Anti-Vatican Council 2 traditionalists have until June 28 to respond to an offer from the Vatican of reinstatement in the RC Church with their own bishops, parishes, and seminaries.
They would have to buy into Vatican Council 2, however, and cease objecting to the mass that came from it, reports Catholic World News.
Their founder — of the Society of St. Pius X — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, “had accepted both of those terms before his break with the Vatican in 1986,” CW News said.
Their independence within the church would take the form of a “prelature,” says the Italian daily Il Giornale. Opus Dei has its own prelature, or is one, to be precise.
Speaking from my own experience with the the society, at its Oak Park church, I would be surprised if they take the offer.
Later: On the other hand, if they can stomach the Vatican 2 and new-mass conditions, they get not only legitimacy, which they do not require, they feel, but also lots of new worshipers — although one wonders what effect the big-church prohibition has had on deflecting them.
Nor do they lose autonomy within the big church, which means they go on as before, especially in recruiting and training priests and handling their own financials. This means also they could freely poach on big-church enclaves and in effect act as a reforming element.
Of course, many if not most big-church clergy and bishops would look on them as a cyst or tumor on the Mystical Body.
In any case, this would be the Catholic story of the year, religion-news-wise. I think.
Blithe Spirit 
The Society X are being asked to accept what they rejected so it’s hard to imagine that this is any kind of olive branch; just an ultimatum.
Wehn I see what has been unleashed by V II, I wonder if they were justified in their horror of it? At the time, I welcomed the institution of the vernacular and a warm attitude to the wider world as all being children of God. The abuses of the Mass we have seen occuring and the dissident theologians, priests and nuns are another matter altogether.
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What about the changes they made to CanonLaw?
You know what, scratch that. There’s no penalty for not following it and it’s not recognized in a court of law so why waste time worrying it?
A good book to read when studying Vatican II is “The Documents of Vatican II” by Walter M. Abbott S.J. and Very Rev. Msgr. Josph Gallagher. It contains all 16 documents from Vatican II along with what happened as a result in the Catholic and and non-Catholic community.
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I can appreciate these very theologically precise pros and cons….but I can’t help remembering Jesus; indictment of the Pharisses for just such legalism. I don’t ridicule it, yet neither can I admire it
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