CHURCH RESISTANT TO VATICAN II LATIN MASS THE NORM AT BREAKAWAY NEWHALL PARISH.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS

Staff Writer

NEWHALL -- Although he celebrates daily Mass in Latin at Queen of Angels Catholic Church, the Rev. Dominic Radecki isn't overjoyed at the Vatican's recent decree allowing broader use of the traditional service.

Queen of Angels is among dozens of traditionalist Catholic parishes nationwide that operate independently of the Vatican, adhering to what they consider bedrock church doctrine.

The Newhall church is part of an organization known as the Religious Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, which does not consider the pope as a legitimate leader of the church.

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 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.

Modest dress is encouraged, and women who attend the church wear scarves called mantillas over their head and shoulders.

Radecki said some older Catholics are drawn to traditional Latin services because it reminds them of the church they used to know. Younger people exposed to it for the first time also find it attractive, Radecki said.

Gonzalez-Andrieu spoke of a similar appeal the traditional rites and customs have.

"If you're doing a movie and you want it to look like Catholics back in the 1950s, this is what it would look like," she said. "So it's kind of an emotional tug of wanting to look Catholic."

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.

As part of its reforms, the Catholic Church in 1970 won praise from Jewish groups for removing language from the liturgy asking God for the Jews to convert to Catholicism.

But Radecki said his church still includes the centuries-old Latin prayer in its Good Friday service.

"We do pray for the conversion of others, and we never force anybody or anything like that, and there's no prejudice," Radecki said.

"A true Catholic doesn't have any hatred for the Jews or anyone else," he said. "Many people practice different religions, and they can't be forced -- we would never force anyone to be a Catholic or be baptized."

Radecki, 49, not only opposes change in church doctrine regarding Jews, he also opposes the Catholic Church's moves toward uniting with other denominations of Christianity. And, like other members of the traditional Catholic organization he belongs to, he contends that the papacy is still valid, but that the papal seat is vacant because of the failings of recent popes.

Gonzalez-Andrieu said there is little hope of reconciliation between the mainstream Catholic Church and the throwback churches that ascribe to old church doctrine.

"Because the break here is much deeper than what pertains to the liturgical celebration," she said, "the chances that there's going to be some kind of coming back together are certainly not very good."

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