VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has merged the Vatican office that deals with disaffected ultra-traditionalist Catholics into the church’s highest doctrinal body, the Vatican announced on Wednesday (July 8).

The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” established in 1988 to reconcile members of the schismatic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), will now operate under the direction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal William Levada, a former archbishop of San Francisco.

Benedict had announced the administrative shake-up in March, in a letter to the world’s bishops, after controversy erupted over his readmission of four excommunicated SSPX bishops last January.

Jewish organizations were outraged that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, had told Swedish television that no more than 300,000 Jews “perished in Nazi concentration camps … not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber.”

Benedict has made clear that he did not know of Williamson’s statement before he lifted the excommunications. In his letter to the bishops, the pope wrote that mistakes at the Vatican had contributed to the international furor that followed.

In his document ordering the merger, dated last Thursday (July 2), Benedict noted his efforts at reconciliation with the ultra-traditionalists, including his 2007 decision to lift restrictions on the so-called Old Latin Mass.

“But doctrinal questions, obviously, remain and, until they are clarified, the (SSPX) does not have a canonical charter in the church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry,” the pope added.

SSPX members have quarreled with some of the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), including its teachings on religious freedom and changes to the Mass.

Last month, the SSPX ordained three new priests at a ceremony in Germany, despite a public warning from the Vatican that the ordinations would be “illegitimate.”