I have always been quite taken over St. Michael. Often he is seen by himself, devil under foot and not in the company of the other archangels. I came across some written info sponsored by St. Joseph's Mail order, written by Little Flower Press Educational materials that referred to the book of Apocalypse when referring to the angels. In looking for the book of Apocalypse I discovered from The Family Rosary Commemorative Edition of the Caholic bible, written in rememberance of The Marian Year that the Douay bible deemed Catholic is the one with the written book of Apocalypse. It also talked about the other bibles actually being Protestant. Why aren't we sent to the written work as it was translated for the Catholic church by English Catholics in 1578? If the other bibles are deemed Protestant then why do we learn from that which "protests" the Catholic church? I was sent to the book of Revelation in place of the Book of Apocalypse and the literature is varying.

Dear brothers in episcopal service!

The lifting of the excommunications for the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in the year 1988 without the mandate of the Holy See caused an uproar led with a ferocity which we haven’t seen for a long time, both within and outside of the Catholic Church for a multiplicity of reasons. Many bishops felt helpless faced with an event that came unexpectedly and that could barely fit positively into the questions and duties of the Church of today. Even though many shepherds and faithful were willing to gauge the Pope’s desire for reconciliation as fundamentally positive, the question of the appropriateness of such a gesture in the face of the real priorities of faithful life in our time stood against it.

A variety of groups on the other hand openly accused the Pope of wanting to reverse the Council; an avalanche of protests set itself into motion, the bitterness of which has made wounds visible which reached far further than the instance. So I feel pushed, dear confreres, to direct a clarifying word towards you, that should help to understand the intentions which led me and the respective organs of the Holy See in this step. In this way I hope to help to bring peace to the Church.

One of the for me not foreseeable glitch/breakdown existed therein that the lifting of the excommunication was overshadowed by the Williamson Case. The quiet gesture of mercy towards four validly but not licitly ordained bishops appeared suddenly to be something completely different: as a rejection of the Christian-Jewish reconciliation, as a retraction of that on which matter the Council declared it to be the direction/path of the Church.

From an invitation to reconciliation for an ecclesiastical group that was separating itself from the Church, it became in this way the opposite, a seeming backtracking behind all the steps to the reconciliation between Christians and Jews which have been made since the Council—with which I have made it the goal of my theological work from the beginning to walk along with and move ahead.

I can only deeply lament the fact that this superimposition of two conflicting processes entered and for a moment disrupted the peace between Christians and Jews as well as the peace of the Church. I understand/hear, that careful following of the news available/accessible from the internet might have allowed one to become aware of the problem in time. I have learned from it that we at the Holy See shall have to be more watch this source of news more attentively in the future. I was saddened that also Catholics, who really should have known better, felt the need to lash out at me with jump-ready enmity. All the more do I thank the Jewish friends who helped to quickly rid the world of the misunderstanding and to re-establish the atmosphere of friendship and trust which—as in days of Pope John Paul II—also continued to exist through the whole period of my Pontificate and God be praised, will continue to exist.

A further mishap that I honestly regret exists therein that the border and the extent of the measure of January 21, 2009 which were not clearly enough explained with the publication of the process. The excommunications concern the persons, not the institutions. The concecration of bishops without a Papal mandate signals the danger of a schism because it calls into question the unity of the College of bishops with the Pope. Therefore the Church has to react with the severest punishment, excommunication, in order to to call back those that were thus punished to penitence and so to unity. Twenty years after the consecrations this goal has sadly still not been achieved. The lifting of the excommunications serves the same goal as the punishment itself; to once again invite the four bishops to return. This gesture was possible after the involved parties expressed their fundamental acknowledgement of the Pope and his power as shepherd, even though with the exception of that which deals with obedience to his teaching authority and against that of the Council. With that I return to distinction between person and institution. The dissolution of the excommunication was a measure in the area of Church Discipline: The persons were freed from the weight on their conscience of the heaviest Church punishment. This disciplinary field should be distinguished from the doctrinal area. That the Society of St Pius X has no canonical status in the Church does not actually rest on a disciplinary but on a doctrinal foundation. As long as the Society has no canonical status in the church, their holders of office do not hold legal offices in the Church.

One must also differentiate between the persons as persons disciplinary level and the doctrinal level, with which both office and institution are in question. To repeat: so long as the doctrinal questions are not clarified, the society has no canonical status in the Church and therefore for that time its office holders, even if they are freed from the punishment of the Church, hold/practice no legal offices in the Church.

In the face of the situation, I intend to combine the Papal Commission Ecclesia Dei which has, since 1988, been responsible for those communities and persons, who have come from the Society of St Pius X or similar groups and would like to return to full communion with the Pope, with the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. This should make clear that the problems that are now to be dealt with are of a doctrinal nature, especially that which deals with acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-Concilliar teaching of the Pope. The collegial organs, with which the Congregation deals with the incidental questions (especially the regular meeting of the Cardinals on Wednesdays and the one to two yearly full meeting) guaranty that the prefects of the different Roman Congregations and the world wide episcopate will be brought into any decisions that will be made. One cannot freeze the teaching authority of the Church in the year 1962—the society has to be clear about that. But some of those who play the great defenders of the Council, need to be reminded that the Second Vatican Council carries with it the whole teaching history of the Church. Whoever wants to be obedient to it, must accept the faith of centuries and may not cut the roots from which the tree lives.

I hope, dear brothers, that the positive meaning as well as the the boundaries of the measures of January 21, 2009 have been clarified.But now the question remains: Was it necessary? Was it really a priority? Are there not more important things? Naturally there are more important and urgent things. I think that I have made the priorities of this pontificate clear in my speeches at its beginning. What I said then remains my unchanged guidelines.

The Lord unmistakably fixed the first priority for the successor of Peter at the Last Supper. “You however strengthen your brothers” (Lk 222, 32) Peter himself formulated this priority in his first letter anew: “Be constantly ready, to give everyone a speech and answer, who asks for the Hope that is in you.” 1 Peter 3,15) In our days, in which our faith threatens in broad stretches of the world to be extinguished like a flame which no longer finds food, it is the highest priority to make God present in this world and to open the access to God. Not just to any God, but to the God who spoke on the Sinai, to the God whose face in the love to the end (John 13,1) is recognized in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ. 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 distructive effects of which we are seeing ever more of.

Pope Benedict

While the number of SSPX clergy isn't great, their influence has been greater than the numbers would suggest. Seminarians and recently ordained priests who are "in communion with Rome" and led by radically conservative bishops have learned the lesson well that they can play along with Rome until they can use their influence to completely set aside the teachings of Vatican II. They are dishonest and subversive.