A memoir by Lou Massett
He was thirteen when they put him on the plane to Kansas.
Traddyland is the story of a boy raised inside the Society of St. Pius X, five years at its boarding school in St. Marys, and the thirty years since, as the movement he left kept growing in America.
Why this story matters now.
For half a century a breakaway faction of the Catholic Church has operated in the seams of Western institutions, outside the authority of Rome and off the radar of the press. The Society of St. Pius X has produced a Holocaust-denying bishop expelled by his own order, a flagship boarding school whose alumni include a Republic of Texas militiaman, and a chapel that hosted Timothy McVeigh four days before the Oklahoma City bombing. On July 1, 2026, it consecrated four bishops without a papal mandate. On July 2, Pope Leo XIV declared the Society in schism.
Lou Massett was raised inside all of it. He went to school with one of the four new bishops. Traddyland is the first book to tell that story from the inside.
If you have ever watched someone you love disappear into an ideology, or felt that pull yourself, this story will feel familiar.
About the book →
Louis Massett offers a lively insight into the ethos of Catholic traditionalism. His memoir is warm and funny in parts, poignant and soulful in others. I wanted to leap into the pages and hug the hurting souls. Massett recalls many of the events I was aware of as a seminarian in Winona, Minnesota, and I can identify with elements of his journey. I heartily recommend his book.Gary Campbell, former SSPX priest
How a person gets pulled in, and how they get out.
One
Certainty becomes identity
How belief stops being something you hold and starts being who you are.
Two
Identity becomes division
The quiet sorting of the world into us and them, by family, faith, and tribe.
Three
Division reshapes community
What it costs, and what survives, when we choose closeness over correctness.
Four
Finding a way back
Not a renunciation but a reckoning. How to leave the Society without leaving the Church, and keep loving the family who stayed.
What readers are saying
Press and reviews →A memoir the Church needs now.Where Peter Is
Traddyland is a powerful, beautifully written memoir that delivers far more than a personal story. It's an unflinching and sometimes tragic exploration of faith, identity, trust, betrayal.Mike Lally
Readers will feel his painful struggle reconciling his belief in Christ and the goodness of Catholicism juxtaposed with the radicalism of Traddyist Catholic members of the Society of Saint Pius X that broke away from the Catholic Church in 1988.Bonnie Gruttadaria
Massett does a wonderful job in this book, painting a vivid picture of his life growing up in a splinter group of staunch traditional Catholics.Amazon reader review
A writer working from inside the world he is trying to understand.
Lou Massett was raised in the Society of St. Pius X and spent five years at its boarding school in Kansas. He left the movement in his early twenties and has watched it from the outside for thirty years. Traddyland is his first book.
In July 2026 Newsweek quoted him on the human cost of the excommunications. His essay on St. Marys ran in UnHerd the same month.
Read the full biographyA first look at the book
A short introduction to the story, the family behind it, and the questions it asks.
Are You Serious? A podcast on faith, culture, and radical ideas.
The Traddyland podcast extends the book into conversation, about faith, family, ideology, and the long road out of certainty. Hosted by Lou Massett. First episodes coming this fall.
About the podcast →
Read Act I for free.
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