Vatican City, Jul 8, 2009 / 10:17 am
In a continued effort to work towards the “repair of all fractures and divisions within the Church,” Pope Benedict XVI undertook today the reorganization of the pontifical commission designed to deal with questions involving the Society of Saint Pius X. The change in organization places the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Pope Benedict announced the organizational shift in a Motu Proprio, which was published today under the title “Ecclesiae unitatem.”
The new delegation of powers places the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an indication that the problems separating the Society from the Church are primarily doctrinal.
Benedict recalled in his letter that in July 1988, after Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre illicitly consecrated four priests as bishops, Pope John Paul II established the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission to “collaborate with the bishops, with the departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals” linked to the Society.