Decision Expected This Month: Pope Likely To Allow Breakaway SSPX to Rejoin Church

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Pope Benedict XVI is expected to allow the Society of St. Pius X, an ultraconservative, controversial splinter group, back into the Catholic Church in an agreement likely to be taken before the end of May, SPIEGEL has learned. But Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, an SSPX bishop, opposes an agreement.

Pope Benedict XVI may reach a decision by the end of May to allow the ultraconservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) to rejoin the Catholic church, SPIEGEL has learned.

At a meeting this coming Wednesday, the four cardinals of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees Catholic Church doctrine, plan to agree a proposal for reuniting the society with the Catholic Church, and will it submit it to the pope.

The Swiss-based SSPX, rejects some of the reforms made at the historic 1962 Second Vatican Council. It defied Rome in 1988 by illegally consecrating four bishops, which led to their excommunication by the late Pope John Paul. » | SPIEGEL | Sunday, May 13, 2012