Remnant Editor’s Note:  The following is our translation of a press release of sorts which appeared on a web site operated by Una Voce Venice ( http://www.unavoce-ve.it/panorama08-12-05.htm).  The news of a 5-hour meeting between Bishop Fellay of the SSPX and Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos certainly suggests that something significant is afoot with respect to the ongoing negotiations between the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican.   We post it here sans further comment, other than that we look forward to an official statement from the SSPX on this seemingly dramatic development. MJM

Cardinal at table with Tradition

The Lefebvrites ask Hoyos for the Mass in Latin and the withdrawal of the excommunication.

A traditionalist dinner by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos (photo on the left), Prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, who received Lefebvrites in his Roman residence, in Piazza della Citta Leonina, a stone’s throw from the Vatican.

The influential Columbian Cardinal, appointed by the Pope to entertain relations with the traditionalists, has invited to dinner, with the utmost discretion, Monsignor Bernard Fellay, successor to Marcel Lefebvre (to the right) at the head of the Society of St. Pius X  (so the community is called that comprises the Lefebvrites), and Don Marc Nély, Superior of the Italian District of the Society.  Witnesses report that it was much more than a simple lunch break:  the Lefebvrists, in cassock, arrived in great secrecy at the residence of the Cardinal about 11:00 a.m. and departed after 4:00 p.m.

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To the Cardinal they gave a copy of the Italian translation of the voluminous biography of Marcel Lefebvre (730 pages), freshly printed.  The theme of the conversation: the developments of the dialogue between the Church of Rome and the Traditionalists, after the audience given by Benedict XVI to the Lefebvrists last 29 August.

The withdrawal of the excommunication and the liberalization of the Mass in Latin according to the ancient Tridentine Rite: these [are the] requests (have been) put forward by the Traditionalists to Cardinal Hoyos. (Ignazio Ingrao)

From Panorama, 8 December 2005