Although Pope Benedict's decision to lift the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops -- including one who has denied the Holocaust -- has set off a firestorm of criticism from Jewish groups and political leaders, some Catholics welcome the move as a chance to heal a rift in the church. The bishops are leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X, which includes hundreds of thousands of Catholics worldwide who reject the ecumenical teachings of the Second Vatican Council. The society includes almost 100 chapels with thousands of members in the United States.
Benedict's move is a signal that "things are starting to change," said Robert Harmon, coordinator of the Immaculate Conception Mission in Norfolk, the chapel where he grew up and was confirmed by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who in 1969 founded the society and consecrated the four bishops in 1988 against the Vatican's order. They were excommunicated by Pope John Paul II that year.
Since then, Harmon says, communities like his have been slowly shut out of Catholic life in their respective dioceses. Even though the members weren't excommunicated, he said, they have drifted from the Richmond diocese.
"We were basically shunned by everyone," he said. "We were in our own little world."
These ultra-traditional Catholics want the Vatican to declare that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, want a return to old liturgies in which Mass is said in Latin, and say Vatican II, which met in the early 1960s, violates true Catholicism and is the reason why many have left the faith.
Immaculate Conception Mission, which has "a couple hundred" regular worshipers, Harmon says, is one of the closest society chapels to Washington; the other is St. Jude's Church in Philadelphia.
Officials at the society's U.S. headquarters in Missouri weren't available for comment this week. Its Web site says it has 360 priests in 27 countries. The society says it has nearly 70 priests, and operates 25 schools and a college in the United States.
Experts say some of the most controversial aspects of the group are more prominent in Europe, particularly in France. Those include anti-Semitic comments by society leaders and calls for governments to favor Catholicism.
"Lefebvrists want a much closer alliance between the church and the state than is permissible or possible in the post-Enlightenment world," said the Rev. James Massa, who heads ecumenical and interreligious outreach for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Many critics, including some prominent Catholic conservatives, have questioned how the society can claim to be traditional while rejecting Vatican II, one of the only church councils in history.
Harmon is hoping Benedict -- "one of the most conservative popes we've had since the 1600s," he says -- is signaling a new openness from the Vatican to ultra-traditionalists like him.
"I still feel strongly now more than ever that I've always belonged to the real Catholic Church," he said. "We adhere to everything they've taught for 2,000 years. We agree with everything the first 140 popes said, not the last couple."
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(Source: WPC)