St Clement’s Parish in Ottawa, Ontario, has been celebrating its 50th anniversary this year; as we noted in an article earlier this year, St Clement’s, which is now run by the Fraternity of St Peter, was one of the few churches that held on to the celebration of the traditional rite after the promulgation of the post-Conciliar reform. For a ten-year period, it was constrained to use the new rite, and did so according to the mind of the Council, with Latin, chant and worship ad orientem; in 1984, the traditional rite was restored, and has continued ever since.
On the evening of November 22, Fr Joseph Bisig, one of the founding members of the FSSP, and the first Superior General, celebrated solemn First Vespers of St Clement in the parish.
For the feast day itself, His Excellency Terrence Prendergast, the Archbishop of Ottawa, celebrated a Pontifical Mass in the cathedral of Notre Dame, the first such Mass to be celebrated in Ottawa cathedral since 1998. The church was packed with parishioners and non-parishioners; a relic of St Clement was displayed in the sanctuary for veneration. In attendance were Fr Bisig, the recently elected Superior General, Fr Andrzej Komorowski, Fr Michael Stinson, the North American District Superior, and the clergy of St Clement. The gold vestments used for the Mass were the same ones used at a Pontifical Mass in Ottawa in 1947, during the landmark Marian Congress, that drew 200,000 people. (Video here.)
On the evening of November 22, Fr Joseph Bisig, one of the founding members of the FSSP, and the first Superior General, celebrated solemn First Vespers of St Clement in the parish.
