On June 14 the Vatican proposed a way to reconcile with the Society of St. Pius X (sspx), the ultra-traditionalist breakaway group founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969. Special legal status is being offered the group in a continued effort on the part of Pope Benedict xvi to move the Roman Catholic Church to a more conservative position.

The status being offered is called “personal prelature,” which is like a diocese without specific boundaries. This legal status was introduced during the Second Vatican Council and until now has only been given to the conservative Opus Dei movement.

The proposal was made during a meeting between Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the sspx, and Cardinal William J. Levada, the Vatican’s chief doctrinal officer. Also discussed at the meeting were doctrinal elements that the group must accept before reconciliation can be reached. Bishop Fellay promised to respond to the offer.

The society cut ties with Rome over its opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council which introduced Mass in the vernacular and revolutionized the church’s relationship with Jews.

In 1988 Pope John Paul ii excommunicated Lefebvre and four bishops that Lefebvre consecrated without the Vatican’s approval.

Benedict has been working for several years to bring the group back under Rome’s wing. FoxNews.com reports that the society, which is based in Menzingen, Switzerland, has six seminaries, three universities and 70 primary and secondary schools around the globe. Aside from the four bishops, it boasts more than 550 priests and 200 seminarians.

In 2009, Benedict made a move to bring the group back into the fold by removing the excommunications of the four bishops, and he has allowed greater use of the pre-Vatican ii Latin Mass, which they celebrate. Richard Williamson, one of the excommunicated sspx bishops, made headlines that same year when he denied the full extent of the Holocaust in a television interview broadcast on the same day his excommunication was lifted. But Williamson’s views are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. According to the Anti-Defamation League, sspx websites, publications and representatives have charged contemporary Jews with deicide (killing Jesus Christ), have endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which accuses Jews of harboring a plan for global domination), and have claimed that there is factual basis for the “blood libel” (that Jews murder children to use their blood in rituals).

Members of the Jewish community are watching the result of these talks with intense interest, reports the Jerusalem Post. The Vatican cited the bishop’s remarks as the major roadblock for reconciliation.

The Vatican’s negotiations with sspx are a part of the pope’s larger scheme to move the Church of Rome away from liberalism. In 2007, Benedict personally called for a return to the traditionalists’ Latin Mass, which many liberal bishops resisted.

The reunification with the sspx is a small step on the way to the Catholic Church’s goal of uniting all of Christendom under the papacy. The fact that it wants to reconcile with this radical splinter group shows where the Vatican’s heart truly is, and why Israel should still fear Rome.

Read “The Last Crusade” to see the true intentions of the Catholic Church.