Pope Francis ‘helps SSPX in its plans for new headquarters in Rome’

Pope Francis has helped the Society of St Pius X in its efforts to buy a beautiful church and complex in the centre of Rome, according to the Italian newspaper Il Foglio.

Vatican commentator Matthew Matzuzzi said the Pope played a “decisive role” in speeding up the purchase of Santa Maria Immacolata all’Esquilino.

The church, round the corner from Rome’s Lateran basilica, is expected to become a study centre and later, it is hoped, the headquarters of the SSPX.

Matzuzzi said the Pope’s intervention was made through Mgr Guido Pozzo, secretary of the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei, which seeks to bring traditionalists into full communion with the Church.