Personal friend of Benedict to defend pontiff's statements on Latin Mass, Protestants

West Covina, Jul 25, 2007 / 11:26 am (CNA).- A personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI will defend the pontiff's recent controversial remarks, supporting the traditional Latin Mass and saying that non-Catholic Christian communities cannot be called churches “in the proper sense.”

Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, will make his remarks at the annual Catholic Family Conference in Anaheim, California, July 28. His talk will explain what the Pope's Apostolic Letter authorizing wider use of the Latin Mass means for Catholic faithful, their parishes, and the Catholic Church in the United States.

He will also clarify what the Pope meant in his comments about non-Catholic Christians, why non-Catholics should not take offense at them, and what they mean for interfaith relations.

Fr. Fessio is currently a theologian in residence at the new Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. He is also the founder and former president of Ignatius Press, the St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco, and Campion College.

He wrote his dissertation under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the University of Regensburg in 1975, and for decades was the exclusive publisher of his books in English.