The Pope Hearts A Hateful Sect

It has been a banner year for the Vatican. It absolves itself of any wrong-doing in its handling of pedophile priests. Bishops in America go on a holy war against contraception. The pope uses his Holy Thursday homily to condemn priests that dare to question his authority. The Vatican publicly spanks the Superiors of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for advocating the ordination of women and insufficient preoccupation with genital morality.

In case there is any doubt that the Vatican has become a whitewashed tomb, the stench grows stronger.

For the pope's 85th birthday on Monday, his own brother showed up in Rome empty handed. But the brothers of the controversial Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) were more generous. They sent a letter -- and its contents may be the greatest gift yet to the papacy of Benedict XVI. The pope has long wanted to heal the schism with the SSPX and bring the conservative followers of the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into the fold. That hope may now become reality. 

The Catholic traditionalist Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1969 in answer to the reforms pushed through by the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, earlier that decade. The group has grown to include tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of priests -- a "painful wound in the body of the church," Benedict XVI has said. 

Even when SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson made global headlines in 2009 by publicly denying the Holocaust, the pope remained steadfast. Indeed, talks between the Vatican and the SSPX continued a short time later once Williamson, a native of Great Britain, had been marginalized. Now, it looks as though an agreement may be imminent.

The SSPX has long had a deep vein of anti-Semitism that extends well beyond Bishop Williamson. It also does not hide its disdain for women, homosexuals, Muslims, liberals, journalists, and even fellow Catholics that embrace Vatican II reforms. The fact that reconciling with this malignant sect warms the heart of Benedict XVI speaks volumes about his defective moral compass.