What is with those people, messing with the Catholic Church? Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the schismatic traditionalists that Benedict XVI has been diligently courting for years, says he has been assured the pope is really on his side and we shouldn't pay any mind to the "political"cover stories coming out of the Vatican about Rome's problems with the SSPX.Besides, you know who is really at fault. CNS reports:

According to an audio recording posted on YouTube Dec. 30, the bishop gave a nearly two-hour talk Dec. 28 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in New Hamburg, Ontario. He spoke about the society's three years of discussions with the Vatican over the society's future and explained how he interpreted behind-the-scenes communications about the talks.Apparently speaking without a text, he also called the Jewish people "enemies of the church," saying Jewish leaders' support of the Second Vatican Council "shows that Vatican II is their thing, not the church's." (The full audio is embedded below.)Those most opposed to the church granting canonical recognition to the traditionalist society have been "the enemies of the church: the Jews, the Masons," he said.

Well, there's the hermeneutic of continuity for ya.The pope got himself in a bit of trouble in 2009 when he "rehabilitated" Fellay and three other SSPX leaders, including Bishop Richard Williamson, a Holocaust denier later thrown under the bus by Fellay, who is seen as the acceptable face of the Lefebvrists.Benedict later said that the Vatican failed to do a Google search on Williamson to learn about his proclivities beforehand, an explanation which seemed implausible given Benedict's longstanding ties to the SSPX and the SSPX's longstanding history of anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish statements.Williamson's defenestration and the purging of a couple other priests was said to have cleared that all up. Maybe not so much.Why is the Vatican continuing the pursuit of the SSPX? At what cost? A principal result of the reconciliation effort has been to shift the center of gravity in the church to the far right, so that right wingers who might have been on the fringe in years past are considered sensible centrists -- a phenomenon we have also seen in the Republican party in recent years. In the end, it may be irrelevant whether the SSPX or some of its elements return to Rome. The larger goal has been achieved.