The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to “lift the excommunication” of four traditionalist bishops who had been excommunicated since 1988 – they had been ordained against the Vatican’s approval by Archbishop Lefebvre – triggers even greater misunderstanding especially since one of them, Richard Williamson, a 68-year-old British prelate, denies in a recent interview on Swedish television the existence of gas chambers and disputes the principle and number of Jews exterminated during World War II.
It is certainly possible to try to illuminate the strategy of Rome which, under the guise of an ecumenical approach of “repentance” and “forgiveness,” aims to resolve one of the major schisms in its Church after the one that occurred with the Eastern Church – the “Great Schism” of 1054 – and another, five centuries later, due to the Protestant Reformation. However, this decision mainly illustrates on the Vatican’s part a “lack of identity,” a religion in search of an “object relation” not only in relation to the other two monotheisms, Judaism and Islam, but also towards other beliefs and religious practices in the world. It risks being perceived as a purely statistical move: it would still be necessary to agree on the importance of the followers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, whose number varies, according to different sources, from 40,000 to 600,000!
We would like to believe that this rationale cannot be purely “quantitative” and inspired by a particular context unfavorable to the Roman Church: while in France, the rate of religious practice among Catholics has dropped from 37% to 8% between 1945 and 2004, accompanied by a 50% drop in priestly vocations between these two periods, it is also known, since the publication of the Pontifical State’s statistical yearbook in 2008, that “for the first time in history, Muslims have surpassed Catholics.” Muslims now represent 19.2% of the global population compared to 17.4% for Catholics, according to details provided by its author, Monsignor Vittorio Formenti. Moreover, the impressive growth of religions on other continents, illustrated by the Hindu and Buddhist revival in Asia, and evangelical fervor in South America – to the point of electing a bishop as president of Paraguay – must also mention the dynamics initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church: gathered these days in Council, it should elect a new Patriarch whose task will consist, after having managed in 2007 to bring back “the Russian Church outside the borders,” to bring closer the Patriarchate of Moscow with that of Constantinople, in disunion since the 17th century. An international environment, if one may say so, that is at least competitive and dynamic.
However, explaining cannot necessarily justify. Whatever is said, evidently embarrassed, the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Vingt-Trois, this “lifting” equates to rehabilitation. It seems to obliterate in one stroke the positive effects of the papal visit to France, and in particular, those of his speech at the Collège des Bernardins where he had denounced “fundamentalist fanaticism.” A theme nevertheless taken up in the works of the Synod of October 2008 which had gathered more than 300 theologians and field pastors. “It is indispensable that the Church knows and lives what it announces,” the Supreme Pontiff had explained in his opening homily by criticizing “a society more divided and more confused” than ever. If it is likely to provoke the legitimate anger of the leaders of Judaism, already irritated by the prospect of the beatification of Pius XII accused of silence on the Holocaust, the decision by Benedict XVI will probably not help in the gathering of Christians whose faith, already scattered and faltering, might suffer the repercussions of what could be felt as a retreat, or even an encapsulation of doctrinal stances by the Church of Rome.
