St. Clement Catholic Church (Ottawa)

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St. Clement Catholic Church is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Ottawa, Canada. It is a Traditional Catholic church serving a mixed English and French speaking parish community. The parish also runs St. Clement's School (Grades 7 through 12). [1].

The story of St. Clement's parish is the story of a dedicated group of lay-people who essentially created their own parish from scratch. In 1968, then-Archbishop Joseph-Aurèle Plourde authorized a small group of Catholics who remained attached to the Church's traditional liturgical heritage to continue to use the Latin Tridentine Mass. This group of lay people found an older priest who agreed to serve them in this desire, and they received permission ot use the chapel of the Monastery of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood on Echo Drive in Ottawa for Mass. In the early 1970s, the community was told to use the Mass of Paul VI, which they did, but using the Latin language.

The community continued to gather at the Precious Blood Sisters' Monastery until 1984 when the Sisters renovated their chapel. The Latin Mass community was given permission to salvage the original main and side altars from the Sisters' chapel. That year they acquired a small building of their own in the Ottawa suburb of Gloucester, which they renovated into a chapel, placed under the patronage of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr, and furnished with the salvaged altars.

The community continued to use that chapel until the summer of 1993, when Archbishop Plourde's successor, Archbishop Marcel Gervais, made available the building pictured, a purpose-built church complete with rectory at the corner of Mann and Russell Avenues in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa. Built in 1957, this building had housed a French-language Catholic parish, St. Pie X, until 1983 when the building had been sold to the Maronite diocese of Ottawa and renamed St. Charbel's. At the time the Maronite community in Ottawa was growing rapidly as a result of the Lebanese Civil War). In 1993 the Maronites moved to a larger church in Vanier. When they moved into their new church, the Archbishop elevated the St. Clement Latin Community of Ottawa to the rank of a quasi-parish.

The Community had been served on an ad-hoc basis by three older priests who were familiar with the rubrics of the Tridentine Mass. However, with failing health of all of them, the Community was concerned that it might have secured a permanent building but would be without a priest. At about that time, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) was getting ready to ordain its first Canadian-born man. The FSSP is a Fraternity of priests who are loyal to the Holy Father and are dedicated to preserving the traditional form of the Tridentine Mass and all pre-1962 forms for the Sacraments, as well as fostering authentic Catholic teaching and devotion. The Archbishop discussed the problem with the Fraternity and it was agreed that the FSSP would assign a priest to minister to the needs of Saint Clement community. The first FSSP-appointed priest, the young Fr. Charles Ryan, had only been ordained a few weeks before his assignment to St. Clement's on New Year's Day, 1995! The FSSP has been staffing St. Clement's ever since.

In 1997, on the patronal feast (23 November), Archbishop Gervais erected Saint Clement as a full canonical bilingual indult parish serving the faithful wishing to worship according to the ancient Roman rites.

Parishioner Bernard Pothier wrote a full history of the origins of Saint Clement Parish which was published on the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary in 1988. Copies are available from the parish.