Its amazing what the Truth will do...

Just finished reading this:

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1345026?eng=y

So lets recount what has happened in the ecumenical sphere since April of 2005.

In Regensburg, Pope Benedict, in a speech on faith and reason, mentions the irrationality of Islam's history of forced conversions.  There is much anger and bile thrown his way...and then 142 Muslim scholars write a letter to the Holy Father seeking dialogue.  When the dialogue begins, the Holy Father is clear that it will only focus on religious liberty, and the concept of human rights (a clear slap in the face for Muslim belief that non-Muslims are to be persecuted and for the Muslim treatment of women)...talks begin.

Sept 14, 2007--The Holy Father issues Summorum pontificum, which allows for a relative freedom to celebrate the Mass according to the 1962 Missale Romanum.  Of course, liberal Catholics throw a hissy, and claim that it impedes ecumenical "progress".  The Patriarch of Constantinople and the Patriarch of Moscow lauded the move.  Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople even presided at a Vespers service.

The Holy Father then removed the excommunications that were levied on four bishops that were illicitly ordained by Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre in 1980 (this was hijacked by the moronic statements of perpetual malcontent, His Excellency Richard Williamson...just because you are elected to succeed the apostles doesn't mean you are graced with intelligence).  He was lambasted by the media, but...doctrinal talks between the Holy See and the SSPX began in earnest (where there had been none before). [NOTE: the SSPX, or Society of St. Pius X was begun in response to the implementaions of the Second Vatican Council, which were in contrast--at least to members of the Society.  The Society retained the older form of the Sacraments and rejected some of the documents of the Council, but not the authority of the Holy Father.  The commencement of doctrinal talks to lift the suspension of faculties by Society priests is a huge step forward for Christian Unity].

When the Anglican Communion debated itself in circles, and finally agreed that female bishop and openly gay priests were within the whole of Christian tradition, the Vatican called a spade a spade, and denounced the "decision".  Then, he goes ahead and issues Anglicanorum ceotibus, which creates a means for entire parishes of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church (in response to a large contingent of Traditional Anglicans in the vein of the Oxford Movement).

A couple of weeks ago, the Holy Father went to England, and at the joint prayer service at Westminster Abbey, he wore a stole of Leo XIII, the pope who declared all orders of the Anglicans to be utterly null and invalid, and thusly received John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church.  Indeed, that entire visit was one of a reminder that he is the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ.  The result?  Huge crowds (considering that the UK is hugely secular) and a large contingent of Anglicans who have verbally stated they want to convert to Catholicism.

In the article mentioned above, we learn that the Orthodox were a bit put off by Benedict's dropping of the title Patriarch of the West (inferring that somehow, the office of the papacy is above the Patriarchs), and yet they continue to develop and discuss the theology and historicity of Petrine supremacy. 

My point?  Rather than take a concession, or state that we're all the same, which has been done for the last 40 years, this Holy Father tells it like it is...and the result is fruitful ecumenism.  Gee, whoda thunk telling the Truth would yield fruitful results?