A rebel traditionalist Catholic group has scored a coup by winning an audience with Pope Benedict, but still seems far from the doctrinal compromise needed to bring it back into the Roman fold.
Both the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) stressed after the unprecedented meeting on Monday that they wanted to end the 17-year schism caused by the rebels' rejection of reforms from the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council.
One of their main objections, however, is that the Council opened dialogue with other religions. Benedict reaffirmed his commitment to this reform by meeting Jews, Protestants and Muslims this month at the World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.
"Benedict will not compromise on the Council," the French Catholic daily La Croix wrote in an analysis of the Pope's closed-door meeting with the traditionalists. "This condition presents them with an insurmountable limit."
SSPX head Bishop Bernard Fellay hinted he expected the Vatican to compromise by saying after the meeting that his Society "prays the Holy Father might find the strength to put an end to the crisis in the Church."
Franz Schmidberger, an SSPX priest who also met the Pope, told the Italian daily Il Giornale that this crisis arose from "many distortions born of the Council and a certain way of understanding ecumenism and religious freedom."
The few hundred thousand traditionalists around the globe represent a miniscule fraction of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics, but the Vatican has kept contact with them even after excommunicating SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988.
One of the best-known traditionalist Catholics is actor Mel Gibson but it is not clear if he supports the SSPX, which is based at the rebel seminary Lefebvre ran in Switzerland.
The French-born Lefebvre was shut out of the Church for illegally ordaining four bishops, including Fellay, who were also excommunicated. He died in 1991.
In 2004 Fellay, who is Swiss, harshly criticised Benedict's predecessor Pope John Paul, saying his openness to other religions had left the Church "like a ship with a hole in it".
Even if they don't agree on the Council, the traditionalists hope that Benedict, who shares their devotion to traditional liturgy, will upgrade the old-style Latin Mass they say must stay unchanged as the Church's living link with its past.
The Latin Mass was relegated to the history books in the late 1960s in favour of services in local languages, a step that Lefebvre denounced as a "neo-Protestant" reform.
The Vatican now requires approval from the local bishop before a Latin Mass can be said, but the traditionalists hope Benedict will either drop this rule or loosen it so that the pastor of a parish can make the decision.
Both sides agreed to continue contacts after the meeting, which was originally meant to be kept secret. "It will clearly require some time to see where these talks can lead," wrote Avvenire, the daily of the Italian Bishops' Conference.
Schmidberger placed them in a longer-term SSPX approach.
"The first step will be a concrete sign to liberalise the use of the traditional Latin Mass," he said. "This will bring about a change in atmosphere in the Church.
"I'm convinced that, along the route we have taken, it will be possible to declare those excommunications null and void."
Schmidberger said Fellay and Benedict did not discuss ways to return the SSPX to the Church but said he thought it could happen some day. "That is the last of our problems," he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.