Scottish Catholic Observer

Following a two-hour meeting at the Vatican, Bishop Bernard Fellay (above), superior general of the SSPX—a group opposed to the liberalising reforms of the Second Vatican Council—was told by Cardinal William Levada his members must accept core Church teachings if they with to come back in line with the Vatican. Specific issues about Vatican II, however could be left to ‘legitimate discussion’ and study, according to the Vatican.

Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Bishop Bernard Fellay were joined at today’s meeting by Archbishop Luis Ladaria, SJ, Secretary of this Congregation, Mgr Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and Frs Niklaus Pfluger and Alain-Marc Nély, general assistants of the fraternity.

After Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, doctrinal conversations began in October 2009 between experts of the SSPX and from of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Their aim was to examine major doctrinal difficulties in a bid to repair the group’s 21-year break with the Vatican.

The Vatican has not released any of the specific areas where Bishop Fellay’s group has said the Catholic Church and the popes since the Second Vatican Council had broken with true Catholic tradition. The SSPX are known to object to the reform of the Mass, to much of the Church’s work in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, and to the council’s stand on religious freedom.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said that if the society accepts the Vatican canonical solution, the most likely reconcilation would be for the group to become an international religious community answering directly to the Holy Father.

“Today the most likely solution would be a personal prelature,” he said. Opus Dei is the Church’s only current personal prelature.

Leaders are expected to study and sign the preamble ‘within a few months’ he added.