Brother Clement currently resides at Xaverian House in Danvers, Massachusetts. In this clip he talks about his Ukrainian Catholic heritage and what that means to him as a Brother in a Roman Catholic religious order.
Transcript: “When I was baptized in the Eastern Church, you are baptized, you are confirmed, and you are given your first communion at the moment. So as an infant you receive all three Sacraments.
“As a…joining the Xaverian Brothers I had a little bit of problems because I was valid but illicit. In other words, I was illegally in a Roman Catholic order. And after I got to Xaverian College in ’67, I had to get letters from the local Byzantine bishop, who happened to be the Archbishop of Philadelphia–the Ukrainian Archbishop of Philadelphia–granting permission for me to join a Roman Catholic order. That had to go to Rome and I had to get certification from Rome that I was valid as a Roman Catholic brother. But as a Byzantine Rite you never give up that Rite, so to this day I’m still Byzantine Rite. I had a Ukranian Byzantine liturgy here at the house. I set up the whole chapel with icons and all the incense and everything. And the priest celebrated the whole liturgy in English. And for that I wore my traditional Byzantine garb, which is a long black rob with a stovepipe hat with a vail that is wore over the top of it. You see it among Greek monks and Russian monks. And a silver chain around the neck with a silver Byzantine cross. That Brothers always get a kick out of that.”