A controversial group of Catholic traditionalists, who broke with Rome in the 1980s, is deeply divided over recent moves to reach a deal with the Vatican, a traditionalist website said today .
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said last month the Holy See had received an "encouraging" response from the Society of Saint Pius X on its proposals for reconciliation.
But the traditionalist Catholic Riposte website today published an exchange of letters between Bishop Bernard Fellay, who heads the Society of Saint Pius X, and three others bishops belonging to the group who warn against moves to reunite with the Vatican.
The three include British bishop Richard Williamson who once denied the existence of the Holocaust.
"Please be careful, you are leading the fraternity to a point of no return, to a deep division from which there will be no way back, and if you reach an agreement (with the Vatican) to strong destructive influences which it will not survive," the bishops told Fellay.
"The thinking of the current pope is heavily influenced by subjectivity... Religion is made subject to the modern world. How can we believe that a practical deal will solve such a problem?" they added.
Fellay, for his part, told the bishops that while the Church is "horribly disfigured" it remains that "of Jesus Christ" whose base is in Rome.
The group has traditionally been strongly opposed to liberal reforms in the Catholic Church imposed by the Vatican II Council in the 1960s and has been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism and far-right political allegiances.
Pope Benedict XVI came under heavy criticism in 2009 when he lifted an excommunication order against Williamson in a bid to ease the way towards a return of the Society to the papal fold.
Benedict has made the reintegration of the Society a priority of his pontificate after the failure of negotiations in the 1980s that he had personally handled with the group's founder, French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The Society is based in Switzerland and has its strongest presence in France and Germany. It has an estimated 550 priests among its members.
German weekly Der Spiegel last month said the Society was no longer demanding that the Holy See overturn the Vatican II reforms and was content with noting simply that there were disagreements with Rome over some aspects of dogma.