The Vatican begins talks Monday to bring a group of breakaway traditionalist Catholics back under its wing, nine months after the pope created an uproar by rehabilitating one of their bishops despite his denial of the Holocaust.A delegation from the Society of St. Pius X travels to the Vatican for a first round of meetings aimed at overcoming the deep theological differences that prompted the group to split from Rome following the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
No breakthroughs are expected in what will likely be a lengthy negotiation.
"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 and three other bishops were excommunicated in 1988 after they were consecrated without papal consent by the late ultraconservative 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. Just last week he took another step in that direction by making it easier for Anglican traditionalists to convert to Catholicism.
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.
Benedict laid the groundwork for Monday's meeting starting in 2007, when he relaxed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass, which the traditionalists had demanded. In January, he answered another one of their demands by approving a decree lifting the bishops' 1988 excommunications.
But on the same day the Vatican decree was signed, British Bishop Richard Williamson was shown on Swedish state television saying historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed" during World War II.
The outcry was immediate, with both Jews and members of the Catholic hierarchy criticizing the pope's rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denier. While condemning Williamson's remarks, the Vatican was initially defensive of its decision to go through with his rehabilitation, only saying later that it hadn't known about his very public views about the Holocaust.
In a bid to stem the outrage, Benedict took the extraordinary step of writing a letter to the world's bishops admitting mistakes but explaining his reasons for lifting the excommunications: to bring the society's 491 priests, 215 seminarians and thousands of faithful under his wing and avert a full-fledged schism.
The Vatican has set out particular conditions for Williamson to be fully brought back in, saying he must "absolutely and unequivocally" distance himself from his Holocaust remarks if he ever wants to be a prelate in the church.
Williamson has apologized for causing scandal to the pope but hasn't publicly repudiated his views. Removed as a seminary director in Argentina in the wake of the affair, Williamson now lives in relative obscurity in London.
As for the other society members, the Vatican's conditions for reintegration are different: The Vatican has said they must "fully recognize" Vatican II as well as the teachings of all the popes who came after it if they want to be fully reintegrated into the Church.
The society says it is upholding true Catholic tradition by rejecting elements of Vatican II's teachings, and says the Church's current problems, including a shortage of priests, are a direct result of the 1962-65 meetings.
Pope Benedict XVI too has criticized Vatican II, but how it is interpreted, not its substance.
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SIC: AP