Did Fr. Wickens make any announcements to the parish DIRECTLY, that is FROM THE PULPIT, about whom he wished to take over the chapel?
The newspaper interview with Fr. Wickens brother, immediately after Fr. Wickens' death, stated that the matter has not yet been decided in the least.
If Fr. Wickens wished that the chapel be administered by the SSPX after his death, but still be owned by the congregation, or his family, trustees, etc. then that is fine. If he wished to GIVE it outright to the SSPX that raises red flags, but so be it.
If he DID NOT wish either, then that is a problem.
He should have formulated his intentions well in advance and made them known explicitly to the congregation if he wished them to be carried out.
As for the books distributed gratis to the parishoners, that is your "compensation" for handing it over to them lock, stock, and barrel. As many other chapels have found out, never expect the congregation to be consulted about anything once the SSPX have the deed in their name.
I assume to enforce their possesion, the SSPX will turn it immediately into a priory, and have three priests stationed there for the entire week.
Interestingly SSPX chapels in Chicago, Philadelphia and other large cities have NEVER been staffed full time or have been permitted to have schools. They only staff smaller locations that they surmise will have less resistance to their own particular ideologies that are NOT part of the Catholic Faith. As one example, Fr. Van Derputten's assertion in a speech that the U.S. was on the wrong side in WW II>
Of course Fr. Peter's Scott's usual response to remonstrations over the SSPX' failure to live up to their promises of ful time clergy, schools, etc, once his numerous lies no longer worked, was to fulminate a purge, and then another, and hey, another for good measure after that! Have to keep "them", the laity, in their place.
The 'technical terminology' is control freak. It is, however, for a purpose, and that is to INTENTIONALLY destroy and render futile all resitance, even spiritual, to the false church of vatican ii.
The purges usually send the faithful, and even some of their priests, straight back into the arms of the 'concilar church". The congregations, despite the numerous children, are smaller than ten years in the past.
Most of the original items on Bill Grosklass' web site on the Chicago purge have been removed as out of date but some still remain. Unfortunately the author was typical of the 'true believers' in the SSPX who think the SSPX the Catholic Church - in other words no one else, and once they have their bubble burst, they abandon the true Faith and true Church and run back into the maws of hell of the novus ordo.
Which is why I surmise such a pathetic, ineffective, contradictory resistance was permitted to be mounted to the hell of the concilar church of vatican ii; to render all serious opposition to the apostate church of vatican ii futile. Lenin's own counterfeit creation of a false resistance to the Bolsheviks was a piker in comparision.
As just one example that may be similar to your own chapel's fate, in the late 1990's the seizure of Monsignor Donahue's chapel after his death by the SSPX under Fr. Scott. The chapel had been solely owned by Msgr. Donahue and he left it in his will to Fr. Berry AS HIS CHOSEN SUCCESSOR.
The SSPX 'graciously offered' to help Msgr. Donahue in his illness - and that was all she wrote.
One of Msgr. Donahue's parishoners contributed a significant amout of money to pay the legal bills to fight the takeover by the SSPX at Our Lady of the Angels in Arcadia, California, but they still unfortunately lost the battle.
The parishoner's name is Mel Gibson.
That chapel currently publishes a glossy flier to promote itself that states that Mel: "for a period of time attended the Latin Mass at our Lady of the Angels Church in Arcadia, California."
This flier has been distributed by the SSPX throughout the U.S. as a "nihil obstat" for their own organization.
We could go on with many examples of their duplicity, but one more should suffice: when Fr. Kelly was still part of the outfit, one of the trustees of my own chapel secretly deeded the place over to the SSPX. It had been purchased from the Episcopalian diocese and five families mortgaged their houses in order to purchase the property. No one knew about the trustee's treachery until the 1983 split between the SSPV and he resulting court fight between the two entities for property.
Amazingly, our parish LOST the property to the SSPX in court becasue the judge handed it over them "because they had a superior", Abp. Lefebvre.
We are in a fight for the Faith, the Church, for billions of souls, for Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all the SSPX is concerned with is enriching its own piddling little fiefdom for the eventual day when it fully betrays all of its faithful and brings their souls back to the hell on earth of the apostate church.
Nothing.
That is not necessarily true. Fr. Wickens often provided books free to the congregation. During Lent each year he would provide a book, usually by St. Alphonsus Ligouri, for Lenten reading. When I was instructed by Fr. Wickens upon returning to the Faith, he gave me a copy of An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. When it came to saving souls and defending the true Faith, Fr. Wickens was very generous.
"Unfortunately the author was typical of the 'true believers' in the SSPX who think the SSPX the Catholic Church - in other words no one else"
Although there may be some misguided individuals out there who behave as if "outside the SSPX there is no salvation", most Catholics only turn to the SSPX for refuge in the modernist storm - realizing that it's certainly not a perfect society - but better than other available options. These are perilous times, and with much of the Church in open apostasy, let's not despise those families who seek solace with the SSPX, and let's hope they don't despise others who take a different route e.g. the "indult" option.