This little bit of news, about the Pope’s reinstatement of four SSPX bishops, is raising a few eyebrows.

Jeff Israely, at TIME magazine, takes a closer look:

Pope Benedict XVI has reinstated four bishops from an archconservative breakaway wing of the Roman Catholic Church, a decision that is bound to stir controversy within his own flock. But Saturday’s announcement that the Vatican will undo the 20-year schism between the Vatican and the so-called Lefebvrian movement is all the more sensitive because it comes only days after the broadcast of an interview in which British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, one of those Benedict is bringing back into the fold, denies that the Nazi Holocaust ever happened.

“I believe there were no gas chambers,” Williamson said. The bishop, who has been accused of anti-Semitism in the past, declared that the historical evidence was “hugely against” the accepted belief that close to 6 million Jews were systematically exterminated as part of Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution. Williamson claims that no more than 300,000 Jews died during World War II.

The Vatican made no mention of those remarks in the communiqué that announced the papal decree that revokes the 1988 excommunication of Williamson and his three fellow bishops. Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the decree in no way means the Pope, a German, shares Williamson’s views on the Holocaust.

Earlier this week, Jewish leaders warned that relations between the Holy See and Judaism would deteriorate if the controversial prelates were brought back into mainstream Catholicism.

The four bishops belong to a movement founded by late French traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Followers oppose dialogue with other religions and say Jews should convert. Rome’s chief rabbi said Williamson’s rehabilitation in particular would open “a deep wound” in Jewish-Vatican relations, which had already been strained by recent controversy over the effort to make Pope Pius XII a saint despite some historians’ contention that he did little to save Jews during the Holocaust. The French Jewish organization CRIF called Williamson “a despicable liar whose only goal is to revive the centuries-old hatred against Jews.”

Officially dated Jan. 21 (by coincidence the same day the interview aired), the decree states that the Pope “was inspired in this decision by the wish that complete reconciliation and full communion is reached as soon as possible.” A senior Vatican official told TIME that the Pope is expected to make the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), the name Lefebvre followers call their movement, into a personal prelature of the papacy, the same special status that conservative lay group Opus Dei was granted by John Paul II.

Benedict’s decision marks a watershed. Following on the Pope’s 2007 decision to widen use of the old Latin rite mass, the rapprochement with the traditionalist faction appears to be a purely papal initiative. Beyond one or two retired Cardinals, few had been urging an end to the schism. The Society of St. Pius X itself had not budged from its hard line.

Some will hail Benedict as a bold defender of the rights of traditionalist Catholics and a man of conviction unbent by the winds of controversy; but others, both inside and outside the Church, will take his embrace of the Lefebvre followers as the final proof that Benedict, deep down, is determined to make the Church far more traditional than it is today.

Read on for more. Somehow, I don’t think we’ve heard the last about this.

Meantime, Amy has a solid roundup of reaction and analysis.

And, if you want to hear Bishop Williamson yourself, take a look, from The London Times last week:

UPDATE: The head of the SSPX has issued a statement, which reads in part:

I reminded [Cardinal Hoyos] that we were suffering much from the present situation of the Church in which this teaching and this primacy were being held to scorn. And I added: “We are ready to write the Creed with our own blood, to sign the anti-modernist oath, the profession of faith of Pius IV, we accept and make our own all the councils up to the Second Vatican Council about which we express some reservations.” In all this, we are convinced that we remain faithful to the line of conduct indicated by our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose reputation we hope to soon see restored.

Consequently, we wish to begin these “talks” – which the decree acknowledges to be “necessary – about the doctrinal issues which are opposed to the Magisterium of all time. We cannot help noticing the unprecedented crisis which is shaking the Church today: crisis of vocations, crisis of religious practice, of catechism, of the reception of the sacraments… Before us, Paul VI went so far as to say that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan had entered the Church”, and he spoke of the “self-destruction of the Church”. John Paul II did not hesitate to say that Catholicism in Europe was, as it were, in a state of “silent apostasy.” Shortly before his election to the Throne of Peter, Benedict XVI compared the Church to a “boat taking in water on every side.”

Thus, during these discussions with the Roman authorities we want to examine the deep causes of the present situation, and by bringing the appropriate remedy, achieve a lasting restoration of the Church.

Dear faithful, the Church is in the hands of her Mother, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. In Her we place our confidence. We have asked from her the freedom of the Mass of all time everywhere and for all. We have asked from her the withdrawal of the decree of excommunications. In our prayers, we now ask from her the necessary doctrinal clarifications which confused souls so much need.