The Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church is a small Christian denomination 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 largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as a result of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions) ...

.{{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 Anthony James Girandola (September 12, 1924 – September 1, 1997) was a Catholic priest who publicly announced in the 1960s that he had been married while a priest for several years, and that he intended to remain both married and a priest. H ...

, 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 deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

, 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 second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is 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 John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Seco ...

, 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 Richard Arthur Marchenna (March 17, 1904 – September 2, 1982)Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2014. Accessed on June 27, 2019. was an Old Catholic bishop co ...

of the Old Roman Catholic Church. Humphreys served as that group's

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ...

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 ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...

who had been ordained by the

Mexican National Catholic Church The Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church ( es, Iglesia Católica Apostólica Mexicana (ICAM)) is an Independent Catholic denomination founded in 1925, by separating from the Catholic Church. It was created to bolster revolution with the support of ...

. 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
Old Catholicism in the United States Christian organizations established in 1966 Old Catholic denominations Christian denominations established in the 20th century 1966 establishments in the United States