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Roman Catholic traditionalists welcome Vatican decree
AFP - Sunday, January 25
GENEVA (AFP) - - Bernard Fellay, one of the Roman Catholic traditionalist bishops whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican, thanked Pope Benedict XVI for his decree on Saturday and accepted dialogue.
Fellay's Swiss-based Priestly Society of Saint Pius X said in statements released on the Internet that it welcomed the prospect of direct "interviews" with the Vatican.
In June last year, Fellay had rejected overtures from Rome for a reconciliation.
"We express our brotherly gratitude to the Holy Father for this act, which, beyond the fraternity, will be beneficial for the whole Church," the statement signed by Fellay on Saturday said.
He added in a separate letter to followers that the Pope's gesture had removed a stigma for traditionalists.
"Roman Catholic Tradition is no longer excommunicated. Although that was never the case as such, it was cruelly and often so in fact," he wrote.
The Vatican on Saturday published the decree ordering the cancellation of the excommunication of four bishops ordained in 1998 by the controversial French bishop Marcel Lefebvre. Fellay succeeded Lefebvre, who died in 1991.
The head of the Swiss bishops' conference, Kurt Koch, later released a statement saying the gesture followed a letter from Fellay on December 15 asking the pope to lift the excommunications and recognising "the teachings of the Church and the primacy of the Pope."
Koch also underlined that more steps would be needed before "full unity" could be restored between "the whole of Saint Pius X and the Roman Catholic Church."
Fellay and his community said they were "happy" that the Vatican decree dated January 21 suggested that "interviews" with the Holy See would be necessary and welcomed the possibility of discussing doctrine.
"In this new climate we have the firm hope that we will soon be able to achieve recognition for the rights of Catholic Tradition," he added.
Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988 by then pope Jean Paul II for having ordained the bishops in defiance of the Vatican's authority.
The bishop of Econe in western Switzerland led a schism from the Church over the ecumenical approach reflected in the Vatican II reforms (1962-65) and the abandonment of the traditional Latin mass. He also rejected dialogue with other religions.
Lefebvre founded the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, which claims 150,000 followers across the world, mainly in France and Brazil.
The four bishops ordained by Lefebvre were the Frenchmen Bernard Fellay and Bernard de Tissier de Mallerais, Argentine Alfonso de Gallerata and Briton Richard Williamson.
German prosecutors have launched a probe against Williamson on suspicion of inciting racial hatred for comments he made about the Holocaust on Swedish television this week, casting doubt on the use of gas chambers by the Nazis.
Fellay distanced the Saint Pius X community from Williamson's opinions on Saturday, suggesting that the Briton was addressing a "secular" issue rather than one of "faith and morality."
"If he addresses secular issues, his opinion on such matters only represents himself. The Priestly Society that I lead has no legitimacy to deal with these subjects and does not claim it," Fellay said in a separate statement on the television interview.
Historians have established that six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II including vast numbers by systematic extermination in gas chambers.
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