Vatican-traditionalist talks begin
The Vatican began talks on Monday with the Society of St. Pius X, the traditionalist faction whose leaders were excommunicated 20 years ago after consecrating their own bishops without the consent of Pope John Paul II.
The effort got off to a rough start earlier this year when one of the four bishops whose excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI turned out to be a Holocaust denier. There have been conflicting reports about whether the Vatican was aware of comments by British Bishop Richard Williamson, who told Swedish television last year that the evidence was “hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed” by the Nazis during World War II.
In any event, negotiations are expected to take years, the Associated Press reports.
"In the best case, humanly speaking, we have several years of discussions ahead of us," the society's delegation leader, Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, said in a recent interview posted on the society's Web site. De Galarreta is one of the other bishops whose excommunication was rescinded in January.
The AP has a useful summary of the split between the church and the Society of St. Puis X, also known as Lefebvrists, after founding Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
Lefebvre founded the society in 1969, opposed to Vatican II's reforms, which included outreach to Jews and other Christians and the celebration of Mass in the vernacular rather than Latin.The society's opposition to Vatican II, particularly its teachings on ecumenism and religious freedom, remains at the heart of the dispute with Rome and is the focus of the talks beginning Monday with officials from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Benedict has for two decades tried to bring the society back into the Vatican's fold, first as head of the doctrine office and later as pope — part of his aim of uniting the church and putting a highly conservative stamp on it. ...
In the case of the society, Benedict has risked relations with Jews and liberal Catholic alike to reintegrate Lefebvre's followers even after it emerged that one of the society's four bishops denied the full extent of the Holocaust.
