvrists

BY STAFF REPORTER
THE CONGREGATION of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) is to take over responsibility for the commission which deals with traditionalists, the Pope announced last week.
Pope Benedict published a new apostolic letter on his own initiative dealing with the structure of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the body is responsible for relations with the Society of St Pius X and other traditionalists.
Established in 1988 by Pope John Paul II after Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre illicitly ordained four bishops against the express wishes of the Holy Father, the commission will now fall under the jurisdiction of the CDF.
In the Motu Proprio, Ecclesiae Unitatem (“The Unity of the Church”), Pope Benedict XVI said he “demonstrate paternal care toward the Society of St Pius X” so members could return to full communion with the Church.
The Pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos in a note accompanying the Motu Proprio. Cardinal Castrillon reached 80 this month, the usual retirement age for Curial officials. The Colombian-born cardinal was president of Ecclesia Dei for nine years and worked towards a rapprochement with the SSPX as well as dealing with the needs of Catholics attached to the extraordinary form of the liturgy.
With the publication of the 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, which freed the use of the older form of the Roman Rite, commentators expected it would only be a matter of time before the Ecclesia Dei commission would be subsumed into the larger CDF.
Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the CDF, to be president of Ecclesia Dei. He also named Mgr Guido Pozzo, the assistant secretary of the International Theological Commission and a member of the CDF, as Ecclesia Dei’s new secretary.
The Holy Father said the “safeguarding the unity of the Church” was “expected particularly of the successor of the apostle Peter, who is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of the unity of both bishops and faithful”. He added that John Paul II had established Ecclesia Dei to “facilitate the full communion” of the priests, religious, seminarians and lay people who had a bond with the traditionalist archbishop and an attachment to the liturgy as it was celebrated before the Second Vatican Council after Archbishop Lefebvre’s illicit 1988 ordinations.
Pope Benedict said Summorum Pontificum was motivated by the same concern.
January’s controversial decision to lift the excommunications of the four Lefebvrist bishops was taken to help overcome “every fracture and division within the Church and to heal a wound experienced as increasingly painful”, the Pope said.
He said that the excommunications “could have prejudiced the opening of a door for dialogue” with the leaders of the Society of St Pius X.
The act of lifting the excommunications fell under Church discipline but the Pope said that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified, the society [of St Pius X] does not have canonical status within the Church and its ministers may not legitimately exercise any ministry”.




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