Pope meets head of rebel Catholic traditionalists

By Shasta Darlington

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and the head of a breakaway ultra-traditionalist Catholic group agreed at an unprecedented meeting held on Monday to work together to end a 17-year schism in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Pope held closed-door talks with Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the renegade Society of St. Pius X, which favours old-style Latin Masses and opposes the modernisation of Catholicism by the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council.

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful during the Angelus prayer in his summer residence of Castelgandolfo, near Rome August 28, 2005. (REUTERS/Tony Gentile)

"The meeting was held in a climate of love for the Church and a desire to arrive at the perfect communion," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement following the encounter at the pontiff's summer residence south of Rome.

"Although aware of the difficulties, the desire to proceed by steps and in a reasonable timeframe was shown," he added.

Fellay is the successor of the late ultra-traditionalist rebel French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated by the Vatican for provoking a modern-day schism in 1988.

The Vatican had refused to confirm reports of the meeting before it was held. Fellay used a private entrance, avoiding the press waiting outside the Pope's Castelgandolfo residence.

The traditionalists, believed to number in the hundreds of thousands around the world, say the Catholic Church has become far too liberal in the past 40 years since the Council.

"LIKE A SHIP WITH A HOLE IN IT"

In 2004 Fellay, a Swiss, harshly criticised Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul, saying his openness to other religions had left the Church "like a ship with a hole in it".

The society wants the Vatican to lift the excommunication of Lefebvre and reinstate Latin Mass, which was relegated to the history books in favour of services in local languages by the Second Vatican Council.

Currently, special authorisation is needed for Latin Masses.

One of the best-known traditionalist Catholics is actor Mel Gibson but it is not clear if he is a member of the society, which was set up in 1969 by Lefebvre.

One of its Web sites says the aim of the Society, which has about 450 priests worldwide, is "to provide training for the Catholic priesthood without any trace of modernist doctrine, morals or worship".

They frown on dialogue with other religions, something which was a hallmark of John Paul's papacy and which Benedict has vowed to continue since his election in April.

The traditionalists blame the modernising Council for what they see as a host of problems in the Church, including the vast numbers of men and women who have left religious life.

Observers believe one of the reasons the Vatican is open to an eventual reconciliation is the growing popularity of some of the old-style traditions and the St. Pius X society itself.

Pope Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has long argued that Latin Mass should be more widely available to those who want it.

Monday's meeting was also attended by Cardinal Dario Castrillion Hoyos, who heads a Vatican department set up in 1998 to try to bring the traditionalists back into the fold.

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