Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)

In 1971, Clarence Kelly joined the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) Seminary at Écône, Switzerland.^[2] On April 24, 1973, in Écône, Kelly was ordained a priest for the Society by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.^[3]

After his ordination, he returned to the United States and undertook some speaking engagements for the John Birch Society.^[4] He eventually became the superior of the SSPX's North-East district of the United States.

Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV)

Archbishop Lefebvre directed the SSPX's priests to follow the 1962 liturgical books. Fr Kelly and eight other American priests refused to do this. On April 27, 1983, these nine priests, along with some seminarians who were sympathetic to them, were expelled from the SSPX by Lefebvre for their refusal to use the 1962 Missal and for other reasons, such as their resistance to Lefebvre's order that priests of the SSPX must accept the decrees of nullity handed down by diocesan marriage tribunals and their disapproval of the SSPX's policy of accepting into the society new members who had been ordained to the priesthood according to the revised sacramental rites of Paul VI.

Almost immediately, these priests, with Kelly as their leader, formed the Society of Saint Pius V^[4] (SSPV), which held that it is at least a debatable question whether the popes since 1958 have in fact been legitimate Roman Pontiffs.^[4] The Society does not believe that it has the right to decide the question of sedevacantism definitively, but believes that "those who presently are thought to be occupying hierarchical positions in the Catholic Church are acting, for the most part, as though they do not have the Faith, according to all human means of judging".^[5] They reject any changes to the Mass (including changes made to the Holy Week Ceremonies by Pope Pius XII in 1951), and adhere to the preconciliar Code of Canon Law.^[5] Kelly was replaced by Father Richard Williamson as the superior of the SSPX's North-East district of the United States.^[6]

In part due to Kelly's rejection of the validity of sedevacantist bishops consecrated by or in the lineage of Bishop Ngô Đình Thục, some of the original priests of the SSPV, such as Father Daniel Dolan, Father Anthony Cekada, Father Donald Sanborn, and Father Thomas Zapp, broke away from the society.

In 1984, Kelly purchased a former Catskills resort in Round Top, New York, and established St. Joseph's Novitiate. There he also founded the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Savior, a congregation of religious sisters.^[7]

Lengthy litigation followed the expulsion of Kelly and others from the SSPX over the disposition of property and churches.^[8] In 1985, Kelly, Cekada, Dolan, and Sanborn sued Schmidberger, Williamson, Bolduc, and others related to the SSPX for libel.^[9]