Pope Benedict XVI has removed the latae sententia excommunications incurred by four bishops of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.

The Holy Father’s action was announced in a Vatican statement released by Cardinal Giovanni Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

The Pope acted in response to a Dec. 15 letter from one of the four bishops, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the Society of St. Pius X. The excommunications were incurred in 1988, when the bishops were consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without the permission of Pope John Paul II.

In his letter to Benedict, Bishop Fellay affirmed, “We are always firmly determined in our will to remain Catholic and to place all our efforts at the service of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept its teachings with filial animus. We believe firmly in the Primacy of Peter and in its prerogatives, and for this the current situation makes us suffer so much.”

Cardinal Re’s statement said the Pope’s decision to lift the excommunications is intended ”to consolidate the reciprocal relations of confidence and to intensify and grant stability to the relationship of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X with this Apostolic See. This gift of peace, at the end of the Christmas celebrations, wishes also to be a sign to promote unity in the charity of the universal Church and to try to end the scandal of division.”

Continued the letter, “It is hoped that this step be followed by the prompt accomplishment of full communion with the Church of the entire Fraternity of Saint Pius X, thus testifying true fidelity and true recognition of the Magisterium and of the authority of the Pope with the proof of visible unity.”

— Tom McFeely