This just in from the Vatican Information Service:
Vatican City, 18 April 2012 (VIS) – The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, today released the following communiqué:
“On 17 April, as requested during the 16 March meeting held at the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Commission received the response of Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X. The text of the response will be examined by the dicastery then submitted to the Holy Father for his judgement.”
The date on which the response was submitted is significant. In the Traditional liturgical calendar, April 17 is the feast of St. Anicetus, pope and Martyr (actually “Confessor”), who reigned for about a decade in the mid-second century A.D. The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia relates:
While Anicetus was Pope, St. Polycarp, then in extreme old age, came to confer with him about the Paschal controversy. Polycarp and others in the East used to celebrate the feast on the fourteenth of the month of Nisan, no matter on what day of the week it fell, whereas in Rome it was always observed on Sunday, and the day of the Lord’s death on Friday. The matter was discussed but nothing was decided. According to [the early fourth-century Church historian] Eusebius: ‘Polycarp could not persuade the Pope, nor the Pope, Polycarp. The controversy was not ended but the bonds of charity were not broken.’ The Pope permitted the aged saint to celebrate on the day he had been accustomed to in the Church of Smyrna.
Sancte Anicete, ora pro nobis!
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