The Holy Father...

....has issued a letter to Bishops explaining his actions in seeking to return the Lefebvrists to the Church. It has a tone of some personal anguish. But it also sets out the system that will be used to establish the discussions neccesary for reconciliation. While listing all the reasons - good ones - for seeking to bring these people back into the Church, there is a note of hurt that his motives were misunderstood (and, although he doesn't say so, let's face it,in some cases deliberately so?)in the subsequent furore.

I have to say that one particularly unhelpful contribution was the "traditionalist" publication which gleefully announced that the Lefbvrists would be fully reconciled by the beginning of February,would specifically not have to accept Vatican II, would run their own parishes on this basis without links to the local bishop...this whizzed around the Internet. That it came from a source which, a couple of years earlier, had been roundly denouncing the Holy Father for visiting a synagogue, was enough give me grave doubts as to its truth and indeed to question its motivation. But it must have helped to spread confusion and fears.

We can assume that some of the Lefebvrists will eventually be reconciled and we must, as a commentator in the Catholic Herald put it recently, not behave like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. So as soon as they say "sorry", even if, like the son in the story, they only do so from mixed motives, the response of bystanders should be generous...