The Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church
An independent Catholic church in the liberal tradition

Liberal Catholicism is a distinct Christian movement, separate from both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. It has as its basis a non-dogmatic approach to the Christian faith while preserving the traditional sacraments. It allows its followers freedom of faith and conscience, and is open to esoteric knowledge and that gained from other religious movements and philosophies. Although its founders were Theosophists, the movement is divided today as to whether Theosophy and its allied tenets of reincarnation and karma should be compulsory or voluntary, along with such adjuncts as vegetarianism and women clergy.

There are several organisations today that profess various forms of Liberal Catholicism. Together, we consider them to constitute what is best described as a worldwide Liberal Catholic movement, and we also consider that movement to include a number of esoteric and Gnostic Independent Catholic churches whose orders derive from the Liberal Catholics. Since the foundation of the Liberal Catholic movement rests on freedom of faith and conscience, we do not accept any definition of Liberal Catholicism that is based merely on the acceptance of specific canonical provisions. Notwithstanding this, it is true to assert that those churches calling themselves Liberal Catholic, including the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church, are in general agreement with the Statement of Principles and Summary of Doctrine set out by the LCC Founders. In the LCAC, as in some other Liberal Catholic churches, these are promulgated as significant and distinctive teachings, rather than as dogma.

This survey is an attempt to explain how the various organisations that have to do with Liberal Catholicism have come into being. For more on the philosophy and heritage of Liberal Catholicism, please see our Resources section.

Beginnings of the Liberal Catholic Church

The Liberal Catholic Church developed from the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain. Its founding bishop, +James Ingall Wedgwood, scion of the famous pottery family, was an Anglican priest with a doctorate in musicology from the Sorbonne whose spiritual discernment led him into ministry within the OCCGB and membership of the Theosophical Society, as well as active involvement in Freemasonry. 

The Primate of the OCCGB, +Arnold Harris Mathew, had been consecrated by the Old Catholics of Utrecht in the historic Apostolic Succession deriving from Rome, and was initially a supporter of Theosophy, ordaining seven priests for the OCCGB who were members of the Society. However, in 1915, +Mathew abruptly declared that these priests must resign their membership of the Society forthwith. Six of the seven refused, whereupon +Mathew declared the O.C.C.G.B. "terminated" and attempted to reconcile with Rome.

The six priests, being without a church, felt called to establish a new body in which freedom of conscience would be permitted. In 1918, this body took on the name of The Liberal Catholic Church. Bishop Frederick Samuel Willoughby, who had been consecrated by +Mathew but had meanwhile parted company with him, consecrated and installed +James Ingall Wedgwood as first Presiding Bishop of the LCC on 13 February 1916, in London's Co-Masonic Temple, Maida Vale, and in July 1916 +Wedgwood consecrated the "grand old man of Theosophy", Fr. Charles Webster Leadbeater, who had also been an Anglican priest and a Buddhist, in Sydney, Australia. +Wedgwood's own account of the beginnings of the LCC may be read at the kingsgarden.org website here.

An important point concerning the Liberal Catholic Church is made by the former Presiding Bishop +Ian Hooker in his article "The Vision of the Founders", 

"Notwithstanding his heavy reliance on the members and resources of The Theosophical Society, Wedgwood was not building a church just for theosophists. From the beginning he saw the LCC as a haven for open-minded, liberally inclined Christians, no longer comfortable in mainstream churches. In time, he believed, these people would form the majority of Liberal Catholics."

Under Wedgwood and Leadbeater, the LCC spread widely across the world. Its liturgy and elaborate ceremonial were codified, and +Leadbeater completed his famous work "The Science of the Sacraments", in which he expounded his view of the spiritual energies invoked in the Catholic Mass. +Leadbeater along with Mrs Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society, believed that the Second Coming was imminent through the person of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the "World Teacher". Although Krishnamurti never denied his role as the World Teacher, he left the Theosophical Society following profound spiritual changes that had been revealed after the death of his brother, and subsequently became a guru independent of any organisation.

The early divisions - LCC and LCCI

In the United States, Bishop Irving Steiger Cooper, who was responsible for the famous "blue book" of LCC ceremonial, became Regionary Bishop of the LCC and consecrated his successor, +Charles Hampton. In 1945, Bishop Hampton made Theosophy an optional belief within his jurisdiction. This angered the then-Presiding Bishop in London, +Frank Waters Pigott, who suspended +Hampton. This caused a major schism in the LCC, and a lawsuit followed in the U.S.A. during the 1950s, which the group led by +Hampton's successor +Ray Marshall Wardall won. However, both of the two resulting groups regarded themselves as the true continuation of the original LCC. +Hampton thereafter functioned as an independent Liberal Catholic bishop. 

Those who remained with the +Wardall group formed the organisation known today as the Liberal Catholic Church (within the USA), and elsewhere as the Liberal Catholic Church International (LCCI). This group maintains optional belief in Theosophy and optional dietary restrictions, and from 2004 onwards ordains women up to the episcopate.

Meanwhile, +Pigott's group also continued, being known in the USA as the Liberal Catholic Church - Province of the USA, and elsewhere as the Liberal Catholic Church (LCC). This group continued to maintain compulsory Theosophy and vegetarianism, as well as abstention from alcohol and tobacco, and until recently (see below) did not ordain women.

The LCCO and LCCNY

+Wardall's successor as Presiding Bishop of the LCCI was +Edward Murray Matthews. Under his guidance the LCCI had bishops in the United States, Canada and Europe, and some of these bishops eventually formed autocephalous Liberal Catholic jurisdictions. Two of these autocephalous jurisdictions were the Liberal Catholic Church of Ontario (LCCO), and the Liberal Catholic Church of New York (LCCNY). 

The LCCO had several missions in different parts of North America.The first Presiding Bishop of the LCCO was Bishop Harry Daw, who was also 7th Presiding Bishop of the LCCI He retired as Presiding Bishop of the LCCO in 1974 to become Bishop Emeritus, and was succeeded by Bishop John Henry Vincent Russell. +Russell died in 1985 and was succeeded by +Thomas McCourt. On 9 November 1986, +Donald William Mullan was elected to succeed +McCourt as Presiding Bishop.

Bishop Illtyd Thomas, who was Primate of the Celtic Catholic Church of the Utrecht Succession, joined Bishops McCourt and Daw as one of the consecrators of +Donald Mullan for the LCCO in August 1986, when +Mullan was appointed bishop of the new LCCO Diocese of Regional Niagara. On 4 October 1986, +Mullan appointed +Thomas as Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Niagara for the LCCO. In 2006, +Thomas consecrated the Metropolitan Primate of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church in London, using the LCC Rite of 1967. 

+Mullan was admitted to the LCCI in September 1988. However, he resigned from the LCCI in 1991 and formed the new Christ Catholic Church International, which he continues to lead.

The LCCNY's first Presiding Bishop was +James Pickford Roberts, Sr, also a bishop in the LCCI, and the first Black person to be so consecrated. His son, +James Pickford Roberts, Jr., is a bishop in the LCCI, and it appears that the LCCNY was eventually reabsorbed into this body.

In 1979, Bishops Donald Berry and John Russell of the LCCO consecrated Joseph Gerard Alphonse Laplante as Presiding Bishop of the Old Catholic Church of British Columbia. Under the guidance of Bishop Laplante, the OCCBC was reunited with the Utrecht Union in 2006, some ninety-six years after Archbishop Mathew had declared his independence from it. The OCCBC's Auxiliary Bishop, +Leonard Mack McFerran, was consecrated in 1998 by bishops including +Mullan. In 2007, the OCCBC withdrew from the Utrecht Union due to doctrinal differences.

Further divisions in the Liberal Catholic movement

As well as the churches mentioned above, a number of other groups have developed over the years. +Hampton consecrated in 1957 +Herman Adrian Spruit, who became founder of the Church of Antioch - Malabar Rite, an esoteric church with much in common with the founding principles of the LCC. This community has since been a progenitor of the Free Church of Antioch, led by Bishop Warren Prall Watters, the Free Catholic Church International and the Home Temple.An Independent LCC, following the 1947 division, was led by Dutch bishops Bonjer, Dubbink, Rueter and Materman. This united with the LCCI in 1988.Faced with a potential split in the LCCI in Canada, the LCCI's bishops there took the decision to form the new Independent Catholic Church International in 1980, which shortly afterwards further divided to form the Independent Catholic Church U.S.A.

In 2003, a major division occurred in the LCC concerning the ordination of women. This division established distinct "conservative" and "liberal" wings, with the latter repudiating the existing Synod and electing their own New Synod, which passed a resolution permitting the ordination of women to all minor and major orders. The liberal wing is mostly centred in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Canada, but in a number of countries both conservative and liberal parishes now exist. Since both groups use the name "The Liberal Catholic Church", there is some scope for confusion between them. The conservative wing went on to establish a Marian order called "The Order of Our Lady", in which women can be ordained to the minor orders only. Further information on these events is provided at the kingsgarden.org website here.

In the UK the Old Synod group is led by Bishop Graham Wale, who is also Presiding Bishop worldwide, and the New Synod group by Bishop Allan Barns, with the New Synod led worldwide by Bishop Maurice Warnon. Bishop Barns has also led the Liberal Catholic Church Grail Community as an autocephalous body.

1982 saw the separation of the theosophical Liberal Catholic Church - Theosophia Synod from the LCC, under the guidance of former LCC bishop Ernest W. Jackson. In 2005, Presiding Bishop John Schwartz united with the New Synod group. The other members of this community based in Florida remained independent and they are now members of the ILCF.

A significant recent autocephalous offshoot of the LCC is The Young Rite, which was formed by Bishop Markus van Alphen in 2006, and is headquartered in Holland.

Several LCC bishops have left the LCC to form churches of their own, notably in the United Kingdom. Bishop John Hardy, consecrated for the LCC in 1992, formed the Ecumenical Old Catholic Church (archive site), which permitted the ordination of women and had parishes in London and Fort Lauderdale. Bishop Richard Palmer, consecrated in 1997, left the LCC in 1999 and formed the Reformed Liberal Catholic Church (UK), and later the United Episcopal Church. Former Presiding Bishop of the LCC, Johannes van Alphen, resigned from the LCC in 2002 and has since consecrated several bishops, including his son Markus, who now guides The Young Rite.

The Liberal Catholic Celtic Mission is another British group, formed by Bishop Gerard Crane of Wales, who was previously a priest within the LCC (Old Synod) and was later consecrated within the LCC -Theosophia Synod. He has consecrated Bishop John Wheaton, the noted exorcist, and Bishop Peter Davey. Bishop John was the first to ordain a woman within the Liberal Catholic tradition (unless the unconfirmed reports of +Leadbeater's consecration of Mrs Besant are to be believed) through his ordination of Albertha Meyer to the priesthood. Bishop Wheaton and Revd. Meyer are now associated with Bishop Barns' New Synod group in the UK

In April 2007, former LCCI Presiding Bishop Dean Bekken, several priests and St Francis Parish of San Diego left the LCCI to form the Liberal Catholic Church of California, now the Universal Catholic Church.

Many of the groups described above do not recognise each other, or regard each other as schismatic, and it is understood that the LCC does not recognise the concept of a worldwide Liberal Catholic movement at all, instead regarding itself (entirely incorrectly) as the only true church. In fact, there is no central universally-recognized authority within the Liberal Catholic Churches as an entirety, with each of the denominations being autocephalous and independent of one another. However, all of these communities through their shared roots continue to maintain the valid Apostolic Succession required for catholicity, and the more liberal denominations allow their adherents to attend services at whichever Liberal Catholic community is within reach at that particular time, without regard for organisational divisions.

Today there are around 45,000 people who are Liberal Catholics, with most being concentrated in the LCCI and the two synodal wings of the LCC. These 45,000 are in turn part of the estimated eight million who are Independent Catholics, that is to say Catholics within denominations not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Successions page shows the Apostolic Succession of the Metropolitan Primate of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church from the founders of the Liberal Catholic Church via the LCCI and LCCO.

List of Liberal Catholic denominations and communities currently active with their official websites where applicable (please notify us of any additions to this list)

• The Liberal Catholic Church/The Liberal Catholic Church International
• The Universal Catholic Church
• The Liberal Catholic Church/The Liberal Catholic Church - Province of the USA (Conservative wing - Old Synod)
• The Liberal Catholic Church/The Liberal Catholic Church - Province of the USA (Liberal wing - New Synod) - this has no official website of its own, but the kingsgarden.org website contains much of relevance. The Province of the British Isles maintains a website here.
• The Liberal Catholic Church Grail Community - associated with the New Synod Province of the British Isles
• The Liberal Catholic Church - Theosophia Synod (awaiting update)
• The Liberal Catholic Celtic Mission
• The Reformed Liberal Catholic Church
• The Young Rite
• Reformed Liberal Catholic Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Independent Liberal Catholic Church (+Richard Earl Quinn) (no longer active?)
• Independent Liberal Catholic Church: in the Gnostic Tradition: Our Lady St Mary Magdalene: Stella Maris Chapel (under the direction of the Church of Antioch - see below)
• Universal Catholic Church

This list is not exhaustive. There are other independent Liberal Catholic denominations that do not have websites at present. There are also many websites for individual parishes and communities of the LCC and LCCI.

Some other Liberal Catholicism and Wisdom Tradition-related independent communities

• The Church of Antioch - Malabar Rite
• Free Church of Antioch
• Free Catholic Church International (archive site)
• Christ Catholic Church International
• St Mychal Judge Old Catholic Church
• The Home Temple
• Ecclesia Gnostica
• Church of Gnosis