Cardinal Hoyos: ´The FSSPX are within the confines of the Church`

The ancient latin mass is suggestiv e but also a source of conflict. Today, in order to celebrate it publicly, one must have permission from the local Bishop, but for several months now, rumor has been circulating that Benedict XVI might free it from this obligation. This continual rumor, nevertheless, is not reflected in the comments of Cardinal Castrillon, the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy and the principal architect of the dialogue with traditionalist groups, beginning with the SSPX, which includes the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Cardinal Castrillon: "This has been rule. The bishop is the one who decides. It is up to the Bishop to determine whether this is fitting for his diocese at any given time, or if it is not, for whatever pastoral reasons that he might have and for which he will have to report to the authority of the Pope, but especially, to Jesus, and to God.

Therefore, this is a question of reaffirming the autority of the bishops, but at the same time, a call to their conscience to avoid useless inflexibility, and to contribute to the long process of dialogue with the Lefebvrists, which had already been undertaken under the pontificate of John-Paul II, who, in 1988, had excommunicated the French Archibishop for having ordained four bishops in an illicit fashion.

This dialogue seems to have received a new impetus with the meeting, last summer at Castel Gandolfo, of Benedict XVI and the superior of the SSPX, Msgr. Fellay.

We are not dealing with a case of heresy. One cannot say in correct and exact terms that there is a schism. There is, in the act of ordaining bishops with out papal approval, a schismatic attitude. They are within the confines of the Church. The problem is just that there is a lack of a full, a more perfect – and as it was said during the meeting with Msgr. Fellay – a more full communion, because communion exists.