When real-world Vatican drama matches your romcom's backstory
The schism and The Business of Us
If you haven’t been following the niche corners of religious news (what? you’re not??), the Vatican recently excommunicated the leadership of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), an ultra-conservative Catholic group, after they consecrated new bishops without authorization, directly defying the Pope. It’s a massive, historic modern church schism happening in real time.
For most people, it’s a fascinating, bizarre headline about medievalesque political maneuvers playing out in 2026.
For me? Same, but also it felt like the universe was peer-reviewing one of my romcoms.
In The Business of Us (Degrees of Desire Book 3), the female main character, Angela, is a brilliant, hyper-focused economics fellow at Harvard. On paper, her life is seamless: high-powered career, fresh doctorate, sharp wit, and a bright future in her field.
But her baseline for “family drama” is entirely unhinged. As she puts it, “I grew up in 1570.”
Angela did the ultimate runner. She completely cut ties with her “rad-trad,” ultra-conservative family to build a life in the modern world. She thought she had successfully outrun the guilt, the rules, and the heavy expectations of her upbringing.
Until her brother suddenly drops out of the seminary he departed for earlier in the book (against Angela’s advice) with a shocking revelation. Suddenly, her carefully curated academic life and her family’s radical theological world collide.
Full disclosure, Angela’s family isn’t SSPX in the book. They’re actually more ultra-traditionalist than that. What’s that? How much worse could it be than defying the Pope?
A lot worse, guys. Sedevacantist (one of my favorite things in the book is stoner MMC Matt trying his damndest to pronounce this word) groups like the SSPV aren’t that worried about defying the Pope. They actually think he’s an imposter.
Let’s hear from Angela and Matt themselves on this one:
“But what is all that other stuff?” Matt asked. “It’s Catholic, right? My mom hated religion, so I don’t know much about it. Are you Catholic?”
“Not technically,” she said. “Although my parents might beg to differ. We did Catholic rituals, but the church we went to isn’t recognized by the Vatican.”
“Oh, weird,” he said. “Why not?”
“My parents are sedevacantists,” she said.
“Sed…” Matt scratched his head. “Seventh-day Adventists?”
“No,” she said and repeated it more slowly. “Sedevacantists. It’s from the Latin for ‘the seat is empty.’ They think the Pope is an impostor.”
…
“Seriously.” Angela shook her head. “There’s some crazy stuff floating around, crazier than this, even. Some guy in Kansas claimed he was the true Pope, and he walked around in a Pope outfit and everything.”
“Maybe I should try that. It would totally get people to the brewery,” Matt said. “Hail, Pope Matthew.”
“It’s not a joke. This stuff is completely real to these people, and they take it seriously. Good lord, do they take it seriously.”
“So, your parents thinking the Pope is fake gives you nightmares about the Society of Fellows? And why’s the Pope fake, anyway?” His eyes were intent, no hint of dopiness or mischief.
“It’s hard to explain,” Angela said. “I guess what you have to understand is that I grew up in 1570.”
The guy with the Pope outfit walking around in Kansas is completely true, by the way, although the person has passed away since The Business of Us was written. I did find out as I was researching this article that someone has succeeded him.
Why is this even a thing? Most people would assume that ultraconservative groups would be more likely to do what the Pope wants. Obedience being a virtue in the religious realm and all.
The issue here is with Vatican II. Back to you, Angela and Matt.
“You’ve heard of Vatican II, right?” He nodded. “Well, my parents hate Vatican II.”
“No shit? I thought Catholic people loved that thing because it made everything easier. I mean, I don’t know what it made easier, but that’s what I heard.” Matt sipped from the water glass he’d gotten for her. She didn’t mind.
“Not all of them love it,” she said. “Honestly, I get that part. Vatican II really changed things, and people were as militant about enacting those changes as my parents are about staying in 1570. It turned centuries of doing the exact same thing completely around. People just went crazy updating stuff. There’s a lot of dissension and ill will about it, all these splinter groups that broke off.” Angela took the water glass back. “Sedevacantists are just one of them. They say Vatican II was so heretical that no one who’s into it could possibly be the real Pope. But this isn’t really the point. The point is that they’ve taken their love for something aesthetically beautiful—the Latin Mass I was talking about—and their desire for something rooted in history, and they let their hatred for Vatican II and modernity completely overtake their reason. They’ve made tradition into something incredibly ugly.”
The irony, at least to me, has always been that instead of working together to preserve the beauty of tradition and the things they love, the splinter groups have chosen to quibble for going on 60 years over the minutiae of this doctrine and that canon law passage. They could be a real force in bringing back tradition, and instead they’ve settled for being a bunch of surly defiant weirdos.
That’s not to say that every single Latin Mass group is comprised of surly defiant weirdos. The FSSP and ICKSP (so many acronyms, these are the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest) are in full communion with the Pope and are not breaking any rules. It’s not 1570 in an FSSP parish. And like Angela, I understand (to a limited extent) those who feel threatened into surly defiance by modernism or think the post-Vatican II Mass lacks reverence. However, acting like Angela’s dad in the book (or wearing a Pope outfit to the minimart) is not the way.
When we think of romantic comedies, we usually think of lighthearted misunderstandings or classic tropes like enemies-to-lovers or fake dating. I love myself a trope - The Business of Us is a workplace romance/friends-to-lovers/opposites attract story. But I’ve always believed that the best chemistry happens when characters are carrying deep, textured, and highly specific emotional baggage. Matt also suffered during an extremist childhood of the opposite kind.
Watching a woman who can confidently lecture a room of Harvard economists try to navigate a modern relationship with her polar opposite stoner/slacker/fledgling brewery owner while simultaneously dealing with a family crisis rooted in an incense-drenched underground religious movement is a beautiful, hilarious, and heartbreaking mess. For the story, I really wanted to explore a different vein of “she fled her conservative upbringing” than we usually see in fiction. Speaking of tropes, it’s always the evangelical Purity Ball in novels and never 1570.
And in 2026, it turns out that real-world drama is just as wild as fiction.
Are you following the recent Vatican news, or did you grow up in a hyper-specific subculture that you’re still unpacking? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
This piece features two brief passages excerpted from Chapter 6 of my book, The Business of Us. Find the complete Kindle edition and read for free on Kindle Unlimited exclusively on Amazon.