It is fair to conclude as you did that there is a new generation who are not so affected by what happened in the 70s that they cannot put these things aside for the greater good. I see a growing sense of respect and mutual good will among the various houses which trace their foundation back to Father Feeney. I can say that I am on very good terms with religious in every house of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This spirit of cooperation and mutual respect is not limited to the younger generation, however. Brother Francis — at 94 still able to speak his mind on these matters — very much encourages it. Another founding member, Brother Leonard Mary, who is out in California, is of this same mind. He visited us this past summer and we had a grand old time. The older Sisters at St. Ann’s House in Still River come to our conference every year. The Sisters in Vienna, Ohio stop by whenever they come to the Northeast, and we engage in common publication projects (catechisms and suchlike). Several of the houses share a multitude of resources — including the “human resource” of priests. Our 10:30 Sunday Mass sermon is generally the same one that was preached in Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in Still River, because the same priest says both Masses. The list could go on.

The Franciscans had their moments of internal dispute, yet many of those “splits” produced branches of the Franciscan Order ripe with saints. Monastic and religious history furnishes us with many other examples.

I certainly hope that Father Feeney is smiling on us from Heaven. There are those who pray every day for unity among all of his followers. I can’t imagine that he isn’t!

Thanks again for the opportunity to clarify this important question.

I think what I’ll do is reconstitute the exchange. I have the emails that were sent automatically when you posted them. What I don’t have is my replies, which I can rewrite.

You said:

“I have noticed that the different St. Benedict Centers have been referring to each others’ webpages and giving each other “props” with increasing frequency of late. I can’t help but feel that Fr. Feeney is smiling down upon his spiritual children as they accord each other this mutual respect. Would it be fair to say that there is a new generation of folks interested in “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus” who are not so affected by the inner struggles of the Crusade in the 1970s, or would it not be fair to say so?”

I’ll reply a little later.

I apologize. This morning I was managing comments in Word Press and I ended up deleting the whole posting. I had to repost it. I had nothing backed up, so all the comments were lost. I even looked for cached search engine pages, but found none with the comments on them.