The Pope's Most Personal Letter To His Bishops (and indeed the Faithful)

Father Z has the unofficial translation out plus his commentary. See Benedict’s Letter in English: Fr. Z comments . One must be really a Dissident Catholic in the thick weeds not to be touched by it. Especially these parts

I was saddened that also Catholics, who really should have known better, felt the need to lash out at me with jump-ready enmity......

The actual problem of our point in history is that God is disappearing out of humankind’s horizon and with the extinguishing of the from God-coming-light the lack/inability to of direction breaks into humanity, the destructive effects of which we are seeing ever more of........


If the struggle for faith, hope and love in the world represents the true priority for the Church in this our (and always in different forms), then the smaller and the larger reconciliations also make up a part of it.We need to recognize that the quiet gesture of an outstretched hand became such a great noise But now I still ask: Was and is it really wrong to come towards the brother “who bears a grudge against you” and attempt reconciliation (Cf. Mt 5, 23f)?

And this in your face truth that even the most Orthodox of bloggers sometimes fail to recognize

Sometimes one has the impression that our society needs at least one group to which it needs to show no tolerance, which one is allowed to attack with hatred, unquestioned. And whoever dares to touch them—in this case the Pope— has also himself lost the right to tolerance and was allowed to be thought of with hatred, without shyness or restraint.

Great stuff. We are blessed to have Pope Benedict. I am looking forward to how the Vatican handles the official release tomorrow.

I don't think the Church's foes and thus Peter's foes recognized how human the response by Pope Benedict would be.