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Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi announced that further discussions were to be held in an effort to achieve reconciliation between the traditionalist St Pius X Society and the Vatican.
Recent talks were held after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith examined the latest response from the Society, to the “doctrinal preamble” presented to them last September.
“Some observations were formulated which will be kept in mind in further discussions,” said Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, following a meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX, has been generally positive about the possibility of reconciliation with Rome but the society’s three other bishops have expressed serious reservations about the process.
“In consideration of the positions taken by the three other bishops of the Society of St Pius, their situation will have to be treated separately and individually,” Fr Lombardi said in a statement.
Even if the SSPX as a whole is reconciled with Rome, he said, “the individual bishops each must make a commitment” to full communion with Rome. “It’s not as if there will be one solution that automatically extends to all.”
In addition to their reservations, Fr Lombardi said, Bishop Richard Williamson’s public denials of the Holocaust and anti-Semitic statements would also require separate discussions.
“It is not that this is a process that necessarily will reach a solution that embraces all the positions” found among all the SSPX members, Fr Lombardi said.
“Obviously, the decision is in the Pope’s hands” and he can act when and how he wants, “but despite how it may have seemed – that we were talking about a brief amount of time – it is a process that continues,” Fr Lombardi said.
“It would be premature to guess when the process will end,” he added.
Full story Catholic Herald UK
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