VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has formally proposed a way to reconcile with a breakaway group of ultra-traditionalist Catholics in a final bid to end a quarter-century of schism, offering it a special legal status in the church currently enjoyed only by the conservative Opus Dei movement.

The Vatican said Thursday it had proposed making the Society of St. Pius X a “personal prelature” — akin to a diocese without borders — during a meeting Wednesday with the society’s superior.