Pope Francis has met the head of a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics amid new hopes for progress towards ending a quarter-century schism. The Society of St Pius X (SSPX) said on Monday that the 40-minute meeting was cordial, and took place because Francis wanted a “private and informal meeting” with its superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay. In a short statement the Vatican press office said that the meeting was held on Saturday. “The press office confirms that on Saturday, April 2, a meeting took place in the Vatican between Pope Francis and Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the St Pius X Fraternity,” the statement said. In 2014 the Vatican resumed dialogue with the SSPX after doctrinal talks on bringing it back under Rome’s wing had collapsed. Last year, Francis allowed priests of the society, which has no legal status in the Church, to hear confessions during his Holy Year of Mercy. The Pope expressed his hope that “in the near future solutions may be found to recover full communion with the priests and superiors of the fraternity.” “In the meantime,” the Pope wrote, “motivated by the need to respond to the good of these faithful, through my own disposition, I establish that those who, during the Holy Year of Mercy, approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins.” The society, opposed to the Second Vatican Council’s introduction of Mass in the vernacular and the new rites for the sacraments, was founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.