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Sion, Switzerland, Jun 29, 2016 / 02:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After indications of progress toward reconciliation earlier this year, the head of the Society of St. Pius X stated Wednesday that canonical recognition is not what the priestly society primarily seeks.

“The Society of Saint Pius X, in the present state of grave necessity which gives it the right and duty to administer spiritual aid to the souls that turn to it, does not seek primarily a canonical recognition,” Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the SSPX, wrote in a June 29 communique.

He added that the SSPX “has a right” to canonical recognition “as a Catholic work.”

The society “has only one desire,” he said: “faithfully to bring the light of the bi-millennial Tradition which shows the only route to follow in this age of darkness in which the cult of man replaces the worship of God, in society as in the Church.”

Bishop Fellay's statement was issued after a June 25-28 meeting of major superiors of the SSPX.

He stated that “in the great and painful confusion that currently reigns in the Church, the proclamation of Catholic doctrine requires the denunciation of errors that have made their way into it and are unfortunately encouraged by a large number of pastors, including the Pope himself.”

Recalling the motto of St. Pius X, “to restore all things in Christ”, Bishop Fellay said that this “cannot happen without the support of a Pope who concretely favors the return to Sacred Tradition.”

“While waiting for that blessed day, the Society of Saint Pius X intends to redouble its efforts to establish and to spread, with the means that Divine Providence gives to it, the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He added that the SSPX “prays and does penance for the Pope, that he might have the strength to proclaim Catholic faith and morals in their entirety.”

By doing this, Bishop Fellay stated, the Pope will “hasten the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that we earnestly desire as we approach the centennial of the apparitions in Fatima.”

The bishop's statement also recalled that the purpose of the SSPX “is chiefly the formation of priests.”

The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church after the Second Vatican Council. Its relations with the Holy See became particularly strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II.

The illicit consecrations resulted in the excommunication of the bishops involved. The excommunications of the surviving bishops were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI and since then negotiations “to rediscover full communion with the Church” have continued between the Society and the Vatican.

In remitting the excommunications, Benedict noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.”

The biggest obstacles for the Society's reconciliation have been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II's declaration Dignitatis humanae as well as the declaration Nostra aetate, which it claims contradict previous Catholic teaching.

There were indications in recent years of movement towards regularization of the priestly society, which has some 590 priest-members, including a memo apparently meant for circulation among its leadership.

The Feb. 19 memo from Fr. Franz Schmidberger had said it “seems the time to normalize the situation of the Society has come.” The priest is a past superior general of the society who is now rector of its seminary in Germany.

He said the Vatican had been “gradually lowering its demands and recent proposals” regarding the society’s position toward the Second Vatican Council and the Novus Ordo Mass which was implemented after it.

Although the group would be likely to “return from its ‘exile’,” he said, it would expect further discussion and would not be silent in the face of what it considers to be errors.

The priest’s memo noted the society’s need for licit consecration of any future bishops.

Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary for the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, spoke about interactions with the society in an April 6 interview with La Croix. The archbishop, whose commission is responsible for discussions with the society, said that discussions over the last few years have led to “an important clarification” that the Second Vatican Council “can be adequately understood only in the context of the full Tradition of the Church and her constant Magisterium.”

He said certain questions can remain “subject to discussion and clarification.”

In April 10 remarks to pilgrims in France, Bishop Fellay said that he saw “profound change” in the society’s relationship with the Vatican. He suggested Church leaders would not force them to accept the Second Vatican Council, having met with Pope Francis and Archbishop Pozzo April 1-2.

In 2015 the Holy See delegated a cardinal and three bishops to visit the seminaries of the SSPX. They were sent to become better acquainted with the society, and to discuss doctrinal and theological topics in a less formal context.

And Pope Francis announced in a September 2015 letter on the Jubilee Year of Mercy that during the jubilee year the faithful can validly and licitly receive absolution of their sins from priests of the SSPX.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Octavio Duran

By Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Relics of Blessed Oscar Romero, including a handkerchief with blood from the day he was assassinated, will briefly be part of the U.S. Catholic Church's Fortnight for Freedom observance July 1 in Los Angeles.

A handkerchief with blood from the day Archbishop Romero was martyred in El Salvador and a microphone he often used when he celebrated Mass every Sunday will be present at a special noon Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels and will be available for public veneration until 2 p.m., said a statement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Blessed Romero's relics will join those of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, but the Salvadoran martyr's relics will remain in Los Angeles and will not travel with the other relics for the closing of the Fortnight for Freedom in Washington July 4.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Blessed Romero, who was beatified in May 2015, "advocated for Christian love, reminding the people that they were loved by God and that fighting back with Christian charity was the way to victory during the 12-year long civil war in El Salvador."

Carlos Colorado, a lawyer from Los Angeles who blogs and writes extensively about Blessed Romero, said he was glad that a link was established between the Salvadoran archbishop assassinated during Mass after repeatedly speaking up for the poor and against violence, and the English 16th-century saints who also spoke up during their time.

What links the three, Colorado said, is the idea that "sometimes have you stand up to your own government." Sometimes being a person of faith will lead others to accuse you of being unpatriotic and disloyal to your country, he told Catholic News Service.

Today, no one questions whether St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher were patriots, he said. And in time, Blessed Romero, too, will be seen as a great patriot in his own country, even though he was accused of the opposite when he was alive and even in death.

"The most important lesson is the idea of being radically faithful. You have to follow your faith even though the consequences are dire," and you face rejection from the world and sometimes the government, Colorado said. That's exactly what Blessed Romero faced when he stood up for the poor and the ones who seemed to matter the least in Salvadoran society of the 1970s and 1980s, he added.

"It's a level of radicalness we're unfamiliar with," he said.

Colorado was planning to visit the relics of St. Thomas More with other lawyers and judges from the St. Thomas More Society, a group of Catholic lawyers. But because he was born in El Salvador, and because of his affinity for Blessed Romero as martyr, he said being able to venerate the relics brings a special kind of joy and also gratitude toward Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, who recognizes the presence of Salvadoran Catholics in the community.

Los Angeles has one of the largest populations of Salvadorans outside of El Salvador. In 2010, a census estimate put the Salvadoran community in the area at 350,000 but Salvadoran organizations believe the number to be much higher. Many of them, like Colorado, ended up in Los Angeles after fleeing their country's civil war, in which Blessed Romero was one of an estimated 75,000 Salvadorans killed between 1980 and 1992.

In his homilies and on radio programs, Blessed Romero called for a stop to violence, particularly for a stop to civilian killings by government forces, even though he was repeatedly threatened. He was killed on March 24, 1980 while celebrating Mass.

Blessed Romero, along with the British saints, is one of 14 "witnesses for freedom" featured during the Fortnight for Freedom, the Catholic Church's national education campaign on religious liberty.

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Email Guidos at rguidos@catholicnews.com or follow her on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina

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