Mags GarganBishop Bernard Fellay in a long series of reconciliation talks
The leader of a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics met Vatican officials last week for the latest in a long series of reconciliation talks.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St Pius X, met for two hours with Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican said in a statement.
"Various problems of a doctrinal and canonical nature were examined, and it was decided to proceed gradually and over a reasonable period of time in order to overcome difficulties and with a view to the envisioned full reconciliation," the Vatican statement said.
Changes
The SSPX effectively broke with Rome in 1988, when its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained four bishops without the permission of St John Paul II in a protest against modernising changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.
In 2012, after years of on-again, off-again talks, the Vatican announced that the traditionalists had been formally offered terms of reconciliation, but the SSPX did not accept, citing unresolved ìdoctrinal difficultiesî, including the form of the Mass introduced by Pope Paul VI.