"Report on Tradition - In conversation with the successor of Monsignor Lefebvre"

RORATE CÆLI has an interesting report up with regard to a surprising publishing offering from an apparently mainline Italian Catholic publisher:

"Italian publishing house Cantagalli, of Siena (which has recently published Cardinal Biffi's autobiography) has just released an interview in book format by journalists Alessandro Gnocchi and Mario Palmaro (well known for their work for the dailies Il Foglio and Il Giornale).

"In Rapporto sulla Tradizione - A colloquio con il successore di monsignor Lefebvre [Report on Tradition - In conversation with the successor of Monsignor Lefebvre], the Superior-General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay, discusses the history and aims of Traditionalist Catholics.

"This publication itself, by a mainstream Catholic publishing house in Italy, is an encouraging sign. The book contains several interesting excerpts, for instance:

"We [the SSPX] have, as of today, presented to Roman authorities cases regarding our Fraternity which are solved by Rome, by the Pope."[Rome has solved] "a case of reduction to the lay state of a priest of ours, dismissing him from priestly obligations".

Perhaps we can see two encouraging signs in this:

1. Hopefully the signs of some kind (albeit slow) "rapproachment" between the SSPX and the Church as seen in more tangible co-operation -- something the quote above intimates if the SSPX is bringing cases to Rome to be resolved. Perhaps a pertinent reminder as well that we should always pray that unity be restored.

2. The continuing signs, as we have seen elsewhere with the motu proprio specifically and the Benedictine pontificate generally, that the concerns of "traditional Catholics" generally are now being understood as less out of the mainstream and more relevant than perhaps previously thought -- and thus publishable.

An interesting story on a few fronts.