Free Republic

I have made no secret of my disagreement with the Traditionalist rejection of the Second Vatican Council or the movement’s refusal to be obedient to papal authority. Since Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the four bishops who preside over the Society of St. Pius X, I have reiterated these views, and have tried to identify the remaining obstacles to the restoration of the SSPX to full communion with the Church. The result has been a steady stream of correspondence from both Traditionalists and those sympathetic to them, a correspondence characterized by not only defensiveness but pain. In using...

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. Rome Looking ahead to next October’s Synod of Bishops on the Bible, a cardinal and one of the most noted experts on scripture in the Catholic hierarchy has launched what amounts to a “preemptive strike” – appealing to his brother bishops to concentrate on practical matters, rather than revisiting theological questions settled by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former archbishop of Milan and a former rector of the Pontficial Biblical Institute in Rome, published his recommendations in the Feb. 2 issue of La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit-run journal that enjoys...