Message #134456

[Bianca]

'VERY UNUSUAL DOCUMENT'.



Father Lombardi said Thursday that there should be ''no doubt that the letter is (Benedict's) from the first word to the last'', describing it as ''personal and intense''.

''It's a very unusual document and worthy of the greatest attention,'' Lombardi said, adding that it revealed the pope's ''clear participation and suffering'' in the affair.

He stresses that the pope ''does not want to block dialogue within the church'', but wants this to go ahead ''in a respectful manner''.

''Saying that the pope wants to go back on the Council is not something to be taken lightly,'' he said.

The Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 tried to equip the Church for life in the modern world and introduced reforms in liturgy, ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and religious liberty.

Among the changes was the shift from the 'Tridentine' or Latin Mass towards ceremonies held in modern languages.

Benedict, then Joseph Ratzinger, has been working to reunite SSPX with the Catholic Church since 1988. The German-born pope is himself an admirer of the traditional rites in Latin and his initiative to allow its return - as an option alongside the modern mass - had been expected almost since he was elected in April 2005.

SSPX is the only group to break away from the 1.1-billion strong Roman Catholic Church since the reforms of the early 1960s.