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Sspx personal prelature7/13/2023 When he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Benedict was intimately involved in the excommunication of Arch-bishop Lefebvre, and will know exactly what is at stake. In his 1988 motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, he allowed the celebration of the Mass in Latin, subject to the discretion of the local ordinary. ![]() While the Tridentine Mass may not be celebrated in the Catholic Church without an indult from the Vatican (and even then not in perpetuity), Pope John Paul tried to find a compromise. Their anguish over the loss of the Tridentine Mass merits due regard. The liturgical changes of Vatican II made great demands on Catholics resistant to change. The meeting between Pope Benedict and Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), might not have produced a dramatic breakthrough – arguably not its purpose in first place – but it may have set in motion a process that could culminate in an end to a schism which the late Pope John Paul II saw as one of the great failures of his pontificate. It is therefore a hopeful sign that one schism in the Catholic Church, albeit a minor one as far as the wider Christian community is concerned, might one day be healed. For the most part, these schisms can never be healed in a way that might create a perfect unity. Historically, some of these were grounded in matters of theology, others in politics. There are many reasons why Christianity is fragmented. The absence of unity among Christians, the Council Fathers declared, “contradicts the will of Christ scandalises the world.” ![]() ![]() It is for this reason that Vatican II, in its decree Unitatis Redintegratio, described ecumenism as one of its “principal concerns”. Any split in the Church, therefore, is a cause for distress. Christ called on his followers to be united in one body.
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