On a sunny Santa Clara mountainside, I stood in shocked silence. It was lunchtime at the retreat center, and the buffet was ready. Prayers were said, and everyone stood. An unassuming woman in a loose-fitting dress leaned over to me and to the other women, and said, “Stand by your chairs until the men have gone through the buffet line, and then we will eat.” My jaw dropped — I couldn’t help it. Most of the women accepted this business of the men eating first without any visible opinions, but there was sometimes another person present in Society gatherings who was more aligned with what I call “normal,” and as I looked at the other women, I found one. Her mouth was open, too, and we just looked at each other in disbelief.
During the retreat, this center would play audio commentary of the bombing of Dresden during World War II, with graphic descriptions of people being burned alive, at every meal, to show us how horrible hell would be. Definitely would be, because our priest preached at Mass that most of humanity would be going to hell. This was what life “in the Society” was like; ever stranger episodes would occur, troubling my soul.
The Catholic popes have lifted the past excommunications, and offered reconciliation to the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), yet the Society has chosen to consecrate their own bishops on July 1, 2026, which in the Catholic Church is grounds for automatic excommunication. They are choosing again to be separated from Rome, deepening the divide between the Society adherents and the actual Catholic Church. The SSPX has very good window dressing, appearing to traditionalist Catholics to be a better, purer version of Catholicism. They have lots of children, say the old form of the Mass in Latin, dress modestly, and this all appeals to some. Yet the reality of life as a Catholic, and as a woman, in the SSPX circle, is far different, and often truly bizarre.
People may not get divorces very often in the SSPX, but couples living under the same roof for decades in mutual, palpable hatred of each other can be worse, certainly for the traumatized children in these homes. Many of the young children grow up to lose their faith entirely, become addicted to drugs and alcohol, drift aimlessly and miserably into criminal behavior, beating their own spouses eventually. I have known more than one family who had to flee from a vicious father, running to relatives or cheap motel rooms to protect themselves. It is actually very bad to teach men to rule their families like gods. It warps something in their psyches and sometimes leads to violence that endangers everyone around them.
This isn’t just happening in the Society, but in other high-control, fundamentalist religions, too. Books by women who have survived these groups are available everywhere. The experiences of former Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints and Independent Fundamental Baptists, for example, are very similar to life in the Society.
We were constantly taught that women were subjective beings, so our thoughts could be readily dismissed as unreliable, that we were instinctively flighty, irrational, and emotional. Men were taught that they were objective beings who were rational, and were given the office of ruling their homes. Women had to obey the men in all things. Father X preached from the pulpit that if your husband told you to make mashed potatoes for dinner, you had to make them, or else be sinning. Fathers became tyrants who spent days at work, hopefully, and nights drinking with Society men, ranting about how men need brotherhood, while the wives struggled to raise their nine, eleven, fifteen children without support.
One woman had the audacity to have a nervous breakdown, and was talked of as crazy and unable to handle anything, instead of being supported and loved as Catholics are called and even ordered to do. Her daughter missed large chunks of her eighth-grade education in order to raise her siblings while her mother was ill. Fathers kept drinking together, though. A common saying was that if you know where you are, and how to get home, your drinking isn’t sinful. Thus, the male alcoholism and the treatment of women as broodmares and sole caregivers continued, leaving broken fathers, mothers, and children in its wake. I knew one woman who had seven C-sections.
Women weren’t allowed to wear pants — modesty culture was directed completely at us. Although makeup was not forbidden, almost no one wore it. Women dressed in shapeless sack dresses, and the men looked like door-to-door evangelists. I have heard people who aren’t familiar with the SSPX say that they are all poor, which shouldn’t matter, but the truth is that they aren’t all poor — large families do take money, but some families are quite wealthy. The bland, shapeless clothing is part of the Society “look,” seen as modest and humble.
I was pressured by the whole community there to marry a man I didn’t love or want to marry. All of my friends, who all went to the Society church, my family members, and even the pastor of our church, Father X, leaned on me hard to marry him. It can show my mindset at the time that I felt I had to ask permission to break up with him, so I made an appointment with Father. I told him what was on my heart, but Father told me to marry him anyway. “You’ll grow to love him after you’re married,” he said.
Finally, I found one friend who understood. He was a younger priest, more aligned with normal thinking, and he gave me the permission to break up with my boyfriend that I was seeking so desperately. My boyfriend went on to marry a Society woman, and have the large SSPX family that he wanted. I am still single, but so thankful I didn’t marry him. I knew it wouldn’t have worked, because he was much more Society-aligned in his thinking, and didn’t believe one should ever attend what they call a Novus Ordo Mass, which is the regular Catholic Mass. I have heard it referred to as the “nervous disorder” Mass, a slander which I didn’t even then agree with.
The truth is that my soul was greatly disturbed by these and many other terrible things, and by the grace of God I was able to discover that the SSPX had manipulated and deceived me and my family into believing that they were the real Catholic Church, and were in communion with Rome. This was before the internet, without anything at the public library or in bookstores about the SSPX. Most people hadn’t heard of it.
After seven years with the SSPX, I read the letters between Archbishop Lefebvre and then-Cardinal Ratzinger, the 1988 decree of excommunication, and Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei. When I learned that the SSPX was not in full communion with the pope, I returned to the actual Catholic Church, where I experienced great healing over the following years. I just earned a master’s degree in Catholic Studies.
I want to tell everyone who is attracted to the SSPX that the Society life is not just a case of loving the old ways and being faithful to Tradition. The SSPX turned a loving and kind man, my best friend, into a man who beat his wife terribly in front of his children. It will ruin your marriage and leave your children hopeless, terrified of the false god who, they preach, is anxious to punish us all. Father X preached that we should smile as we spanked our children, since we are happy to discipline them so they won’t lose their souls. I think so many of their youth turn to drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity, out of despair — they have lost hope in their salvation, and since the future holds nothing but horror and damnation, they will self-medicate to feel better now. These people are my friends and family. I love them and hope they can find happiness.
I know a good God, who loves us more than in theory, who has saved me from them, and taught me who he really is — merciful, gracious, kind. I beg of you not to be seduced by their false window dressing — their lives are not happy ones. Many people go to the SSPX, yet many people leave, too. They leave with deep wounds that take years to heal into scars, assuming they can find good therapy and a kind priest. Some lose their faith entirely.
I pray that they will not go through with these consecrations, but they have stated their intention to — don’t go with them. They have lost the guidance of the Holy Spirit promised to St. Peter, by separating themselves from his successor. They have nothing to offer but deceit, a false god, and an attack upon the woman and the family, resembling the father of lies, Satan.
Image: SSPX St. Aloysius Gonzaga Retreat Center in Los Gatos, CA. Screenshot.
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