[2] The SSPX leadership responded with distrust,[3] saying that Castrillón was vague on how the new structure would be implemented and sustained, and criticising the Holy See's allegedly heavy-handed treatment of the Priestly Fraternity of St.
[4] They requested two preliminary "signs" before continuing negotiations: that the Holy See grant permission for all priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass; and that its statement that the 1988 consecrations had resulted in excommunication for the clerics involved be declared void.
[5] Cardinal Castrillón refused to grant interviews on the subject, in order "to maintain the privacy of the details of our dialogue", though this silence was broken when his letter of 5 April 2002 to Bishop Bernard Fellay was later published.
72, informing the SSPX faithful that, in spite of both Summorum Pontificum and the recent Vatican documents on the true meaning of Lumen gentium and evangelisation, the Society still could not sign an agreement with the Holy See, which was not going to deal with doctrinal errors.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI gave the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal William Levada the task of continuing the dialogue with the Society of St Pius X on theological issues in the hope of attaining reconciliation.
[20] The team responsible for the dialogue with the Society of St. Pius X on behalf of the Catholic Church included Charles Morerod, former Rector Magnificus and theology and philosophy professor of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
'"[22] On 14 September 2011, Cardinal Levada met Bishop Fellay and presented to him a document referred to as a doctrinal preamble to possible rehabilitation of the Society and the granting to it of a canonical status within the Church.
It was planned to publish the preamble or a revised version of it only after agreement with the SSPX, but the document was believed to consist essentially in the profession of faith required of persons taking up offices in the Church.
The Holy See published a note that declared: "In compliance with the decision by Pope Benedict XVI, the evaluation of the response of His Excellency Bishop Fellay was communicated to him by a letter delivered to him today.
At the conclusion of today's meeting, out of a concern for avoiding an ecclesial rupture with painful and incalculable consequences, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X was invited to be so kind as to clarify his position so as to heal the existing rift, as Pope Benedict XVI wished.
[35] In an interview on 4 October 2012, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the new President of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei", remarked, with regard to the Holy See's demand that the Society accept the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, including those on religious freedom and human rights: "In a pastoral sense, the door is always open"; he added: "We cannot put the Catholic faith at the mercy of negotiations.
As Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI seeks to foster and preserve the unity of the Church by realizing the long hoped-for reconciliation of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X with the See of Peter – a dramatic manifestation of the munus Petrinum in action – patience, serenity, perseverance and trust are needed.
"[37]A December 2012 letter, in English and in French, from Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, Vice-President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, to all the members of the society indicated that the official reply of Bishop Fellay had not yet been received.
Archbishop Di Noia lamented that some of the society's superiors "employ language, in unofficial communications, that to all the world appears to reject the very provisions, assumed to be still under study, that are required for the reconciliation and for the canonical regularization of the Fraternity within the Catholic Church".
"[38]In a declaration of 27 June 2013, the remaining three bishops of the society (after the expulsion of Richard Williamson in 2012) said that "the cause of the grave errors which are in the process of demolishing the Church does not reside in a bad interpretation of the conciliar texts – a 'hermeneutic of rupture' which would be opposed to a 'hermeneutic of reform in continuity' – but truly in the texts themselves", and declared that the Mass as celebrated by the Pope and the generality of the Catholic Church's bishops and priests is "penetrated with an ecumenical and Protestant spirit, democratic and humanist, which empties out the sacrifice of the Cross".
[49][50] A Vatican source said Francis' action represented "a normalization of the ecclesiastical status of traditionalist communities in the Pius X ambit which many years ago were reconciled with the See of Peter, as well as those celebrating the extraordinary form".