THE LEGITIMACY OF THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH

 

On this matter, researcher Gregory Trillett wrote the following:

 

« Like all small independent sacramental churches, the Liberal Catholic Church was anxious from its very beginnings to establish its legitimacy by claiming that its clergy had “valid Orders” – that it, hat is Bishops and Priests were “genuine” Bishops and Priests.

 

In part it has tried to accomplish this by publishing its “Table of Apostolic Succession” – that is, a document establishing that all its Bishops were consecrated by Bishops who were consecrated by Bishops who were unquestionably “genuine” Bishops.

 

Thus, the current edition of the “Table of Apostolic Succession” (2007) shows that Roman Catholic Bishops consecrated the founding Bishops of the Old Catholic Church who consecrated Arnold Harris Mathew in 1908, who consecrated Frederick Samuel Willoughby in 1914 who, together with two Bishops he had consecrated in 1915, consecrated James Ingall Wedgwood in 1916, , who was the founder of the Liberal Catholic Church, and who in turn consecrated Charles Webster Leadbeater, who became president of this church, and they consecrated the first bishops who made up that church, and these in turn those who followed.

 

Assuming that validity is solely a matter of a lineage of “the laying on of hands”, an historical “tactile” succession is clearly established. However, using that as ground for claiming validity in the sense of sacramental theology demonstrates a basic ignorance of the meaning of “validity”.

 

Validity of Orders is a somewhat complicated question and, essentially a concept only known in the Western Churches. Eastern Orthodoxy has, if anything, a more complicated understanding of who is and who is not a “genuine” Bishop or Priest. However, the easiest way of evaluating any claim to “valid Orders” is to consider the position taken by other Churches.

 

 

 

The Old Roman Catholic Church

 

Archbishop Mathew (and his successor, Bernard Mary Williams) both stated that the Liberal Catholic Church did not possess valid Orders, not because there had not been a “tactile succession”, but because those claiming to have been ordained held to heretical doctrines.

 

The European Old Catholics declared that they repudiated any claim of valid Orders from anyone ordained by Mathew.

 

 

 

The Anglican Church

 

The Anglican Communion took the same position. The Anglican Church, at the Lambeth Conference of 1920, rejected all orders said to derive from Mathew. In practice, the Anglican Church is inconsistent in sometimes re-ordaining absolutely Liberal Catholic Priests who convert, and in other cases only re-ordaining conditionally. But there are no known and properly documented cases in which the Orders of the Liberal Catholic Church have been accepted.

 

 

 

The Roman Catholic Church

 

The Roman Catholic Church has never issued an official declaration on the Orders conferred by Mathew or Willoughby, or of the Liberal Catholic Church.

 

At various times since the 1950s a claim has been circulated in or by the Liberal Catholic that such a declaration, in the case of the Orders claimed by the Liberal Catholic Church, had been issued and declared Liberal Catholic Orders to be valid. But that claim was based on fraudulent documentation produced by a Liberal Catholic Priest in Belgium.

 

The story of the claim, and its perpetration, is an interesting one and will be considered in a later post. There are no known and properly documented cases in which the Orders of the Liberal Catholic Church have been accepted by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

(See Leslie Rumble “Are Liberal Catholic Orders Valid?” The Homiletic and Pastoral Review Vol LVIII No 6 March 1958:559-571)

 

 

 

The Orthodox Church

 

The Orthodox Church has never, because it does not, issued any formal statement on the Orders of Mathew, Willoughby, Wedgwood or the Liberal Catholic Church.

 

In Orthodoxy, the abstract question as to whether the Orders of a particular Church or a particular Bishop or Priest are valid is seen as irrelevant. The question would be whether, when an individual seek to be received into the Orthodox Church, how will he be received?

 

That is, will he be received as a Priest or a Bishop or a lay person. The only case in which question has been considered in detail by an Orthodox Church is that of Louis Joseph Charles Winnaert (1880-1937), a former Roman Catholic Priest who became an Old Catholic and was consecrated a Bishop by Wedgwood in 1922. He then sought to be received into the Russian Orthodox Church.

 

Winnaert’s story is an interesting one, rising as it does the problem of someone entering into the Liberal Catholic Church without being aware of its essential Theosophical basis, and will be considered in a later post. »

(cwleadbeater.wordpress.com/2016/06/12/liberal-catholic-validity)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The Liberal Catholic Church has no ecclesiastical validity because none of the other churches (not even the church from which it was derived) have accepted it nor do they consider it a legitimate church.