For those who aren't yet aware, Andrea Tornielli summarizes the matter accordingly in his piece, Judgement day has come for Lefebvrians and the Vatican, published yesterday on Vaticaninsider.com:
The relationship between the Lefebvrians and the Holy See is a decisive step “of no return”, as the Holy See describe it. The superior of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay will enter the Palace of the Holy Office accompanied by his collaborators, the abbot Niklaus Pfluger and abbot Marc-Alain Nely.
Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Monsignor Guido Pozzo will be there to greet them.
Vatican Insider has learnt that the Lefebvrian superior will be handed a two page document, containing the Church’s appraisal of the doctrinal discussions held in recent months between the Vatican and the Fraternity, approved by the Pope. It is an altogether brief but accurate document, which contains the answers to the problems raised in the discussions regarding the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council’s texts on religious freedom, ecumenism and ecclesiology.
Evidently, it goes without saying that we are in a crucial time and we should all take to heart the cause of Christian unity. As such, may I encourage your prayers in this vein.
UPDATE
Rorate Caeli has provided a translation of the following communique which was released this morning about the meeting. We reproduce their translation here in its entirety.
Mention is made in the communique of the question of the hermeneutic of rupture vs. continuity and a doctrinal preamble which "enunciates some of the doctrinal principles and criteria of interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary for ensuring fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church and to the sentire cum Ecclesia, while leaving open to legitimate discussion the theological study and explanation of particular expressions and formulations present in the texts of the Second Vatican Council and of the Magisterium that followed it."
My thought in reading that paragraph is that, whatever else might happen here with regard to the SSPX itself, this preamble could be extremely important as a set of guiding principles in relation to continuity and rupture.
COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE HOLY SEE: MEETING BETWEEN THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH AND THE FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X
On September 14, 2011, at the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a meeting was held between His Eminence, Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of this Congregation and President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, His Excellency, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, S.J., Secretary of this Congregation, and Monsignor Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and His Excellency, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, and Fathers Niklaus Pfluger et Alain-Marc Nély, General Assistants of the Fraternity
Following the petition addressed on December 15, 2008, by the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy Father had taken the decision of lifting the excommunication of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and to open at the same time doctrinal conversations with the Fraternity, aiming to overcome the difficulties and the problems of a doctrinal nature, and to achieve a reduction of the existing rupture.
Obedient to the will of the Holy Father, a mixed study commission, composed of experts of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and of experts of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, assembled eight times for meetings that took place in Rome between the month of October 2009 and the month of April 2011. These conversations, whose objective was that of presenting and examining the major doctrinal difficulties on controversial themes, achieved their goal, which was that of clarifying the respective positions and their motivations.
Given the concerns and explanations presented by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X regarding the integrity of the Catholic faith considering the hermeneutic of rupture of the Second Vatican Council in respect of Tradition - hermeneutic mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI in his Address to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005 -, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith takes as a fundamental basis of the full reconciliation with the Apostolic See the acceptance of the doctrinal Preamble which was delivered in the course of the meeting of September 14, 2011. This preamble enunciates some of the doctrinal principles and criteria of interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary for ensuring fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church and to the sentire cum Ecclesia, while leaving open to legitimate discussion the theological study and explanation of particular expressions and formulations present in the texts of the Second Vatican Council and of the Magisterium that followed it.
In the course of the same meeting, some elements were proposed regarding a canonical solution for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, which would follow the eventual and hoped-for reconciliation.
[Original Text: French; Rorate translation]
