VATICAN'S TALKS WITH LEFEBVRE FOLLOWERS COULD LAST A YEAR

VATICAN'S TALKS WITH LEFEBVRE FOLLOWERS COULD LAST A YEAR

(ANSA) - Vatican city, September 26 - Negotiations between the Vatican and the ultratraditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) on reuniting the breakaway group with the Catholic Church might take a year, the head of the dissident order said on Monday.

Speaking to reporters after the formal start of negotiations, Monsignor Bernard Fellay said it would probably take a year to sort out differences.

Vatican Spokesman, Father Federico Lombardo, refused to comment, saying it was ''inappropriate to make predictions''.

However, he voiced satisfaction that relations with the breakaway group had entered ''a new phase'' with the start of the talks at the Vatican.

Meetings will be held twice a month because the Vatican ''wants to press ahead'' with the negotiations'', Lombardi said.

The group broke away from the church over theological differences stemming from the changes it adopted with the Second Vatican Council of some 45 years ago.

Last January, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication imposed on the SSPX's four bishops in a bid to ''open'' a door for dialogue with the leaders of the Society.

The excommunications were imposed when the four bishops were consecrated in 1988 in defiance of Rome by the SSPX's late founder, French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Benedict's move sparked controversy because one of the four - Richard Williamson - was a known Holocaust denier.

The pope later apologised, saying he had been unaware of Williamson's stance when he lifted his excommunication.

Benedict was forced to write an unusual personal letter to Catholic bishops in March to explain his reasons for his decision, which not only created tensions within the Church but also affected its relations with Jews.

Then in July, the pope released an apostolic letter entitled Ecclesiae Unitatem in which he warned the SSPX that a number of doctrinal issues needed to be cleared up before the order could hope to obtain ''canonical status'' within the Church.

In reference to the rehabilitations,the pope said he had taken the decision to help overcome ''every fracture and division within the church and to heal a wound experienced as increasingly painful''.

Despite its lack of official status, the SSPX is present in 59 countries and counts just under 500 priests and four bishops. It also runs seminaries in Switzerland, France, Australia, Argentina, the United States and Germany.