Monseigneur,
It is now a month since we met. As I offer you my best wishes for the Easter feast, I should like to repeat how happy I am that our meeting was so frank, and also how, every day, the expectation grows keener that you will return to that effective communion with Pope Paul VI which the celebration of the Resurrection required and of which our conversation had given hope.
Indeed, you certainly remember the step envisaged as most suitable for arriving at that happy result.
After reflecting, alone and before God, you will write to the Holy Father informing him of your acceptance of the Council and of all its documents, affirming your full attachment to the person of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and to the totality of his teaching and undertaking, as concrete proof of your submission to the Successor of Peter, to adopt and to get adopted in the houses dependent on you, the Missal which he himself promulgated in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority.
I can fully understand how costly such a step must be. That, perhaps, is why you hesitate to take it. Yet, can there be any other way? I address myself to you as a brother, with hope and confidence: this step is possible; it must be taken for the good of the whole Church and for those outside it who are looking at us; and I desire to do everything to help you take it.
A few days ago we celebrated Easter. Christ the Saviour points the way. To be united with Him there is no other road than to put everything into His hands. I pray with all my heart that you may reach Him, and thus give to His Vicar on earth the profound joy that he awaits with impatience.
Be assured, Monseigneur, of my devoted fraternal feelings.
+ J. Benelli.
It is now a month since we met. As I offer you my best wishes for the Easter feast, I should like to repeat how happy I am that our meeting was so frank, and also how, every day, the expectation grows keener that you will return to that effective communion with Pope Paul VI which the celebration of the Resurrection required and of which our conversation had given hope.
Indeed, you certainly remember the step envisaged as most suitable for arriving at that happy result.
After reflecting, alone and before God, you will write to the Holy Father informing him of your acceptance of the Council and of all its documents, affirming your full attachment to the person of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and to the totality of his teaching and undertaking, as concrete proof of your submission to the Successor of Peter, to adopt and to get adopted in the houses dependent on you, the Missal which he himself promulgated in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority.
I can fully understand how costly such a step must be. That, perhaps, is why you hesitate to take it. Yet, can there be any other way? I address myself to you as a brother, with hope and confidence: this step is possible; it must be taken for the good of the whole Church and for those outside it who are looking at us; and I desire to do everything to help you take it.
A few days ago we celebrated Easter. Christ the Saviour points the way. To be united with Him there is no other road than to put everything into His hands. I pray with all my heart that you may reach Him, and thus give to His Vicar on earth the profound joy that he awaits with impatience.
Be assured, Monseigneur, of my devoted fraternal feelings.
+ J. Benelli.
