Reconciliation with the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X was a priority for Pope Benedict XVI, according to his former private secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.
In an interview with the German Catholic news site Die Tagespost on 25 September, the archbishop said the Pope, former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, pursued the cause “vigorously” throughout his papacy, though Gänswein admitted that, in the end, “efforts at reconciliation reached an impasse”.
The FSSPX, commonly known as SSPX, was established in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French missionary and former Council Father at the Second Vatican Council.
