The Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church is a small

Christian denomination A Christian denomination is a distinct Religion, religious body within Christianity that comprises all Church (congregation), church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadersh ...

founded in the 1960s. It was formed in reaction to some of the changes instituted by the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a result of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

.{{cite book , last= Melton, first=J. Gordon , author-link=J. Gordon Melton , title=The Encyclopedia of American Religions , year=1987 , edition= 2nd, publisher=Gale Research Company , location=Detroit , isbn=0-8103-2133-5

Description

In 1966, Anthony Girandola, a Roman Catholic

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

, announced that he was married, had been married for some time, and intended to remain both a married man and a Roman Catholic priest. After making his statement regarding his lack of adherence to the

clerical celibacy Clerical celibacy is the requirement in certain religions that some or all members of the clergy be unmarried. Clerical celibacy also requires abstention from deliberately indulging in sexual thoughts and behavior outside of marriage, because thes ...

rule of the Roman Catholic Church, he found that he could not find a Roman Catholic church to function in. He then started to organize his own church in

Saint Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the most populous city in the state that is not a county seat (the ...

. Girandola became a celebrity, and found that the demands on his time as such increased, limiting the amount of pastoral work he could perform. He thus ordained one of his church members, John J. Humphreys, as a priest to help deal with his pastoral duties. Humphreys left the new church shortly thereafter, forming Our Lady of Good Hope Old Roman Catholic Church under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Richard Arthur Marchenna. Humphreys served as that group's

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...

for several years, until Marchenna ordained Robert Clement as a bishop of the Eucharistic Catholic Church, a church perceived as having a pro-homosexual orientation. Marchenna was then excommunicated by Gerard George Shelley, who, as primate of the Old Catholic Church in England and America, saw himself as Marchenna's superior. Father Humphreys was then himself consecrated as a bishop by Shelley, and formed the Historical and Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church to be Shelley's North American jurisdiction. After Shelley's death in 1980, Michael Farrell, whom Humphrey's had made a bishop in 1981, succeeded Shelley, only to resign himself shortly thereafter, to be replaced by Emile Rodriguez y Fairfield, the pastor of a small church in

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles (), or East L.A., is an unincorporated community and census designated place (CDP) situated within Los Angeles County, California, United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, East Los Angeles is designated as ...

who had been ordained by the Mexican National Catholic Church. Fairfield himself left the position in 1983. He was one of three bishops of the Mexican National Catholic Church line and left to become the leader of that church. The following year, in 1984, Humphreys himself was elected primate of the church.

References

External links

Official website
Christian organizations established in 1966 Old Catholic denominations in the United States Christian denominations established in the 20th century 1966 establishments in the United States Christian denominations founded in the United States