It comes just weeks before Ahmadinejad is due to visit New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, and it coincides with other conciliatory actions by Iran, including a letter to European Union officials offering new talks on Iran's nuclear program.
The conciliatory actions, based on the recommendations of a special commission of three bishops, were seen as a victory for Hunthausen and his supporters, and as a way of easing tensions that have intensified in the U.S. Catholic Church since Hunthausen revealed last September that Wuerl had been named to take control over the areas in which Hunthausen was allegedly lax.
If the platform language on civil rights has a conciliatory sound, the action of the Credentials Committee in respecting the "moral" as distinct from the legal, claims of the Freedom Democrats was unexpectedly bold.
Nonetheless, a Republican administration that never really cared for the breakup order, and a president who has voiced impatience over protracted lawsuits, have decided on a more conciliatory course of action.
At the same time, Israel has been pressed to take actions conciliatory to the Palestinians, including easing conditions on the West Bank and in Gaza and releasing Palestinian prisoners.
But whether his conciliatory words translate to action remains to be seen.
The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, who is nurturing warm ties with China and has warned he may break longstanding military relations with the United States, took a conciliatory approach over the Chinese action.
Beijing's actions, be they conciliatory or aggressive, will set the tone for the future, and hence the relationships between the United States and the other nations of the region.
It is also apparent that Muslim leaders have shied away from any kind of confrontation with the powerful monks or any supporters they may have in government on this issue, remaining largely conciliatory in their language and actions.
At the start of the war, he had hoped that aggressive military action, coupled with a "conciliatory" policy on slavery, would induce the South to negotiate a return to the Union in short order.
