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Prodigal Sons?

Today we remember the Conversion of St Paul and the last day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We also recall that on this day fifty years ago, at St Paul's Outside the Walls, Pope John XXIII announced his plan for a Great Council of the Church. Interestingly, on 21 January the ban of excommunication was lifted from four bishops ordained by the late Archbishop Lefebvre. We ought to be rejoicing at the thought of four prodigal sons being welcomed back into the family from which they have been so long estranged. Another little sign of unity regained perhaps? For English Catholics, however, there is a shadow. Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four, has gone on record not only as a Holocaust denier but also as an endorser of the virulently anti-semitic Protocols of Zion and seems not to have lessened any of his former hostility to the Holy See. While we need to distinguish between the lifting of excommunication (= ecclesiastical penalty) and the views someone holds on matters of history (= personal belief), however crazy or dangerous those views may be, uneasiness remains. Many well-meaning Catholics have the idea that the SSPX separated from the Church "merely" because its members preferred to use the Tridentine form of Mass. In fact, the divisions went much deeper and the implacable opposition of many SSPX members to the Church's ecumenical work and its renewed understanding of the Jewish Covenant remains a source of sorrow and confusion. The timing of the removal of excommunication was odd and some of the explanations that have been offered are frankly lame. Let us pray that out of this good may come, and on Holocaust Memorial Day let us renew our commitment to making genocide a thing of the past.