Francis helps SSPX find a possible HQ in Rome

Pope Francis has helped the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) take over a large church complex in Rome which could become the group’s headquarters, writes Christopher Lamb.

According to Italian newspaper Il Foglio, Francis played a key role in helping the dissident group purchase Santa Maria Immacolata all’Esquilino, situated not far from the Lateran, the Pope’s cathedral church. The move is being read as a sign that an agreement between the SSPX and the Vatican is close, with speculation that it will be offered the opportunity to set up a personal prelature – a structure which means it reports directly to the Pope.

Its new Rome base, a large neo-Gothic building constructed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, will be a centre of studies and could eventually replace Écône, in Switzerland, as the SSPX’s head office.

The group splintered from the Catholic Church in protest against the reforms of the Second Vatican Council on religious freedom and liturgy, but under Pope Benedict XVI attempts were made at a reconciliation. The group only celebrate Mass in the Tridentine Rite. Francis has continued to try and bring the group back into the fold by allowing priests to hear confessions and meeting with the group’s leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay.

Cohabiting couples should be welcomed, listened to and understood by parish priests, Pope Francis told a group of such couples taking part in a course on marriage preparation in Rome.

Those living together, he said, “are, in spiritual and moral terms, among the poor and the least, toward whom the Church, in the footsteps of her teacher and Lord, wants to be a mother who doesn’t abandon, but who draws near and cares for”. At the same time Francis stressed that defending and promoting the Sacrament of Marriage was “an essential part” of a parish priest’s job and urged them to be “fellow travellers” to every person and situation that they encountered. He said priests were the ones who are “acutely aware” of the “social realities of the local culture and the complexities of individual situations”.

The course was offered by the Roman Rota, the appeal court that largely deals with marriage annulment cases.