HISTORY

In 1691, the then-Apostolic Vicar of Utrecht, Archbishop Petrus Codde, was accused of the heresy of Jansenism by the Jesuits. Pope Innocent X condemned Jansenism heresy in 1655. To investigate the case of Archbishop Petrus Codde, Pope Innocent XII appointed a Commission of Cardinals (such act was in violation of Debitum Pastoralis though) in 1694, which completely exonerated Archbishop Codde of all charges (Kersey, 2017, p. 26). Despite this decision, Pope Clement XI, who had just ascended to the Holy See, summoned Archbishop Codde to Rome in 1697, and put him on trial again before a second Commission (another violation of “Debitum Pastoralis” of Pope Leo X). Again, Archbishop Codde was acquitted. However, Pope Clement XI deposed Archbishop Codde and appointed a successor to the Apostolic Vicariate of Utrecht (ibid. p. 26). But significant proportion of the people in Utrecht refused to accept them in reference to Debitum Pastoralis.

In 1723, the Dutch clergy elected Fr. Cornelius Van Steenoven as Archbishop of Utrecht. In reference to the 1145 grant of Pope Blessed Eugene III, Utrecht could elect and consecrate an Archbishop without Papal Mandate. The titular See of Babylon Archbishop Dominique Marie Varlet consecrated Cornelius Van Steenoven as the Archbishop of the See of Utrecht. Nevertheless, Rome excommunicated Archbishop Steenoven and his successors in the See of Utrecht. These clergy and laity who followed Archbishop Steenoven and his successors were known as the Old Catholics or Old Roman Catholics, in contrast to the Vatican appointees as Apostolic Vicars who competed with them for jurisdiction in Utrecht (ibid. p. 27). In 1870s, formed a network through the four countries of Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Holland that was eventually formalized as the Utrecht Union, that is to say, a union of the co-operating Old Catholic and Old Roman Catholic Churches that were organized on a national basis.

The peculiarity between Old Roman Catholicism and Old Catholicism was exagerated by the advent of Arnold Harris Mathew. Arnold was born on 7^th August 1852 from a Roman Catholic father and an Anglican mother. He was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church in 1852, and in 1854 was conditionally baptized by an Anglican clergyman for “family reasons”. Fr. Arnold Harris Mathew was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church on 24^th June 1877. This same year, Bishop Charles Eyre who ordained Mathew as priest, recommended him to Pope Pius IX, who awarded him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1889, Fr. Arnold Harris Mathew resign from all duties in the Roman Catholic Church. On 18^th February 1908, Fr. Arnold Harris Mathew was elected as Regionary Old Catholic Bishop of Great Britain and Ireland. On 28^th April 1908, Utrecht Archbishop Gerardus Gul, together with fellow Old Catholic bishops Johannes van Thiel, Nicolaus Spit and Johannes Demmel, consecrated Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew according to the Roman rite in the Cathedral of St. Gertrude in Utrecht. The consecration was reported in the “Church Times” and in the “Guardian”. By this event, Bishop Mathew received the historic episcopate in the succession of the Roman Catholic Church, and thus, unlike the Anglicans, he was beyond any doubt validly consecrated and possessed of effective sacramental power. In 1908, the Roman Catholic Church accepted the validity of Holy Orders conferred by the Church of Utrecht, despite that church having been in schism from Rome for almost two hundred years (Kersey, 2017, p. 55).

On 29^th December 1910, Bishop Mathew issued a “Declaration of Autonomy and Independence” from the Union of Utrecht for reason into Protestant practices with which he disagreed and declared to preserve the Old Roman Catholicism doctrines. These were the doctrines and teachings that Bishop Mathew preserved:  (1) seven sacraments instituted by Lord Jesus Christ necessary for the salvation of mankind (1917 CIC 731), (2) doctrine of the Communion of Saints by invoking and venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as the Holy Angels of God, (3) promote the Liturgy into the vernacular languages, (4) promote the Rite of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament that almost universally abolished among the Old Catholics, (5) duty to remember His Holiness the Pope in our prayers and sacrifices to retain its position in the Canon of the Mass, (6) venerate the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass as the supreme act of Christian worship instituted by Christ Himself, (7) honor and glory of God are promoted and increased by the devout and religious use of holy pictures, statutes, symbols, relics, and the like as aids to devotion to be held in veneration, 8) to observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence (ibid. pp. 94-97). Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew together with other bishops declared themselves as the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain (ORCCGB) as sui iuris and autonomous from Union of Utrecht.

The ORCCGB entered into an Act of Union with the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch on 5^th August 1911 and Archbishop Mathew swore an oath of fidelity to the Patriarch as confirmed by +Gerassimos Messara, Prince-Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of Beirut (ibid. p. 109). Furthermore, Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew as the Metropolitan Archbishop of ORCCGB had intercommunion with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria wherein Patriarch Photios accepted in his letter to Archbishop Mathew on 26^th February 1912 (ibid. p. 115).

On 29^th June 1913, Archbishop Mathew consecrated Prince Rudolph de Landas Berghes et de Rache to serve as the missionary bishop for Scotland. This consecration was highly significant since  it is from +de Landas Berghes that his lineage developed in North America (ibid. p. 122). The original plan as missionary bishop to Scotland was thwarted by the oubreak of World War I. Being then a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire resident in Great Britain, +de Landas Berghes became an enemy-alien and was liable to incarceration. The British Foreign Office apparently arranged for +de Landas Berghes to go to the United States, which was a neutral power until 1917. He arrived in the USA on 7^th November 1914 (ibid. p. 124).

The North American Old Roman Catholic Church (NAORCC) had been formed in 1916 from the churches led by +de Landas Berghes, William Henry Francis Brothers (1887-1979) and Carmel Henry Carfora (1878-1958) and elected +Landas Berghes as its first Archbishop of NAORCC. On 3^rd October 1916, Archbishop de Landas Berghes consecrated William Henry Francis Brothers who was the Abbot of St. Dunstan’s Abbey, Waukegan, Illinois. It was Primate John Francis Tichy of the Polish Old Catholic Church in America who ordained William Henry Francis Brothers as priest on 3^rd October 1911 (Kersey, 2017, p. 128). On 4^th October 1916, Archbishop de Landas Berghes consecrated Carmel Henry Carfora as his Coadjutor and Bishop Brothers as his co-consecrator. Carfora was an Italian and former Roman Catholic Franciscan Friar.

On 22^nd December 1919, Archbishop de Landas Berghes left the Old Roman Catholicism and joined the Roman Catholic Church submitting to the Archbishop of New York Cardinal Hayes in St. Patrick Cathedral, New York. On 7^th November 1920, Archbishop de Landas Berghes died at age 47 in Augustinian Novitiate in Villanova, Pennsylvania and was buried in the Community Cemetery at Villanova with full episcopal honours by the Roman Catholic Church. As Coadjutor of de Landas Berghes, Carfora by right of succession became the Metropolitan Archbishop of NAORCC. The NAORCC regarded itself as a sister communion of ORCCGB of Archbishop Mathew in Great Britain rather than the subject  of his direct jurisdiction. Interestingly, Archbishop Carfora was the only one in the North American bishops to be formally recognised as such by Archbishop Mathew while William Henry Francis Brothers was not as advised by Archbishop de Landas Berghes (ibid. p. 127).

In 1953, Archbishop Carfora suffered a stroke and entered a Roman Catholic hospital in Galveston, Texas where he was pressured by the Roman Catholic authorities to renounce his work that left the church in haitus since he was unable to undertake the leadership duties. He went into seclusion that amounted to retirement, retaining leadership of the church in title only. Several of his bishops took this opportunity to establish their own churches and others simply ceased to thrive. Archbishop Carfora died on 18^th January 1958 at age 79. According to his death certificate,  the cause of his death was cancer of the pancreas and was buried in the Irving Park Cemetery in Chicago on 21^st January 1958 and was survived by his wife Stella. Archbishop Carfora did not leave a definitive successor upon his death and the North American Old Roman Catholic Church split into four major bodies known as: 1) the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, 2) the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Utrecht Succession, Archdiocese of California™, 3) the Archdiocese of the Old Catholic Church of America, and 4) the Old Roman Catholic Church of North America (The Society of Mercy, Blessings of the Grave and Mass, 2015). There are still some other minor bodies of Old Roman Catholic Church jurisdictions claiming lineage from +de Landas Berghes and +Carfora in USA, Canada and in Latin America and not in communion status with each other’s jurisdiction.

Archbishop Carmel Henry Carfora commissioned Bishop Albert Dustan Bell in 1936, of whom Archbishop Carfora consecrated sub conditione Albert Dustan Bell on 25^th August 1935, to unite all of the existing parishes and missions of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church along the west coast of USA into canonical existence under the obedience of Archbishop Carfora and now known as the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Utrecht Succession, Metropolitan Archdiocese of California. Under Archbishop Carmel Henry Carfora’s mandate, Bishop Albert Dustan Bell consecrated Edgar Ramon Versotek on 7^th January 1940 thereby securing the Apostolic Lineage of Archbishop Carfora that exists to this day in the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Utrecht Succession, Metropolitan Archdiocese of California™.

The North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Utrecht Succession, Archdiocese of California™ was erected in 1939 and formally incorporated in the State of California by Archbishop Edgar Ramon Verostek in 1939 by the mandate of The Most Reverend Carmel Henry Carfora, founder and Supreme Primate of the NAORCC. It continues to actively serve, as one of the original  North American Old Roman Catholic jurisdictions authorized by The Most Reverend Carmel Henry Carfora. On 10^th August 1985, Archbishop Edgar Ramon Versostek consecrated Joseph Andrew Vellone as his Coadjutor. On 5^th July 1994, Archbishop Verostek died in Pinole, Contra Costa, California, USA at age of 85. On this context, the successor of Archbishop Edgar Ramon Verostek was His Grace The Most Reverend Joseph Andrew Vellone as the  Primate of the West and Metropolitan Archbishop of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Utrecht Succession, Archdiocese of California™ since 1994 until his death on 5^th January 2022.

In 1989, Archbishop Vellone consecrated Chris Hernandez as his Coadjutor. However, Archbishop Hernandez was removed from the ministry in NAORCC, US, Archdiocese of California on 11^th February 2021 for reason of usurpation of power together with other five Bishops Goddard, Rabusa, Bustillo, Vazquez and Higuera (ref Carfora Code, 1950, Canon 200). On 4^th October 2017, Archbishop Vellone consecrated Ivan Alberto Castañeda as bishop of Jesus, El Buen Pastor Church in San Francisco, California, USA. With the removal of Archbishop Chris Hernandez from the ministry in the jurisdiction of NAORCCUS, AoC. Most Rev Ivan Alberto Castañeda was appointed Coadjutor effective 17^th March 2021 with the right of succession to the See of NAORCCUS, Archdiocese of California. Archbishop Ivan Alberto Castañeda took over as Primate of the West and Metropolitan Archbishop, after the death of Archbishop Vellone, effective 5^th January 2022 until the present.

There were dark pages in the history of NAORCCUS, AoC whereby  two “vultures” attempted to snatch her.  The first was known in 2020 when the former Coadjutor, claiming to have perpetual and irrevocable right of succession of The Most Reverend Joseph Andrew Vellone, together with five disloyal bishops were removed from the ministry effective 11^th February 2021. The second failed attempt was a sister North American Old Roman Catholic Church of Terra Nova under Archbishop Edward J. Ford hovering over in the eastern province of USA who manipulated the elderly and sickly Metropolitan Archbishop Vellone and planned to subjugate the NAORCCUS, AoC and forged Archbishop Vellone’s signature for the make-believe Reunification Decree between Nova Terra and Archdiocese of California. Some faithful members of the Brotherhood of Bishops of the NAORCCUS, AoC discovered their plot of deceit and manipulation two months before the Synod of the Archdiocese of California on 28 – 30 September 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Sadly, the two clergy (Fr. Raphael Villareal Falquez – a self-acclaimed Canon without appointment from +Vellone and Bishop Fermin Rosas Garcia) who conspired with the eastern province NAORCC Terra Nova under Archbishop Edward J. Ford with their scheme of deceit and manipulation trying to subjugate the particular church of NAORCCUS, AoC were all removed from Archbishop Vellone’s jurisdiction in October 2021.

As mentioned earlier that the NAORCCUS, AoC observes the Leonine Privilege that Pope Leo X gave in his Decree in 1517, Debitum Pastoralis, granting to the See of Utrecht the right of adjudication of its own affairs that the Tribunals of Rome cannot interfere. The NAORCCUS, AoC, like the Eastern Catholic Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Orthodox Churches, is recognized as a “True Particular Church” (DOMINUS IESUS, 2000, Chapter IV, Number 17). We remain united to the Catholic Church by means of the closest bonds of Apostolic Succession and Valid Eucharist as true autonomous Particular Church (Sui Iuris) in reference to Dominus Iesus in August 2000, Declaration of the Holy See by then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) and Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone under the Pontificate of His Holiness Pope St. John Paul II.

NAORCCUS, AoC strongly believes the assurance of our Lord Jesus Christ saying, “You can be sure that I will be with you always. I will be with you until the end of time” (Mt. 28:20).