Schismatic Groups Coming Home, Reports Vatican

A hat tip to Rorate Caeli which posted a link to this story from Zenit regarding the Society of St. Pius X.

Cardinal Assesses Impact of "Summorum Pontificum"

By Mary Shovlain

ROME, JAN. 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Six months after Benedict XVI issued an apostolic letter on the extended use of the 1962 missal, the Vatican says it is seeing fruits of reconciliation with Catholics who objected to the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

"Summorum Pontificum," allows for more availability of the Latin-language Mass, a rite the document dubs the "extraordinary form." The letter, issued "motu proprio" (on his own initiative), brought attention to the situation of schismatic groups such as the Society of St. Pius X, that refuse to celebrate the "Novus Ordo" Mass established by Vatican II.

Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos told ZENIT that after the June 7 document, one group has already asked to return to full communion with the Church.

Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, as the president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesiae Dei, is the Vatican official in charge of facilitating the return to full ecclesial communion of people linked to the Society of St. Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

"We have already received responses [to the letter]," Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos said. "Here in Rome we have a community that has asked to return and we have already begun mediating their full return."

Read the rest of the story here...