Arnold Mathew

Arnold Harris Mathew, self-styled of Thomastown (7 August 1852 – 19 December 1919), was the founder and first bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain and a noted author on ecclesiastical subjects.

Mathew had been both a Roman Catholic and an Anglican before becoming a bishop in the Union of Utrecht (UU).

Biography

Mathew was born in the French Second Empire in 1852, son of Major Arnold Henry Ochterlony Mathew (originally Matthews, d. 1894; his son later claimed him to have been 3rd Earl Landaff). Major Mathew was son of Major Arnold Nesbit Mathew (originally Matthews), of the Indian Army, and his Italian wife, Contessa Eliza Francesca, daughter of Domenico Povoleri di Nagarole, a Marquis of the Papal State; through this descent the Rev. Arnold Mathew claimed the title of Count Povoleri di Vicenza. Major Arnold Nesbit Mathew was allegedly the son- born only five months after his parents' marriage- of the 1st Earl Landaff, sent to live with an uncle in light of the circumstances of his birth. This constituted the basis for the Rev. Arnold Mathew's claim to be 4th Earl Landaff, which would not come to be officially recognised. Research revealed the contemporary birth of an Arnold Nesbit Matthews to William Richard Matthews and his wife Anne at Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, which in conjunction with the Rev. Arnold Mathew's father and grandfather having originally been named 'Matthews' rather than 'Mathew', has been considered to cast sufficient doubt on the claim to descent from the Earls Landaff as to render it invalid.

Mathew was educated at Sedbergh School. He was a relative of Theobald Mathew, the noted "Apostle of Temperance".

Mathew was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church. At age two, due to his mother's scruples, he was rebaptised in the Church of England. Mathew "went on oscillating between Rome and Canterbury for the rest of his life." He studied for the ministry in the Scottish Episcopal Church, but sought reconciliation and confirmation in the Church of Rome.

As a Roman Catholic, Mathew was ordained a priest in 1877 in St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow, Scotland, by Archbishop Charles Eyre, apostolic administrator of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Western District. Mathew received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Pope Pius IX. He became a Dominican in 1878 but only persevered a year, moving around a number of dioceses: Newcastle, Plymouth, Nottingham and Clifton. He had met Hyacinthe Loyson in France, while Mathew was, , a missionary-rector in Bath where he apostatized in 1889 and sent an announcement to his congregation that having ceased to believe in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity he could no longer act as a priest. He lost faith in the biblical inspiration and in the divinity of Christ. After leaving Bath, he went to Paris to consult with people there. Later in 1891 he was persuaded to "trial" the Anglican ministry and went to assist the rector of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London. He was never officially received into the Church of England, neither did he formally leave the Roman Catholic Church.

In October 1890, he changed his name, by deed poll, from Arnold Jerome Matthews to Arnoldo Girolamo Povoleri. Mathew, under the name Povoleri, married Margaret Florence, fifth daughter of Robert Duncan, at St Marylebone Parish Church, London, on 22 February 1892. He was "described as a clerk in holy orders." They had a son, Francis Arnold Dominic Leo (b. 1900), who in light of his father's claimed title of Earl Landaff used the title 'Viscount Mathew' and served as a second lieutenant in the Indian Cavalry, and two daughters (Margherita Francesca, b. 1895, and Mary Teresa Gertrude, b. 1907).

In 1892, when he had reconciled with the as a layman, he at the same time participated in non-Catholic religious functions and officiated at marriages in a church without a licence from the . He stopped using the name Povoleri in 1894. While his wife was listed in the 1897 ''Royal Blue Book'' as la Contessa Povoleri di Vicenza,
he stopped using the title of Count in 1894.

In 1897, Mathew had met Father Richard O'Halloran and became curious about the suggestion of an Old Catholic Church in Great Britain. In 1897, O'Halloran was suspended in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster for "reasons of canonical discipline". O'Halloran condemned the censure and created the "Ealing schism". O'Halloran was, according to ''The Tablet'', also suspected of heresy.

Election

Bishops belonging to the International Old Catholic Bishops' Conference had corresponded with O'Halloran since 1902. O'Halloran believed that such a movement would interest a large number of disaffected Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. In June 1906 the Royal Commission appointed in 1904 to inquire into "ecclesiastical disorders", afterwards known as the Ritual Commission. The king issued letters of business after the report. It was expected that the Catholic-minded Anglican clergy, with their congregations, might, by Act of Parliament, be forced out of the Anglican Communion. Persuaded by O'Halloran, Mathew joined the movement and was elected the first Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for Great Britain and in 1908 the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands (OKKN) was petitioned to consecrate him to this charge.

Mathew's election was to some extent a precautionary endeavour by those anticipating a precipitate action by the Government regarding the Ritual Commission's findings, there were only a small number of Old Catholics in England. However, the King's Letters of Business dealing with the Report of the Ritual Commission received no further attention and no action was taken. The result was that those who had taken part in Mathew's election were able to remain within the Anglican Communion. Added to the natural differences with their former brethren in the Roman Church was a campaign of persecution directed by certain elements of the . In 1898 Willibald Beyschlag wrote, in ''The American Journal of Theology'', that Old Catholic churches sought "federation with other churches having an" episcopal polity. They sought "recognition that they all belong to the one ecumenical church which rests upon the dogmatic and episcopal foundation of the early church, and can, therefore, practice communion with each other." Those negotiations had "no tangible result" in 1898, according to Beyschlag, who did not "think that such a result would be of any great value," because some Anglicans "emphatically desire to be 'catholic', and are at the same time wholly out of sympathy with the Old Catholics." Beyschlag distinguished that the Ritualist Anglican Catholics "are on the way to Rome; the Old Catholics on the way from Rome."

Consecration

Mathew was consecrated in St. Gertrude's Cathedral, Utrecht, on 28 April 1908, by the Archbishop Gerardus Gul of Utrecht, assisted by two bishops, Jacobus Johannes van Thiel of Haarlem and Nicolaus Bartholomeus Petrus Spit of Deventer, and one Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany bishop, Josef Demmel of Bonn.

Soon after the consecration, Mathew and O'Halloran were estranged and O'Halloran, under a pseudonym, questioned if the seventeen priests and the eight congregations did not exist in reality but were only a deception and if "the Old Catholic theology teaches that deception of any kind invalidates the consecration" then was Mathew "a validly consecrated Old Catholic bishop according to the teaching of Old Catholic theology?" Unprepared for the position in which he then found himself, Mathew informed Gul that he was himself a deceived victim and "the information given him by O'Halloran was entirely false" and offered to resign but his resignation was not accepted. Yet weeks earlier, Mathew and O'Halloran traveled to Utrecht where Mathew personally presented him to Gul. Within weeks, van Thiel wrote that the "had no reason to suppose that we were mistaken in complying with" O'Halloran's request and stated that their "confidence in Bishop Mathew remains unshaken, after carefully perusing a large number of the documents bearing upon this matter," and they "earnestly hope that his ministrations will be abundantly blessed by Almighty God, and that he will receive the cordial support of the British people and Church in the trying circumstances in which he has been placed." Also reprinted in various works and online. Brandreth thought that the "exonerated him from personal blame" in this letter. But Anson believed that it "was a polite way of stating that he had been consecrated under false pretenses, though not of his making."

The 1908 Lambeth Conference "deprecate the setting up of a new organised body" and requested that Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, notify the bishops about the resolution. This was a protest against the consecration and although it was not publicized at the time, Gul replied with explanations and promised "that in future they 'would take care not to make trouble by encroaching on the order of a friendly Church'."

Mission in England 1908–1919

Mathew published ''The Old Catholic Missal & Ritual'' in 1909, for Old Catholics using the English language. Note that Mathew provided his own ''nihil obstat'' with Gul's ''imprimatur''.

In September 1909, he attended the Old Catholic Congress in Vienna, where he sympathized with the Dutch Old Catholics conservative position which opposed the innovations being introduced among the German and Swiss Old Catholics to renounce the Sacrament of Penance (auricular confession), the intercession of saints and alterations to the liturgy, including the omission of the Pope's name from the Canon of the Mass. He proposed the acceptance of the 1673 Synod of Jerusalem's doctrines. Mathew expressed fears that the trend of Continental Old Catholicism was towards Modernism, perhaps because of the growing association with Anglicans and Lutherans, and hoped for a return to the traditional principles of the Church of Utrecht. Moss wrote that Mathew thought they were becoming "steadily more Protestant". The rejected Herford's request to join. "the was uncertain about Herford's credentials" and, only one bishop, i.e. Mathew, was needed for England. Mathew also rejected Herford's applications several times.

Brandreth wrote that for two years Mathew, "with the status of a missionary bishop", remained in full communion with the . In October 1909, Mathew assisted Gul at the consecration of Jan Maria Michał Kowalski as archbishop of the Old Catholic Mariavite Church.

A claimant successor to the Order of Corporate Reunion alleged that Mathew was conditionally consecrated in November 1909 by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare.

In June 1910, he secretly consecrated, without agreement of the , Beale and Howarth, both of whom did not accept or sign the Convention of Utrecht, Translated in Translation reprinted in and Mathew informed the Holy See of these consecrations. Beale and Howarth were suspended.

In August, van Thiel declared that Old Catholics "could not be considered responsible for ..Mathew's eventual particular attitude or opinions, because he only represents his own clergy and himself in England." Mathew was "in no sense a representative of the Church of Holland in England." In October, Mathew defended the consecrations in '' The Church Times'' against a critical article in '. In December 1910, ' concluded that Mathew had "given up communion with the other Old Catholics" when he acted against the Convention of Utrecht. He ignored "his duty to inform" the prior to "any consecration", so "that the case may be duly examined and all precautions taken that no unworthy person be consecrated;" he consecrated men who belonged to another Church "knowing that they were Roman Catholics and would probably remain so"; he consecrated alone without need and in secret.

Autonomy and Independence

Within weeks of the ''De Oud-Katholiek'' article, on 29 December 1910, Mathew issued ''A Declaration of Autonomy And Independence'' from the .

Although the Holy See usually did not respond to notifications about episcopal consecrations, in this case, on 11 February 1911, Pope Pius X excommunicated Beale, Howarth, and Mathew. ''The Times'' reported on their excommunication and included an English language translation of the Latin language document which described Mathew as a "pseudo-bishop". English translation of Mathew sued The Times for libel, on the grounds that the newspaper was apparently endorsing the Pope's characterization of him as a "pseudo-Bishop" who had given aid to a "wicked crime". Father David Fleming testified during the trial at the King's Bench Division in April 1913 that the three were excommunicated on the strength of their own communication to the Holy See.

The trial was described as "tense with laughter over the elaborate and convoluted ecclesiastical definitions." Mathew lost the case. A "material part of the case" about whether Mathew was truthful was the 1889 printed announcement sent to his congregation in Bath. The trial revealed that in 1897 Mathew restated that he had apostatized in 1889 and had circulated the printed announcement but by 1897 had concluded that his change in belief was a mistake; he therefore recanted the 1889 document, in 1897, which during the trial he said that he never wrote. He testified that he was hypnotized in Bath and so the announcement was written without his knowledge. Mathew's attorney argued that publication of the excommunication by ''The Times'' in English was high treason under a 1571 law re-enacted in 1846. The judge, Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling, "held that it was not unlawful to publish a Papal Bull in a newspaper simply for the information of the public", and according to a 1932 article in ''The Tablet'', this was the last time the 1571 act was invoked. The jury found that ''The Times'' had not been actuated by malice and the words of the report were true in substance and in fact.

Now an archbishop, Mathew was in contact with people interested in expanding the Eastern Orthodox Church's presence in Western Europe. Olga Novikov, along with Baroness Natalie Uxkull-Gyllenband, encouraged and financially assisted Mathew and according to Anson, one of them also introduced Mathew to Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch Archbishop Gerassimos Messara, Metropolitan of Beirut.

Moss wrote that Messara "had no power to do this without the consent of" Gregory IV, in Damascus, "which was never given". According to Herzog, Gregory IV retracted Messara's statement. "It is hard to believe that an Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch would have been prepared to accept a married prelate into communion with his Church," Anson wrote. Mathew's wife "did not take part in the conference, and it is probable that her existence behind the scenes was again kept dark, as at the time of her husband's consecration in 1908." On 26 February 1912, Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria Patriarch Photius of Alexandria, allegedly also accepted this union. The ''Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd.'' trial revealed that although Mathew "was originally informed that all were welcome, he was not ultimately admitted" as a cleric into the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.

Either Novikov or Uxkull-Gyllenband, according to Anson, introduced Mathew to Rudolph de Landas Berghes.

Death

Like five of his bishops and several of his priests, in December 1915, Mathew sought to reconcile with the . Mathew wrote to ''The Tablet'' within a month:

But because the Holy See insisted that he would only be reconciled as a layman and would be obliged to accept the doctrine of papal infallibility and primacy of the Roman Pontiff, Mathew then sought union with the but the Archbishop of Canterbury Randall Davidson refused to give him any position in the . Mathew retired to South Mimms, a village in the English countryside in Hertfordshire, and contented himself with assisting at services in a parish church. He died suddenly, on 20 December 1919, at South Mimms and was buried in the churchyard at South Mimms.

Contemporary significance

Groups descending from Mathew

In 1964, Anson identified several independent sects which derived their apostolic succession through Mathew: the "Old Roman Catholic Church (Western Catholic Uniate Church)", "Old Catholic Church of Ireland", Liberal Catholic Church, "The Church Catholic", "Old Catholic Church in America", and the "North American Old Roman Catholic Church". He noted that, except for the Liberal Catholic Church, the "sects hardly counted numerically at all." Moss characterized, in 1948, that "there are several sects which claim to derive their episcopal succession from him, which are often confused with the Old Catholics, and which in some cases make use of the name 'Old Catholic'." But, Moss emphasized, "none of these sects is Old Catholic, or is recognized in any way by the genuine Old Catholic churches in communion with the Archbishop of Utrecht."

Liberal Catholic Church

Anson wrote that, for at least two years, Mathew was "in close touch with leading Theosophists, apparently without investigating the orthodoxy of their beliefs," and believed that Mathew "had no excuse" for not understanding the cult of Maitreya beliefs held by the majority of his clergy. The manifestations of Maitreya included the Hindu deity Krishna and Christ during the three years of the ministry of Jesus. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote, in ''Constructing Tradition'', that the identification of Christ as Maitreya was Charles Webster Leadbeater's "innovation, closely linked to his assimilation of Christianity to Theosophy." According to Anson, the majority of clergy involved with Mathew were members of the Theosophical Society and the Order of the Star in the East (OSE), and were dismayed when Mathew directed them to separate from these organizations in 1915. Instead, within weeks, they had separated from Mathew and elected Rupert Gauntlett, secretary of the Theosophical Society's Order of Healers, and Robert King, a consulting psychic and astrologer, to the episcopate.

But the "effective leader of the schism" was James Ingall Wedgwood. Wedgwood explored an Anglo-Catholic vocation in the and was associated with the Order of Corporate Reunion prior to his involvement with the Theosophical Society. Mathew ordained Wedgwood as a priest in 1913. In 1916 Frederick Samuel Willoughby, who had been consecrated by Mathew, consecrated Gauntlett, King, and Wedgwood.Leadbeater wrote to Annie Besant, in 1916, that Wedgwood offered Mathew's Old Catholic movement to Maitreya, one of the Great White Brotherhood's ascended masters and holder of the office of World Teacher, "as one of the vehicles for .. Maitreya'sforce, and a channel for the preparation of His Coming." Leadbeater took Wedgwood during a festival in Sydney to make that offering. Goodrick-Clarke wrote that the was used for "the assimilation of Catholicism and its sacraments into the Theosophical Society" as a subsidiary movement of a diversified second generation Neo-Theosophy which emphasized "the acquisition and practice of psychic and occult powers, notably clairvoyance, explorations of the astral plane, past lives research." Leadbeater promoted an unorthodox esoteric understanding of Christian creeds; he interpreted Christian doctrines through Theosophy. Leadbeater and Wedgwood revised ''The Old Catholic Missal and Ritual'', , by "eliminating references to fear of God, everlasting damnation, the insistence on sinfulness and appeals for mercy," according to Joanne Pearson, in ''Wicca and the Christian Heritage''. Later that year, before the end of World War I, the schism which separated from Mathew's group was renamed the Liberal Catholic Church (LCC) and Wedgwood became the first presiding bishop. Leadbeater informed Besant that Maitreya approved of the founding. The "affirms a number of Christian beliefs but injects a Gnostic or theosophical meaning into them," according to ''Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology''. "The church believes that humans are sparks of divinity (rather than creatures of God) and believes in reincarnation (rather than resurrection). The church also accepts the idea of the spiritual hierarchy of masters, or highly evolved beings who guide the spiritual development of the race. In this regard, it accepts the idea that Jesus is one of the masters, but separates the human Jesus ..from the master Jesus." In other words, Jesus, "the person known in his early life as Appolonius of Tyanna" in that system of beliefs, is not the same as the entity known as Maitreya in that same system beliefs.

The self identifies as a part of the historical Catholic Church; has doctrines but does not regulate how they are believed by congregants, unlike Roman Catholic dogma; and has membership based on acceptance of a common worship without the profession of a common belief.

In ''Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation'', Henrik Bogdan compared the network containing the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (EGC) to the network containing the .

Validity

Concerning the validity of the holy orders conferred by Mathew in the period following his departure from the , the following have been stated:

Utrecht and Roman denial

Gul consecrated and commissioned Mathew as a bishop in accordance with the norms of universal ecclesiastical law, nominating and electing him to a title. Mathew declared autonomy from the on 29 December 1910, and asserted of canonical rights and prerogatives for the continuation and perpetuation of the Old Roman Catholic Church from Utrecht. He also, prior on 1 November 1909, was allegedly conditionally consecrated for the Order of Corporate Reunion. According to Catholic canon law, conditional sacraments are performed when there are doubts of validity.

In 1913, Fleming testified in ''Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd.'' about the that, "The Holy See or the Pontiff has never condemned these orders as invalid; but he has never explicitly recognized them." However, Mathew was regarded by the papacy as a "pseudo-bishop."

After Mathew died in 1919, the declared in 1920 that Mathew's "consecration was obtained ' and that consequently it is null and void." The suggestion was that the petition for his consecration and its 150 signatories collated by O'Halloran was false in its premise for the consecration and thus the consecration was invalid.

Smit explained that in 1913, "ties of the with Mathew were formally severed", and after World War I, the "distanced itself more from the ' Mathew and those ordained and consecrated by him." Consecrations derived from Mathew were not recognised by the . The did also state that consecrated persons and communities connected with Mathew would not be welcome by the .

Herzog's discourse was published in ' in 1915. He wrote that a surreptitious consecration, under false pretenses and on presentation of false documents, can not be recognized as valid, even if the rite of ordination had been accurately performed by real bishops.

In 1908, Lambeth had expressed regret over the consecration of Mathew. Lambeth also indicated a desire for a closer relationship with Utrecht. Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Maclagan, Archbishop of York, replied to the Holy See in '' Saepius officio'' giving a defence of Anglican orders.

Discussions about union with Utrecht had been taking place since the end of the 19th century, such as the conferences of reunion in Bonn in 1874 and 1875 convoked by Johann von Döllinger. Though the Dutch bishops in a report of 1894 still could not decide on the recognition of Anglican orders,it would appear that a desire for closer cooperation on the part of Utrecht with an Anglican desire for the recognition of their orders, conspired to impugn the reputation of Mathew. By June 1925, Davidson stated that the had "after lengthy investigations and serious discussions" arrived "without any reservation (to recognise) that the apostolic succession was not interrupted in the Church of England" and in 1931 the '' Bonn Agreement'' was signed and intercommunion agreed between the and the Anglican Communion.

Anglican denial

Anglican Communion bishops stated in 1920 Lambeth Conference resolution 27 and 1958 Lambeth Conference resolution 54 that they do not regard the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, its extensions overseas, and ' who call themselves either 'Old Catholic' or 'Orthodox,' in combination with other names" as properly constituted Churches, or recognise the orders of their ministers."

Rite

Old Roman Catholic jurisdictions have consistently employed the Tridentine Ordinal and '' Roman Pontifical'' for the conferral of ordinations and the consecration of bishops. This was the case with the See of Utrecht right up to and some years beyond the consecration of Mathew himself, without any alterations to the ceremonies. Mathew's ''Old Catholic Missal & Ritual'' contains his English translation of the ''Roman Pontifical''.

Disputes of validity

The Old Catholic Church of British Columbia, which claims apostolic succession from Mathew, was, , a probationary member of the . Includes

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec, in a public statement, which included an apology made for miscategorizing Father Claude Lacroix, acknowledged the validity of Lacroix's holy orders and stated that 's certificates of baptism "may be accepted for the inscription of children to First Communion and Confirmation program" in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec. It also stated that when "Roman Catholics marry before an ordained minister belonging to another religious denomination, as in the case of the .. their marriage is invalid from a religious point of view."

In 2002, Cardinal Édouard Gagnon investigated the documentation of Bishop André Letellier's episcopal orders and consecration; Letellier was consecrated on 23 May 1968 by Archbishop André Leon Zotique Barbeau of the Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada. Gagnon commented that, "nothing allows me to doubt the validity of episcopal ordination of Mgr André Letellier by Archbishop André Barbeau and that of Archbishop Barbeau by Archbishop Ignatius Charles Brearley, Primate of the Church of the 'Old Catholics' having its seat in England. The ordinations of the 'Old Catholics' are generally considered to be the same as those of Orthodox bishops." Translated in

Publications

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Further reading

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Notes and references

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References

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