Clarence Kelly

Styles of Clarence Kelly
Reference style	His Excellency The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Bishop

Clarence Kelly (born 1941) is an American sedevacantist traditionalist Catholic bishop. He is a co-founder of the Society of Saint Pius V and the founder of the Congregation of Saint Pius V.^[1]

Biography[]

Clarence Kelly was born in 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, United States.

He attended the Catholic University of America.

Priesthood[]

Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX)[]

On 14 April 1973, in Écône, Switzerland, Kelly was ordained a priest by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre^[1] for the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX).

After his ordination, he returned to the United States and undertook some speaking engagements for the John Birch Society.^[2]

He eventually became the superior of the SSPX's North-East district of the United States.

Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV)[]

Lefebvre directed the SSPX's American priests to follow the 1962 liturgical books. Kelly and eight other American priests refused to do these. On 27 April 1983, these nine priests, along with some seminarians who were sympathetic to them, were promptly 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^[2] (SSPV), which held that it is at least a debatable question whether the popes since 1958 have in fact been legitimate Roman Pontiffs.^[2] Kelly was replaced by Father Richard Williamson as the superior of the SSPX's North-East district of the United States.^[3]

In part due to the 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 founded the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Savior, a congregation of religious sisters.^[1]

Episcopacy[]

On 19 October 1993, in Carlsbad, California, United States, Kelly was consecrated a bishop by Bishop Alfredo Méndez-Gonzalez, the retired Bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, United States.^[1][2][4]

In 1996, Kelly founded the Congregation of Saint Pius V^[1] (not to be confused with the Society of Saint Pius V, which he co-founded earlier), a Society of Common Life for priests and coadjutor brothers.

On 28 February 2007, he consecrated Father Joseph Santay, CSPV, as a bishop.^[5]

In January 2012, an Albany, New York jury found Kelly guilty of defamation for remarks made by him regarding Mark LaSalle of Mark LaSalle Fine Art in a television interview; in 2009, the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Our Savior, sold the painting “Notre Dame des Anges” (“Our Lady of the Angels") by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, which they acquired in 2002, to Zaplin for $450,000; the nuns stated that they were swindled when they sold the painting to Zaplin for $450,000 and he ended up selling it for more than $2,000,000.^[6]

On 27 December 2018, Kelly served as the co-consecrator in Santay's episcopal consecration of Father James Carroll, CSPV.^[7]

Kelly resides in Oyster Bay, New York, United States.

Books[]

• Conspiracy against God and Man
• The Sacred and the Profane

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Clarence Kelly

• The Congregation of Saint Pius V's account on Bishop Kelly