Pope Benedict XVI believes the Church should make the Latin mass readily available to the increasing number of faithful who favour its return, a top cardinal said on Friday.
"The pope believes the time has come to favour access to this liturgy," said Cardinal Dario Castrillon, who as head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission has been negotiating the return of an ultra-conservative rebel Catholic group which spurns the modern liturgy approved by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Favouring the return of the Latin liturgy would be a crucial step towards reconciliation between the Vatican and the Society of St Pius X, which was set up in 1970 and which has about 450 priests worldwide.
The Society's late founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was excommunicated in 1988. He caused a schism in the Catholic Church by contesting the way some of the modernising reforms of the Council had been interpreted and applied.
Although the Latin mass was not banned by the Council, at present bishops need authorisation from Church authorities to celebrate it.
"The Holy Father wishes to preserve the immense spiritual, cultural and esthetic wealth of the ancient liturgy. Recovering this tradition would be an addition to the current Church liturgy, which is just as precious," Castrillon said.
He stressed that the move would not signal a return to the past
"In fact, it's a generous offer by the Pope who believes the Church should have access to the treasure of the Latin liturgy, which has throughout the centuries nurtured the spiritual lives of so many faithful Catholics."
Referring to Lefebvre's followers, Castrillon said the Church was "seeking ways of healing the schism and reconstructing full communion, without any ambiguity."
The Society of Saint Pius X is the only group to break away from the 1.1-billion strong Roman Catholic Church since its modernising reforms of the early 1960s.
According to Vatican analysts, there has been a renewed effort under Benedict to find a way to heal the 17-year rift.
The 80-year-old German pope is fond of saying mass in Latin. After his election, he celebrated his first official mass at the Sistine Chapel, in Latin.
Speaking at the time, Sister Stefania, abbess of a Benedictine convent near Florence, revealed that when Benedict visited them prior to his election he always said mass in Latin.
"Since 1985 he has spent at least one day a year with us," she said. "He has always loved celebrating mass according to the Benedictine rule: in Latin, with Gregorian chants."
