My wife is Catholic, my 4 daughters are in CCD (or will be shortly), I'm not.
We ran into a traditionalist at a reception last weekend. She and my wife got to talking, and she invited my wife to mass at her church.
It turns out, she doesn't recognize the bishop of our diocese, she believes all the masses said under his ordinary jurisdiction are invalid, that there is no real pope (or that there may be one who is in hiding, but in any event, it's not B16).
The priest at her church is "independent" but says the mass in latin.
Now, to me, it appears that this theory of the church is not dissimilar to LDS theology - that there has been some sort of occultation of the church which needs restoration by a small remnant.
If this were true, wouldn't it mean that the gates of Hell had in fact prevailed?
Just asking.
That “traditionalist” sounds like a sedevacantist — someone who thinks the See of Peter, meaning the Papal Office, has been vacant since the Pius XII, possibly even before, and that all subsequent popes have been false popes.
She's a sedevacantist. They have gone to the edge of the world and fallen off. Another name for them is "Protestant".
Avoid such persons.
The lady you're describing is a sedevacantist schismatic (and that term may or may not describe the chapel she attends, but it's certainly irregular at best).
Their ecclesiology isn't exactly like the LDS. They don't think the True Church disappeared for a time and had to be "restored". They think that they're the True Church, and are in continuity with the Church pre-Vatican II, but that the visible "reigns of power" in Rome have subsequently been usurped by people who aren't real Catholics.
Logically, they ought to go further and elect an anti-Pope (and some have done exactly that), because otherwise they're put in the rather odd situation of believing that the Papacy as an office was divinely instituted. but has now sort of disappeared, or gone on an indefinite hiatus.