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Rorate has the latest on the SSPX situation.

Rome and Écône on the verge of reaching an agreement
by Jean-Marie Guénois

Updated on April 13, 2012 20:37 (1837 GMT)| published April 13, 2012 19:45 (1745 GMT)

The signing of a document establishing the relations between the Holy See and the disciples of Abp. Lefebvre is a matter of days.

Officially, the Vatican awaits the response of Bp. Bernard Fellay, the chief of the Lefebvrists. As soon as it is received in Rome - "it is a matter of days, and no longer of weeks", - it will be immediately examined. If it conforms to expectations, the Holy See will very quickly announce a historic agreement with this group of faithful, known under the name of "integrists".

But unofficially, and with the greatest discretion, emissaries have worked, from both sides, to "reach an agreement". In the past few weeks, the final adjustments have been concluded between Rome and Écône in order to better respond to the demands of "clarifications" asked for by the Vatican last March 16...

Now, this is all one thing. It's not the most important thing in the article, though. This is the part that everyone should be paying the most attention to.

On Monday, Benedict XVI will reach 85. He is tired. His entourage do not hide this. He has had to rest this week in Castel Gandolfo from his exhausting voyage to Mexico and Cuba, then from the long services of Holy Week. He should be back in the Vatican on Friday evening. As a priority on his bureau: this decision on the Lefebvrist affair. It will be one of the weightiest of the pontificate...

But the true "revolution" that Benedict XVI intends to leave before the eyes of the history of the Catholic Church is elsewhere. It is not related to peripheral aspects of the Catholic Church. These have already enraged the groups opposed to this reconciliation. The so-called "Progressives" of the Conciliar Church who see the "gains" of Vatican II questioned. The "ultras" within the Lefebvrist ranks who see in this a betrayal and a compromise with Modernist Rome.

This revolution aims for an enlarged vision of the Catholic Church. Benedict XVI, the theologian, has never accepted that in 1962 the bimillennial Catholic Church would have cut herself from the culture and strength of her past. More than a reconciliation with the Lefebvrists, he aims, with this gesture, for a reconciliation of the Catholic Church with herself.

The Holy Father's health is apparently not good. It's natural for him to feel his own end approaching. Heaven knows that there has been enough news lately to bring it to his attention. He's been doing a lot lately. Initiating the SSPX's role as a real force in the Church would be his crowning achievement. He probably doesn't have much time left. Pray for the Pope's success. Pray that his enemies fail. Especially The Enemy, who no doubt still seeks to take Peter for his own.