So basically the SSPV believes that it knows better than the Catholic Church which revelations of the Holy Spirit and progressions of Church Tradition are correct. The SSPV claims that the Second Vatican Council and all of its changes were a grievous error for the Church! The church’s statement of beliefs was extremely defensive with quotes including: to offer the sacraments “without any compromise or taint of modernism”, to withstand “the disastrous changes of the Second Vatican Council”, that the new Mass “is comprised of a crazy quilt of Jewish and Protestant prayers” and that the Catholic Church today is nothing but “widespread apostasy”. In 1988, SSPX founder Bishop Lefebvre ordained four bishops without permission from Pope John Paul II resulting in immediate excommunication. I don’t know about you but when I hear Catholic Church, the first thing I think of is crazy, unwieldy, liberal organization! Sheesh! The SSPV was a splinter from the better known Society of St. Traditionalist as in, the Catholic Church is not conservative and traditional enough for us. It turns out that the church that I visited belongs to a Traditionalist organization called the Society of St. Why did these women wear head coverings? Did they know the quirky origins of that custom? An excellent article on that here: . What about having to wear a dress? Or having to have at least 5 children to fit in with that congregation? Were these things these women had thought about critically and freely chosen or, had these standards been coercively imposed upon them? My mind raged and when I got home I decided to do more research. I also felt a strong sense of oppressive patriarchy from the congregation. Clearly I had been an outsider, but rather than taking the opportunity to educate newcomers as to this parish’s customs, I felt myself and my family judged and antagonized. Upon leaving I felt a strange sense of enraged passion, as though I had just been violated and I wasn’t sure why. At the same time I felt an increasing anxiety in my gut and a strong urge to LEAVE! About 10 minutes into the Mass I walked out and as I did I felt the same sense of annoyance from some of the congregation, accompanied by relief from others. After about a minute I was completely lost with no guide to follow. All the while, the congregation sat or kneeled in quiet observation. A choir sang the parts of the Mass in Latin. He spoke the parts of the Mass only in Latin, without a microphone, making him impossible to hear. The altar was against the front wall of the church and the priest faced the altar with his back to the people. Mass began quietly, and although I had never been to a Latin Mass before, I knew what to expect in theory.
I also noticed that I was the only women in church without a head covering and who was wearing pants. The majority of pews were each taken up by families with 5 or more children. Sitting towards the back I realized that the 12-passenger vans were for large families. A shuttle ministry of the church perhaps? As we entered the church no one greeted us or smiled, but rather I caught uncomfortable glances at our family or we were deliberately ignored. A line of 8 almost matching, 12-passenger vans were parked along the front street. All of the women wore head coverings and skirts. Upon arriving, I already sensed something a little off about this parish. Their mass started in 30 minutes, just enough time to walk there, and so we decided to go for it. This parish must have permission from the bishop to do it every week or something’. ‘Great!’ I thought, ‘I’ve always wanted to see the Latin Mass. Only a mile I had seen a church with a sign out front reading, “Roman Catholic Mass in the Traditional Latin Rite”. Without time to walk to our parish we were left to try a different church. The battery had died and at 7:45am on a Sunday morning there wasn’t a soul we could ask for a jump.
Only this morning our van wouldn’t start. We got ready for Mass as we do on any other Sunday morning. And how that connects to the Wedding Singer. Here begins the tale of how, one Sunday morning, our family walked unknowingly into an excommunicated “Catholic” church.