St. Clement Parish

St. Clement Parish is a bilingual Roman Catholic parish community located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. After the suppression of the liturgical norms of the 1962 Roman Missal and the promulgation of the Mass of Paul VI in the 1960s, St. Clement Parish was the first community in the world to be authorized to celebrate the Mass and other sacraments in Latin only, according to the older liturgical norms. Since June 3, 2012, St. Clement Parish operates out of Ste-Anne Church in Lowertown.HistoryIn 1968, Ottawa 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 found an older priest who agreed to serve them in this desire, and they received permission to use the chapel of the Monastery of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood on Echo Drive in Ottawa for Mass. They were served first by Canon René Martin, the chaplain of the convent, then by Fr. Guy Martin, W.F. In the early 1970s, the community was told to use the Mass of Paul VI, which they did, but using the Latin language. Fr. Charles-Henri Bélanger, a former Canadian Armed Forces padre, became chaplain to the congregation in 1981.