For Foxman, et al . only if John Paul II condemns Christianity as intrinsically anti-Semitic and if he apologizes for being a Catholic would they be satisfied. They are without question intellectually dishonest and men of malice. But these types will always be with us, and surely of them we ought not be afraid. But Tom Bethel and other orthodox Catholics can not use the offensive by men of ill will against the Church as a reason to back off from what all of us are called do on behalf of Christian witness. This continual conversion is a process of returning to God, of reconciliation with Him.
Sin jeopardizes that unity.
So how appropriate that as we enter the Third Millennium, the Roman Pontiff asks forgiveness of God for the failing of His children, and that he calls upon his flock to go to the Father in the same way the Prodigal Son went to his father, repentant and asking forgiveness for his offenses. There can be no holiness without conversion nor any conversion without dealing with what is unworthy and sinful, and asking forgiveness. In no way, however, does the Vatican document Memory and Reconciliation suggest any confession of doctrinal error. It only confesses of failure to act according to the Church' s standards of belief and conduct. And in no way does it question the holiness of the Church.