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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC

Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
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Freelance Bishops

INDEPENDENT "CATHOLIC" CHURCHES IN LOS ANGELES

By Christopher Zehnder

What would the Catholic Church look like without the pope? A tour through the internet might give some clues. One need only to go to a search engine, type in the words "independent Catholic," or "Old Catholic," and he will discover a myriad of "churches," all self-described as "catholic," but differing (sometimes markedly) in doctrine, discipline and liturgy. So far, I have counted about 85 different "catholic" churches, with a host of names. There are the "Ancient Tridentine Catholic Church," the "Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada," "Catholic Church of The Apostles of the Latter Times," the "Gnostic Catholic Church," and the "Old Roman Catholic Church (English Rite) And The Roman Catholic Church of the Ultrajectine Tradition" -- to name a few. Many of these non-papal "catholic" churches are located in the Los Angeles area.

These "catholic" churches one may divide into two basic categories: those descending from groups who rejected the dogma of papal infallibility at the first Vatican Council in 1870, and those resulting from later schisms. The former, called "Old Catholic," have bishops who derive their succession through the Jansenist See of Utrecht in Holland, which broke with Rome in the 18th century, and (mostly) have valid orders; the latter descend through a number of different lines, some valid, some not.

Bishop Brian Delvaux, rector of Good Shepherd American Catholic Church in Lakewood describes his church as an "extension of the Universal Church." "Our history," he said, "goes back to 1945." In that year Pope Pius XII excommunicated Dom Carlos Duarte Costa, a Brazilian archbishop who had publically criticized the pope for the Vatican's neutrality during World War II. Subsequently, Costa formed the Brazilian National Catholic Church.

Though Delvaux received his consecration through this Brazilian church, he said the American Catholic Church is not subject to Brazil. "Duarte Costa's view of the church," said Delvaux, "is that it should be united in faith and in sacrament and in liturgy; but because you have a relationship with a church doesn't mean that you're absolutely under that church's authority."

Delvaux, formerly a priest of the archdiocese of Los Angeles (serving as associate pastor at St. John Fisher in Palos Verdes and St. Patrick Church in North Hollywood) left the priesthood and went into business. About ten years later he met Bishop Peter Hickman of the "Ecumenical Catholic Church" in Orange and "realized that maybe Catholic ministry was still possible. He eventually became associate pastor at Hickman's St. Matthew's church in Orange. On October 1, 1995, Delvaux was consecrated bishop by Bishop E. Paul Raible, the pastor of Good Shepherd American Catholic church.

All of the priests of Good Shepherd (except Raible) are former Roman Catholics. Two of these, George Lesinski and Mariano Tomaszewski, were ordained Roman Catholic priests. Tomaszewski, like Delvaux, was a priest of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, assigned, first, to St. Vibiana's Cathedral and then to St. Philip's in Pasadena. He left to marry. Jack Kearney, another priest at Good Shepherd, was a Vincentian deacon, who left because, said Delvaux, he wanted to continue a ministry he had started with alcoholics. On February 7, 1999, Kearney was ordained priest by Raible.

The congregation served by these five priests numbers 145 on a good Sunday. In fact, Good Shepherd is the only parish they serve. "The purpose of this specific church," Delvaux said, "is to reach out to Catholics who are not in a position, mostly through discipline, to be fully active in the Roman Catholic Church, so they're doing nothing. They don't want to become Baptist, they don't want to become Episcopalian. We're looking to evangelize the disenfranchized Catholic -- particularly those who are separated through the issues of divorce and remarriage."

Though allowing the divorced to remarry, Delvaux is quick to add that "divorce is not part of God's plan. On the other hand, when Jesus met people pastorally; nothing was too much for his forgiveness. We say that marriage is permanent, but not indissoluble." Other areas of difference with Rome include open communion for all baptized Christians who "believe that Jesus is somehow present in this Eucharist," and the abrogation of the discipline of enforced celibacy for priests and bishops.

The biggest difference with Rome, however, is over papal authority and infallibility. "We believe the Holy Father, whom we respect as the pope, is the one most responsible on earth for the preservation of truth and unity in the church." Though, says Delvaux, the pope has a "charism of infallibility," for any dogmatic statement he makes there "would have to be a consensus and [the statement] be declared in an ecumenical council."

Though Delvaux says his church is "a bit boring, because we are not all that different -- we are not out there ordaining women, we wouldn't have a ceremony for same-gender relationships" -- yet this tedium does not extend to other independent catholic churches. Though it appears that nearly all of these churches target divorced and remarried Catholics, some ordain women to the priesthood and the episcopate, others accept same-sex relationships and artificial contraception -- or, at least, do not interfere in such moral matters.

"We are accepting of everyone, and we do not question them," said Ronald Nowland, archbishop of Christ's Apostolic Church of North America, in Long Beach. "What they are and what they are not is between them and Jesus alone."

Christ's Apostolic Church, said Nowland, is affiliated with "probably over 400 churches." Membership numbers about 2000 (which does not include foreign missions) led by 28 bishops worldwide and 572 priests. (Without counting foreign missions, this brings the ratio of clergy to laity to roughly one to three and a half. I e-mailed Nowland to ask him about this, and received no reply.) Nowland describes his church as "Old Catholic, hearkening back to the Utrecht Union. "I got my orders," said Nowland, "through Utrecht, through Brazil, and through the Church of Antioch."

Nowland, a former Roman Catholic, said his church does not "differ all that much from the Roman Church," accept, of course, in the areas of papal infallibility, the indissolubility of marriage, the teaching on artificial contraception, and the ordination of women.

The liturgy in both Nowland's and Delvaux's churches differs little from the Novus Ordo Roman Mass. The music is contemporary (Oregon Catholic Press). However, Nowland said some bishops of Christ's Apostolic Church employ other liturgies. "We have a big presence in the Philippines," he said, "and over there we use both the Novus Ordo and a kind of old Latin-style high Mass in the Tagalog language. In South America we use the Portugese Mass that is kind of like the pre-Vatican II Mass. We have several groups here in the United States where we use the old Latin Mass. And then there is an Old Catholic Mass," which, said Nowland, does not differ much from the Tridentine Mass, except that it's in English.

"California seems to have a great wealth of Old Catholics who basically are of themselves, for themselves, unto themselves," said Father Joseph Milewski, pastor of Guardian Angel Polish National Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Though the Polish National Catholic Church is Old Catholic, Milewski sees it as distinct from others that bear that name. "When it comes down to the botton line, " he said, "the Polish National Catholic Church is the only authorized representative of the Old Catholic Church of the Utrecht Union in the United States. The others are imposters (should I say that? I don't know -- how else do you describe them?)"

The Polish National Catholic Church arose in the late 19th century over disputes American dioceses (particularly Scranton, Pennsylvania) had with Polish immigrants who wanted priests who could speak their language, and disagreed over how parishes were to be administered. In 1897, Polish Catholics in Scranton left their parish over such a dispute with their parish priest, and formed their own parish, St. Stanislaus. A Polish priest, Father Francis Hodur, became their leader, and when he refused to turn over title to St. Stanislaus to the diocese, the bishop of Scranton excommunicated him and the entire parish. Father Hodur appealed to Rome, which sided with the bishop of Scranton. Several other Polish Catholic communities in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut soon joined with Hodur who was elected administrator by a synod of the newly formed Polish National Catholic Church. In 1907, Hodur was consecrated a bishop at St. Gertrude's Cathedral in Utrecht, Holland.

Since then, the Polish National Catholic Church has spread to Poland, into Canada, and across the United States. According to Milewski, there are, today, approximaely 165 parishes in North America; in California, besides Los Angeles, there is a parish in San Diego.

Besides the issue of papal infallibility, which the Polish National Catholic Church rejects, there are few doctrinal differences between this church and Rome. However, while both acknowledge seven sacraments, the Polish church speaks of the Word of God as having "sacramental power." Also, in regard to eternal punishment, the Catechism of the Polish National Catholic Church states "eternal punishment would be contrary to the wisdom, love and justice of God." Nevertheless, on March 1, 1988, the six bishops of the Polish National Catholic Church stated that they rejected the doctrine of universal salvation.

In 1901, Bishop Hodur introduced a Polish vernacular Mass. In 1931, he said Mass facing the people, though the practice died out only to be revived in the late '60s. Today, the Polish church uses a rite of the Mass similar to the Tridentine rite, though celebrated in the vernacular (for the most part, English), and a contemporary rite similar to the Roman Novus Ordo. The music for Mass is traditional.

In distinction to other Old Catholic sects, Polish National Catholics may receive communion in Roman Catholic churches. After 20 years of dialogue, said Milewski, in 1993 "Rome acknowledged that the Polish National Catholic Church is, in fact, a Catholic church. The papal delegate came from Rome, and in the mother cathedral in Scranton, read the official decree that members of the Polish National Catholic Church are permitted to receive sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church, and vice versa." This was the first step to full unity, which Milewski said "will eventually come about." Unity he said, though, is difficult because of ill feelings that still exist among the layfolk. "When the Polish National Catholic Church arose in a particular town or city, it often divided families," said Milewski.

At the opposite pole to Milewski's church is the Liberal Catholic Church. Established in England in 1916 as a reorganization of the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain, the first priests of the Liberal Catholic Church were Theosophists. Today, though all Liberal Catholics are not Theosophists, Theosophical ideas still play a large part in the church.

"Theosophy," according to Robert Ellwood, a Liberal Catholic priest in Altadena, "is a kind of philosophical position that emphasizes the inner workings and the inner meanings of the divine, seeing things in the outer world as shadows and symbols of the archetypes and things in the divine." Ellwood, who had been an Episcopal priest and a Quaker before joining the Liberal Catholics in the early '90s, had also been a member of the Theosophical Society.

While Liberal Catholics accept seven sacraments, their language in regards to the Eucharist, for example, would sound strange to Catholic ears. Though, said Ellwood, he would not necessarily reject the notion of transubstantiation, he said he would favor a "more neoplatonic kind of idea of creating thought forms by the applied power of devotion and the actions of the Mass to create a channel through with the divine image comes via the bread and the wine to people in the congregation, and their priest."

Too, the notion of Christ differs markedly from orthdox Catholicism. "In the Liberal Catholic Church," said Ellwood, "there would be some emphasis on the independence on the Logos [the 'Christ Life'] from the person of Jesus who was a particularly transparent and active expression of it-- the fullest and most adequate channel of the Logos."

Ellwood also said many Liberal Catholics believe in reincarnation, which he called a "kind of eternal pilgrimage through different worlds, realms of matter, and ultimate return," though, he said, this is not "required dogma." A sort of universalist expression, too, leads Liberal Catholics to deny communion to no one who seeks it.

The Liberal Catholic Church sees itself as Catholic, said Ellwood, "because of the form of worship (that is really more traditionally Western Rite than what you would see in most Roman Catholic churches today), and the use of the seven sacraments." However, "most Liberal Catholics would see us more in the tradition of people who are seen as somewhat heretical by the orthodox tradition -- the gnostics and Origen, Eckhart, and so on."

Appraisals of the Old and independent Catholic churches by those who belong to them are not entirely positive. "The independent Catholic movement is not a unified movement," said Bishop Peter Hickman of the Ecumenical Old Catholic Church in Orange. "It has become a haven for every kind of fringe element in the Roman Catholic Church. There are a lot of people who are rather esoteric and eccentric, and there are others that can really be taken seriously. Hopefully we are among those."

"I have been unimpressed by anything that could call itself 'independent Catholic.,' said Brian Delvaux, "and I'm not satifsfied with our parish, yet. What we're striving towards is what I think is good, but I am not yet satisfied, and I have not yet seen anything else out there that hasn't been guilty of premature ordination, of a lack of a real formation program (for example); that hasn't already started making up their own rules; that takes on, in their minds, every reform that they feel the Catholic Church should make. I may personally feel that the Church needs to reform a few things, but I am not about to be the one to do it -- you know, Brian Delvaux is about to ordain women -- big whoopie-doo! Brian Delvaux is about to make some dogma about marriage concerning same-gender relationships.... I'm not going to do it! We keep our eyes, our ears and our hearts in the direction that the Church is moving."

Of his own church, Delvaux says, "It is an experiment to find out whether Christ could conceivably be calling us to minister to those who might need this sort of ministry. The instant I become aware in my own heart or conscience that this is wrong, immoral, not wanted by Christ -- and probably the way you would find that out is that the whole thing would go up in smoke -- then I will cease and desist, and do penance."

-- from the Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, October 1999

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