The Society of St. Pius V (Societas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii Quinti), abbreviated SSPV, is a Traditionalist Catholic society of ordained priests formed in 1983 and based in Oyster Bay Cove, New York. The priests of SSPV broke away from the Society of St. Pius X over liturgical issues and maintain that many in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church no longer adhere to the Catholic faith but instead profess a new, modernist, Conciliar religion. SSPV priests regard the question of the legitimacy of the present hierarchy and the possibility that the Holy See is unoccupied (sedevacantism) to be unresolved.[1] The SSPV is led by its founder, Bishop Clarence Kelly.
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The SSPV developed out of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), the traditionalist organization founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. In 1983, Lefebvre expelled four priests (Fr. Clarence Kelly, Fr. Daniel Dolan, Fr. Anthony Cekada, and Fr. Eugene Berry) of the SSPX's Northeast USA District from the society, partly because they were opposed to his instructions that Mass be celebrated according to the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal issued by John XXIII. Other issues occasioning the split were Lefebvre's order that Society priests must accept the decrees of nullity handed down by diocesan marriage tribunals and the acceptance of new members into the group who had been ordained to the priesthood according to the revised sacramental rites of Pope Paul VI.[2]
"The Nine" (as the four expelled priests plus five who voluntarily left were called in SSPX circles) balked at Lefebvre's imposition of the 1962 missal which they believed already included significant departures from the liturgical traditions of the Church (for example, adding the name of St. Joseph to the Canon of the Mass).[3] A more basic reason (although "...[t]he 'pope question' was not raised at the time, and was not at issue")[4] was the belief amongst the Nine that the men who had reigned as pope since the death of Pope Pius XII (d. 1958) had not been legitimate popes (Canon 1325, no. 2, 1917).[5] They held that these Popes had officially taught and/or accepted heretical doctrines and therefore had lost or never occupied the See of Rome (Canon 188, no. 4, 1917)[6] Like the Society of St. Pius X, they believed that there had been novel interpretations of the traditional teachings of the Church on issues such as religious liberty. One of the Nine, Fr. Dolan, admitted that while a member of the SSPX, he had concluded that the See of Peter was vacant.[7]
"The Nine" set up a new priestly society under the leadership of Fr. Clarence Kelly, their former District Superior. The eight priests were Frs. Thomas Zapp, Donald Sanborn, Anthony Cekada, Daniel Dolan, William Jenkins, Eugene Berry, Joseph Collins, and Martin Skierka. Additional priests joined shortly thereafter.
Within a few years, about half of the original nine SSPV priests separated from Fr. Kelly. Most of them formed an openly sedevacantist group, known as Catholic Restoration, under Frs. Dolan and Sanborn, who were later consecrated as bishops in the episcopal lineage of the Vietnamese Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc Pierre Martin.
The other priests founded independent ministries.
On 19 October 1993, 86-year-old Bishop Alfredo F. Méndez, who until his retirement in 1974 had served as Bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, consecrated Fr. Kelly as a bishop.[8] This was not announced until a few days after Bishop Méndez's death in 1995. Bishop Mendéz had already publicly ordained two seminarians of the SSPV to the priesthood in 1990.[9]
On Wednesday, 28 February 2007, Bishop Kelly consecrated Fr. Joseph Santay of the Congregation of St Pius V, which also was founded by Bishop Kelly, to the episcopacy at Oyster Bay Cove, New York.[10]
The SSPV currently has five permanent priories, and its priests serve a network of chapels and churches in various parts of the United States and Canada.
The SSPV has an associated congregation of Sisters, the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Savior, which was founded by the then Fr. Kelly in 1984. Their congregation's current motherhouse and novitiate are located in the Catskill area of upstate New York, and it has two additional houses in the United States. The current Mother General is Mother Mary Bosco. The Sisters run schools in the locations of each of their houses, excepting the motherhouse, and are also involved in other types of charity work, such as visiting nursing homes.
The Society has a seminary, which is also located in the Catskill area, NY and is under the direction of Bishop Joseph Santay; its seminarians are ordained by Bishops Kelly and/or Santay and become members of the Congregation of St. Pius V (CSPV). Four seminarians have been ordained in the last three years. Another was ordained on 3 September 2008, bringing the total number of priests in the CSPV to six (including Bishop Santay). The priests of the CSPV are not members of the SSPV. They are ordained priests (or become brothers) for the Congregation of St. Pius V (CSPV). CSPV was formed because the Church desires her religious to be bound to an order (congregation) or diocese. [11]
The SSPV operates only in North America.
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