In 1908, Archbishop Gerard Gul of Utrecht consecrated Arnold Harris Mathew as a bishop to serve High Church Anglicans in England who recognized that Pope Leo XIII was correct: Anglican orders were invalid. These faithful people needed access to valid sacraments while retaining the married clergy and vernacular worship to which centuries of Anglican practice had accustomed them.

Archbishop Mathew’s vision was essentially that of a uniate rite—full Catholic doctrine and sacramental theology, but with legitimate pastoral accommodations in discipline (married clergy) and language (English alongside Latin). This vision would not be vindicated for another century, but it was profoundly Catholic in conception.

By 1910, however, Mathew was forced to break communion with Utrecht. The Old Catholics (who had joined Utrecht in 1889) were systematically abandoning Catholic doctrine:

1. Questioning the number of sacraments
2. Abandoning auricular confession
3. Diminishing devotion to Our Lady and the saints
4. Gutting the sacred liturgy
5. Omitting prayers for the Pope
6. Promoting iconoclasm
7. Admitting non-Catholics to communion
8. Abolishing fasting and the Eucharistic fast.

Mathew chose orthodoxy over institutional unity. He adopted the name “Old Roman Catholic” to distinguish his communion from the increasingly Protestant “Old Catholics.”

He composed this prayer, still said in our churches:

“O God, who from the beginning, hast appointed for thy Church lawful bishops in lawful succession: Look, we beseech thee, with favor upon us, thy servants, the bishops, priests, and people of the ancient Catholic Church in [this land]; and grant that we, being knit together in unity with those bishops whom thou didst appoint to continue the Apostolic Succession through the ancient Church of Utrecht, and ever holding fast the Faith once delivered to thy Saints, may be acknowledged as a true part of thine Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

When World War I made Britain inhospitable to the Austro-Hungarian de Landas Berghes, he emigrated to America, bringing the Old Roman Catholic mission with him. In America, the work took a particular character under Archbishop Carmel Henry Carfora (1919-1958).

Carfora focused on ethnic Catholic communities marginalized by the Irish-dominated American hierarchy: Polish, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Mexican, West Indian, and Italian parishes that felt (often justifiably) that Rome cared more about maintaining ethnic political control than serving the faithful.

While some of these communities eventually drifted (the Polish National Catholic Church survives to this day), Carfora maintained strict doctrinal orthodoxy even while providing pastoral care to “irregular” situations.

Here we must pause to honor a man whose role illustrates that the battle for tradition transcends organizational boundaries: Father John Stone Melnick, OSA.

Fr. John served the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at Ecclesia Dei— literally the office responsible for granting permissions for the Traditional Latin Mass after its widespread suppression. He later served as vocations director for the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), one of the “approved” traditional communities.

Despite his position in official structures, Fr. John recognized that the fight for tradition required cooperation across canonical lines. He saw the Old Roman Catholics, the Society of St. Pius X, and the FSSP as fellow soldiers in the same essential battle. When (then) Father D. Edward Meikle sought counsel about where to pursue a traditional Catholic vocation, Fr. John advised him to join Archbishop John J. Humphreys, calling the See of Caer-Glow “one of the few organizations I would trust” and personally confirming their valid lines of apostolic succession.

Fr. John later founded the Oblates of Saint Augustine, under the leadership of Fr. Martin Narvarro, who now serves the See of Caer-Glow as our religious community. The fact that an Augustinian, from the order that historically sided with the Dutch against the Jesuits, chose to affiliate with us carries its own providential resonance.

During the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Old Roman Catholic leadership made a fateful decision: the historical conflicts were over. Jansenism had faded into history textbooks. Rome no longer demanded blind obedience to disputable theological opinions. The saintly Pius XII embodied authentic Catholicism.

We decided to fade gracefully away. No new bishops would be consecrated. No new priests ordained. No new parishes founded. We assumed Roman Catholic bishops and priests would provide for the spiritual needs of all the faithful.

There is a personal story here worth sharing, though we can only relate it as an anecdote rather than a documented fact: Archbishop Gerard G. Shelley, who led the Old Roman Catholic Church during this period, maintained a friendship with Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, the stalwart defender of orthodoxy who would later author the Ottaviani Intervention against the Novus Ordo Mass. According to Archbishop Humphreys (Shelley’s eventual successor), Shelley related that while Cardinal Ottaviani did not agree with administrative separation from Rome, he came to see the Old Roman Catholics, after the Second Vatican Council, as a kind of continuation, a preserving remnant of what Rome itself had been.

We cannot prove this account. But it rings true to those who understand what happened next.

The Second Vatican Council was greeted with hope by Old Roman Catholics. Perhaps this represented the renewal the Church needed. Perhaps the Spirit was moving to address modern challenges while preserving ancient faith.

Instead, Vatican II unleashed what Pope St. Pius X had condemned as “Modernism”—the synthesis of all heresies. Not necessarily in the council documents themselves (though some are problematic), but in their implementation and the revolutionary spirit they unleashed:

Liturgical Devastation:

• The Mass transformed from a sacrifice to a meal
• Sacred orientation (ad orientem) was abandoned for “facing the people”
• Latin replaced with vernacular translations, often theologically impoverished
• Jewish table blessings replaced the Christocentric offertories
• The foundation of fulfillment of the pre 70AD old Temple Pasch was replaced by the inspiration of the 110AD sedar meal
• Communion in the hand was introduced despite century after century forbidding it
• Altar rails removed, eliminating the visible distinction between sanctuary and nave
• Sacred music replaced with folk songs and guitar Masses

Doctrinal Confusion:

• “Outside the Church no salvation” became “anonymous Christians”
• Ecumenism morphed from seeking conversion to affirming error
• Religious liberty became religious indifferentism
• The social reign of Christ the King became secular democracy as an ideal
• Evangelization became dialogue

Moral Collapse:

• The “seamless garment” equated abortion with air conditioning ethics
• Contraception winked at despite Humanae Vitae
• Divorce and remarriage are accommodated through annulment abuse
• Eventually: blessing of same-sex unions, tacit acceptance of transgender ideology

Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s prophecy of the “Ape Church” was being fulfilled.

When one of Archbishop Shelley’s bishops in America—Richard Arthur Marchenna— consecrated an active homosexual to the episcopate in 1974, Shelley acted decisively. Marchenna was cast out. A new bishop, John J. Humphreys, was consecrated in 1975 for North America.

On September 8, 1976, Archbishop Shelley promulgated a new Constitution of the Old Roman Catholic Church. Its key declarations remain in force:

“This ecclesiastical Communion constitutes the historic, canonical, and unbroken Apostolic Succession emanating from the ancient Archdiocesan See of Utrecht, translated to other parts of the world, and is known by the historic name first used in Utrecht, Old Roman Catholic.

This Old Roman Catholic Communion is one in matters of Faith and Morals, de fide, with the Church established by Jesus Christ. It embraces all such doctrine of the Apostolic See of Rome, and it condemns all heresies and other errors condemned by that same See.”

This was not a declaration of independence from Rome, but a commitment to the authentic Roman Faith in the face of its abandonment by those who held Roman office.