Out in California, where Mel Gibson and Roger Mahony manage somehow to breathe the same air, a paper has done a profile of a “breakaway” Catholic parish that has tripled in size over the last 20 years. The members are part of something known as the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, founded by Francis Schuckardt (pictured on the left). I think most of us would just call them plain old everyday schismatics:

They say that reforms the Catholic Church has made in the past 40 years are misguided. As for a recent decision by Pope Benedict XVI authorizing wider use of the Tridentine, or Latin, Mass, they simply discount it. For (Rev. Dominic) Radecki’s church, it’s not just the issue of language, but all the modernizations that came with the church’s Vatican II reforms.

“I think it’s very clever, because some people just want a Latin Mass,” Radecki said.

“In practice this isn’t going to work, because they haven’t said the Latin Mass since 1969, and that’s almost 40 years.”

Queen of Angels was started in Granada Hills in 1986 by worshippers who had already broken away from the Catholic Church and were part of the nationwide Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, which itself has been around since 1967.

In 1993, Queen of Angels Church moved to 24244 Newhall Ave. in Santa Clarita, with about 100 members. Since then it has grown to more than 300, including some who travel from as far away as Lompoc.

The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, which holds that it ascribes to true Catholic doctrine, has about 25 churches nationwide, Radecki said.

There are other conservative parishes apart from the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen that consider themselves Catholic, while operating independently from the Vatican.

But they are a minority, with estimated membership in the hundreds of thousands to the low millions, compared with the more than 1 billion Catholics affiliated with the official Roman Catholic Church.

“In the Catholic tradition, being in communion means that we are together, that we are a universal church,” said Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu, a professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, a Catholic school.

“And when there is a break, as has happened with this community, that community is broken, which is like you’re kind of related to me but no longer on speaking terms,” she said.

Officials with the archdiocese of Los Angeles did not return several calls seeking comment.

For Radecki and his congregants, the Roman Catholic Church took a wrong turn with the Second Vatican Council, which happened from 1962 to ’65.

He objects to its efforts to reach out to Protestant Christians by holding meetings with them and taking their advice on theological matters. He opposes changes in the worship services. Radecki even says Pope Benedict was wrong when he wore a business suit to the Second Vatican Council.

Opposed to efforts to make worship services a more personal affair, Radecki faces an altar with his back to the congregants when he leads Mass at Queen of Angels Church, just as Catholics did in previous centuries.

“It’s like a pilot in a plane with the passengers; we’re all going the same direction,” he said.

[snip]

Radecki said he still subscribes to Tidings, the official newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. And he talks to Catholic priests in the mainstream church, but he finds their beliefs are completely different than his own.

“It’s two different religions,” he said.

It’s a big Church, but when someone draws a conclusion like that, perhaps it’s not big enough to contain that kind of disagreement. There are some gaps that are just too wide to bridge.

Let’s pray for all those parishioners. Let’s hope that they find their way home.

Undoubtedly, they are probably saying the same thing about us.