To Build Bridges

"At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."

Earlier this week Pope Benedict XVI responded to the flurry of responses to his lifting the excommunication of four Lefebvrist bishops. At the outset, the surfacing of one of the bishop's denial of the Holocaust fanned questions about the Vatican's intention toward the Jewish community, till, as Benedict notes, voices from within the Jewish community pointed out the absurdity of that position.

Benedict's letter, however, provides insight as well into the path the Church is called to take today. He writes: "In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen."

He continues: "A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God."

I'd love to keep on quoting, but you're better off going to the source. One final line: "Whoever proclaims that God is Love "to the end" has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity."