Bishop Schuckardt - Were His Holy Orders Valid?

In 2016, the basic contents of this article was sent to "Bishop" Mary Fidelis, aka Andrew Jacobs, who was consecrated together with me. He has not responded to a single fact or doctrine contained in this article, but has rather chosen the precipitous path of continuing to function as a bishop, endangering both himself and those whom he ministers to, apparently without concern for either.

This article sets out to demonstrate that the validity of the Holy Orders emanating from “Bishop” Francis Schuckardt fail to meet the Church's criteria for validity. Rather, these Orders must be held to be only doubtfully valid, and consequently this doubtful validity applies to the Holy Orders of “Bishop” Mary Fidelis and myself, as we were both ordained to the priesthood and consecrated bishops by Francis Schuckardt exclusively.

There was a prevalent belief among Francis Schuckardt’s followers that his Holy Orders were valid due to their being traceable to the condemned and schismatical Old Catholic Church, which church was believed by some theologians to have had valid Orders, at least until the early part of the 20th century. This belief as to the source of his Orders, however, was a factual error, as Francis Schuckardt’s Orders did not emanate directly from the Old Catholic Church at all, but rather from a cacophonous group of individuals who had long since broken away from the Old Catholic Church and started their own various sects of dubious credentials. Writers often refer to these breakaway sects under the single heading of "Old Catholic."

“Dozens of Old Catholic churches, many of them nothing but paper churches or products of fertile imaginations, date to the refusal of a minority of Catholics to accept the definition of papal infallibility made by the First Vatican Council of 1869-1870… For the most part the bodies claiming to be the Old Catholic Church in this country [USA] are the shaky creations of religious entrepreneurs. Ordinations and consecrations are often bought and sold.” (Faiths for the Few, William Whalen, 1963, p. 65, 69)

DOCTRINAL CRITERIA

Before examining Francis Schuckardt’s episcopal lineage, however, we first need a measuring stick with which to judge the validity/invalidity of his Orders. This measuring stick, of course, must be none other than the Church’s own criterion for accepting validity of Orders, and that criterion is “moral certitude.” If someone is unable to establish, with moral certitude, the validity of his Orders, then according to moral theology, sacramental theology and Church law, that person must cease to function as a clergyman (except in emergencies, i.e., someone is dying and there is no one else available...) And the reason for this is because of the grave danger such a person would pose to both the Church in general and to Church members individually.

Moral Certitude

Moral certitude is defined as

[that] “which excludes all prudent fear of error, such that the opposite is reputed as altogether improbable.” (St. Alphonsus, Theologia Moralis – Probable Conscience - English translation).
“Judgments are morally certain when error is impossible according to what is customary among mankind, the opposite of what is held by the mind being so unlikely that it would be imprudent to be moved by it.” (Moral Theology, Kinds of Certitude, Callan & McHugh, vol. 1, p. 223, 1929)

A Broken Chain

Bear in mind that Holy Orders are like a chain. No matter how many good links there are, if there is one broken link, the chain is useless. It will hold nothing.

So if anywhere down the episcopal line of bishops, if even so much as one bishop had received invalid Orders, then that bishop would be incapable of transmitting Orders to anyone else. If he consecrated 100 bishops and those 100 bishops each consecrated another 100 bishops, you would not have a grand total of 10,000 bishops, but rather your grand total would be zero bishops. The succession of bishops must be unbroken. So as we examine the episcopal lineage of Francis Schuckardt, it must be kept in mind that if even so much as one of the bishops in his lineage had invalid Holy Orders, then Francis would also have had invalid Holy Orders. If even so much as one of the bishops in his lineage had doubtfully valid Holy Orders, then Francis too would also have had only doubtfully valid Holy Orders; and such a person therefore must, as noted above, cease to function as a clergyman.

Presumption of Validity

The Sacraments administered in the Catholic Church enjoy the presumption of validity, i.e., the sacraments received in the Catholic Church are presumed to be valid unless proven otherwise. This doctrine of the Church is easily understandable when one considers the facts regarding them, i.e., the required training of all Catholic ministers, the Church’s constant and vigilant oversight over her Sacraments, the Divine protection which the Catholic Church alone enjoys, etc.

But when dealing with non-Catholic churches, one or more (usually all) of these safeguards is always absent, which is why one cannot presume validity of the Sacraments conferred by non-Catholic sects (There are over 43,000 different Christian sects worldwide. Presuming valid Sacraments in them all is of course preposterous). This is both self-evident and easily deducible by the practice of the Catholic Church herself when she makes those rare pronouncements regarding the validity of some Sacraments in certain non-Catholic sects. The Old Catholic Church is one of these rare exceptions in which some Catholic authorities have stated that this non-Catholic sect had valid Holy Orders. The problem here, as noted above, is that Francis Schuckardt did not receive his Holy Orders from the Old Catholic Church, so the validity of Orders stemming from the Old Catholic Church is a moot issue.

The validity of his Orders must rather be examined from their actual source, and in this case there are two sources, as one of the bishops (Rogers) got himself consecrated twice, both times in different sects - once in The African Orthodox Church and then again in the North American Old Roman Catholic Church.

TWO LINES OF EPISCOPAL LINEAGE

Lineage 1 - The African Orthodox Church

Episcopal lineage:

Lineage 2 - The North American Old Roman Catholic Church

Episcopal lineage:

Sect 1. African Orthodox Church

This schismatic and heretical sect is so far removed from possessing certain Holy Orders that one is inclined not even to waste any time on them. But for the sake of completeness, here it is (in brief):

1. Antonio Alverez. Alverez was a disgruntled Portuguese priest who left the Catholic Church when Pope Leo XIII revoked the right of investiture enjoyed by the Portuguese royalty. After abandoning Catholicism, Alverez went to the schismatical Jacobites and got himself consecrated a bishop.

2. Rene Vilatte. Alverez then consecrated Rene Vilatte, who was a baptized Catholic. As a young man Vilatte left the Catholic Church and first joined the Episcopalians and then later the Old Catholic Church, in which he was ordained a priest. Both of these churches later rejected him. Vilatte then went hunting for a bishop’s mitre and finally convinced Antonio Alverez to give him one. The validity of this consecration is much contested and widely publicized, which of itself destroys moral certitude, since the arguments against his validity are far from frivolous. In fact, the saintly Cardinal Merry del Val -

"maintained that throughout his episcopal career Vilatte had so "commercialized" ordinations and consecrations, that he himself was not able to regard them as valid." (Faiths for the Few, ibid., p. 72)

Moreover, whatever the merits of the arguments for or against the validity of Vilatte's consecration, what is certain is that he sought in vain for a pronouncement from the Catholic Church that his episcopal consecration was valid, even though he returned to the Catholic Church before his death. Furthermore, when he died he was buried in the Catholic Church as a lay man, not as a bishop. Moral certitude is lacking with Vilatte’s episcopal Orders. We now have a broken link in the chain of the African Orthodox Church's lineage.

3. George McGuire. Vilatte consecrated George McGuire. McGuire and a group of other Negros left the Protestant Episcopalian Church and started the African Orthodox Church. Besides Vilatte’s doubtful episcopacy, McGuire had another problem inasmuch as he was baptized as a Protestant, and these baptisms are always problematic.

"How careless Protestant sects, especially in large cities, are in regard to Baptism, is well known." (A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law, Vol. 1, Augustine, 1918, p. 88)

So even accepting arguendo, that Vilatte was a valid bishop, McGuire’s doubtfully valid baptism alone would introduce sufficient doubt to destroy moral certitude regarding his Orders, because only the validly baptized can validly receive Holy Orders.

4. William Robertson. McGuire consecrated William Robertson, There’s not much information about Robertson other than the fact that he was consecrated by McGuire and succeeded him in the African Orthodox Church. There is no evidence that Robertson was ever a Catholic or even validly baptized, let alone baptized in the Catholic Church. Moral certitude is lacking here too.

5. Hubert A. Rogers. Robertson consecrated Hubert A. Rogers. Rogers was raised as a Methodist (while Methodist baptisms are presumed to be valid in marriage cases, this presumption does not carry over to Holy Orders)[1]. He was ordained in the African Orthodox Church by George McGuire in 1928, and consecrated by William Robertson in 1937. More on Rogers later.

6. Daniel Brown. Hubert A. Rogers consecrated Daniel Brown. Brown was a baptized Catholic, but his Holy Orders could only be as good as his predecessors, which were doubtfully valid. More on Brown later.

7. Francis Schuckardt. Daniel Brown consecrated Francis Schuckardt. Francis Schuckardt was a baptized Catholic; but like Brown, his Holy Orders could only be as valid as his predecessors' Holy Orders were valid, and we have just demonstrated that his predecessors' Orders are at best doubtfully valid.

So regarding Francis Schuckardt, we have doubtful Orders emanating from Vilatte, McGuire, Robertson, Rogers and Brown. By any measuring stick, this lineage totally fails to achieve moral certitude and therefore it must be rejected. The African Orthodox Church does not possess valid Orders and therefore could not have bestowed valid Orders upon Francis Schuckardt.

Sect 2. North American Old Roman Catholic Church

One would be mistaken to presume that the relevant characters of this lineage (Mathew, de Landas, Carfora and Rogers) were similar to Catholic clergymen excepting one or two points of disputed doctrine, as some of their advocates would have us believe. On the contrary, these men were all loose cannons whose religious views changed whenever and wherever opportunities knocked – religious mercenaries, if you will. I would encourage the reading of the book Bishops at Large by Peter Anson (a Catholic author) in order to get a good feel for just how unstable these characters were. Let's take a look at them.

1. Arnold Mathew. Mathew was ordained in the Catholic Church and after abandoning Catholicm was consecrated a bishop by the Old Catholic bishop Geradus Gul. Mathew is presumed to have had valid Holy Orders. What faith he professed though is anybody’s guess as he went -

“to the Church of England, then to the Church of Rome, then to the Church of England again, then to the Old Catholics, then to the Eastern Church, then to an independent organization (under his headship), then to the Church of Rome again, and now to the Church of England again.” (Anglican Archbishop Davidson, Anson, ibid., 206).

During all of this he managed to get married, have three kids, and then get legally separated. In one of his attempts at rejoining the Anglican Church -

“he was quite prepared to be re-ordained again conditionally if this would make things easier.” (Anson, ibid., 209).

Mathew himself didn’t even seem to know what he was religiously –

“After his complete breach with the Old Catholics of Holland in 1910, he describes himself as ‘Catholic Bishop,’ or, again as ‘Bishop in England and Ireland of the English Catholic Church,’ called a few weeks later ‘The Western Orthodox Catholic Church in Great Britain and Ireland.’ Shortly afterwards the title used is ‘Archbishop of London.’ In March 1911, the title is ‘Archbishop and Metropolitan of the English Catholic Church.’ This became ‘The Catholic Church in England, Latin Uniate Branch,’ and two months later, ‘The Catholic Church in England, Latin and Orthodox United,’ under the leader described as ‘Archbishop of England,’ and subsequently as ‘Sa Grandeur Mgr. A. H. Mathieu, Archeveque de Londres, Comte de Landave, Metropolitain de la Grande-Bretagne et d’Irlande, Eveque provisiore de l’Eglise Catholique-Francaise.’ ” (Anson, ibid., 200)

And if all of this wasn’t confusing enough -

“Mathew’s episcopal seal, some documents and other papers also disappeared mysteriously. Thus any document with his seal would not in itself be a proof of consecration or ordination.” (Anson, 215).

Mathew also had the distinct honor of being solemnly excommunicated by Pope St. Pius X in 1911 for the “sacrilegious crime” of consecrating two suspended priests and Pius referred to Mathew as a "pseudo bishop." (Motu Proprio, Gravi Iamdiu Scandalo, Feb. 15, 1911)

In all of this confusion, one thing is clear, however, and very germane: except for a short stint of 2 ½ years he was not part of the Old Catholic Church and any Orders bestowed by him outside of this stint no longer enjoys the presumption of validity enjoyed by the Old Catholics. From this point forward, validity has to be proven and it is in this context that we have to consider the consecration of de Landas Berghes.

2. de Landas Berghes. de Landas was consecrated by Arnold Mathew three years after Mathew's departure from the Old Catholics and de Landas has left behind him a perplexing trail of doubt and confusion.

A. After being consecrated by Mathew, de Landas came to the U.S. and ministered in the Protestant Episcopal Church. A few years later he claimed for himself the title of Archbishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church of America, which church later morphed into the North American Old Roman Catholic Church (both were new inventions and received no recognition by the Old Catholics). He later applied to become a minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church once again, but when they denied his request, he joined the Catholic Church (and according to A History of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church by Jonathan Trela, de Landas was in the process of abandoning Catholicism when death overtook him). Of importance here is the fact that at no time was he recognized as a member of the Old Catholic Church, and thus his Orders, as just noted, do not enjoy the presumption of validity that Old Catholic Orders enjoyed.

B. de Landas had an identity problem. Wikipedia identifies the following different names he went by:

Will the real de Landas please stand up! Outside of “de Landas Berges” he didn’t seem to know exactly who he was. Further challenging his real identity are several sources which cite de Landas as stating that he served in the English army, yet in a New York Supreme Court law suit, defendant (writer Cunliffe-Owen) filed with the court a statement that the army lists “do not contain a name similar to his.” (New York Tribune, 2/9/1916). Cunliffe-Owen also published an article about de Landas in which he stated that the royal house, from which de Landas claimed he hailed from, went extinct prior to de Landas. There was no royal house.

So who exactly was this guy? It’s rather difficult trying to establish that a particular person had valid Orders when you can’t even establish a valid identity.

C. But more importantly, moral certitude is not only lacking as to his identity, but also as to the validity of his Orders. In 1919 de Landas -

“made submission to the Roman See. He did this with the understanding that his episcopal character would be recognized and that he would be allowed to function as a bishop. A condition of recognition was that he retire to a monastery and join an Order. No official indication from Rome concerning his status was forthcoming. Liking not the role of a lowly novice, nor non-recognition as a ranking prelate by Rome, de Landas resolved to join the NAORCC [North American Old Roman Catholic Church], shepherded now by Carmel Henry Carfora. In mid November, 1920, Bishop Carfora arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in order to escort de Landas back to Chicago. When the prince-bishop failed to keep his prearranged rendezvous, Carfora contacted the Augustinian community which de Landes had joined. He was informed that on November 17th, ... de Landas... had died. In accordance with Canon Law, de Landas was buried in the habit of the order of St. Augustine with Roman Rites in the community cemetery at Villanova.” (A History of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, ibid., 1979, p. 16-17)

The Wikipedia article on de Landas says that he was -

“buried in the monastery's cemetery with full episcopal honors by the Roman Catholic Church.”

This is incorrect. It is noteworthy that there are no references cited for this gratuitous statement. Furthermore, the picture below of de Landas’ tombstone argues otherwise. This is not how the Catholic Church inters bishops.

D. But most importantly, while some sources say that de Landas was raised as a Catholic, at least one source cites de Landas himself stating that he was raised in the Low Anglican Church. (À propos du mouvement pour l'union des Églises en Angleterre, en Amérique et en Orien, G. Rieutortm, Échos d'Orient, 1920, Vol. 19, Issue 119, pp. 331-360). This is important because Anglican baptisms are doubtfully valid and consequently any Holy Orders received by de Landas must of necessity also be considered as doubtfully valid. Moral certitude is lacking in de Landas.

3. Carmel Carfora. Carfora was a Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church after having a dispute with his bishop. He was first consecrated a bishop by Vilatte, but later got himself conditionally re-consecrated by de Landas (which clearly suggests that he too had doubts about the validity of Vilatte’s Holy Orders). So what we wind up with regarding Carfora is two sources of doubtful Orders; doubtful Orders by Vilatte and doubtful Orders by de Landas. Two sources of doubtful Orders do not get us to moral certitude. But that didn't deter Carfora from proclaiming for -

"himself the title 'Supreme Primate' and claimed infallibility when he spoke ex cathedra..." (Faiths for the Few, ibid., p. 73)

Further complicating matters are the consecrations performed by Carfora. In this Carfora makes the prolificate Bishop Thuc look reserved, Carfora having consecrated about 30 people (Trela lists 25 by names and dates) compared to Thuc’s comparatively modest 15 consecrations. But was Carfora more careful about whom he consecrated than was the careless Bishop Thuc? The answer is no.

“Carfora appears to have consecrated a multitude of strange people, so many, so strange, that a few years ago I refused to have anything more to do with any of them.” (Old Catholic Archbishop – Bernard Williams. Anson, ibid., p. 432) And there is also this: “Among Carfora’s multitude of bishops and priests were Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, West Indian negroes, mulattoes, ex-Roman Catholic priests, lapsed Episcopalian pastors, several Mexicans, and other men whose past history did not always bear close examination.” (Anson, ibid, p. 432)

Hardly the stuff moral certitude is made out of.

4. Hubert A. Rogers. Of all of the weak links in the episcopal chain we are examining, the West Indian Negro Hubert Rogers has to be the weakest link of them all.

A. He was raised as a Methodist and as already noted above, his baptism is consequently doubtfully valid. That alone, according to Church doctrine, destroys moral certitude in his regard.

B. When Rogers quit the African Orthodox Church and joined the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, Carfora attempted to conditionally re-consecrated him a bishop. But what the doubtfully valid Carfora failed to do was to conditionally re-baptize or to attempt to conditionally re-ordain Rogers, whose baptism was doubtful and whose Orders were almost certainly invalid, both of which are invalidating impediments to a valid episcopacy, for only the validly baptized and the validly ordained can be validly raised to the episcopacy. Without being both validly baptized and a validly ordained to the priesthood, there is simply no way a person can be consecrated a bishop, as both are essential requirements.

C. Like his predecessors, Rogers seemed to care little about the quality of those whom he supposedly consecrated; his first consecration being none other than his firstborn son.

D. He concluded his life as a minister in the Methodist Church.

5. Daniel Brown. Information about Brown is very scanty. A newspaper obituary headline reads:

“Cartoonist Dan Brown dies...” (Sandusky Register, 10/1/81).

Trela states that Brown was the editor of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church publication “The Augustinian” in 1969, which wars against what had been peddled in Francis Schuckardt's group, namely that Brown joined the NAORCC only to preserve episcopal Holy Orders for the traditional Catholic Church. He was clearly more involved with them than that.

But the fact that there is essentially no information about Brown challenges moral certitude itself. How is one to prove validity of Orders in the absence of evidence? The fact that he was satisfactorily examined by some members of Francis Schuckardt's group in the past is not sufficient. Rational people don't accept claims of validity of Orders based solely on an internal investigation conducted by the interested parties. Some visible and tangible proof is required. It is a Church doctrine that the Church is a visible society and that her ministers are visibly chosen. Proof of the validity of Holy Orders needs to meet this standard. Brown fails to meet this standard.

6. Francis Schuckardt. While certainly baptized a Catholic, both his ordination and consecration were doubtfully valid as they both came from Daniel Brown, whose own Orders, as we have jut seen, were doubtfully valid as well.

7. Andrew Jacobs (aka Bishop Mary Fidelis) and me. Both of us were baptized Catholics and both of us were ordained and consecrated by Francis Schuckardt at the same time. Considering that, we cannot claim to possess anything more than what Francis Schuckardt himself possessed. If moral certitude was lacking in Francis Schuckardt, then it must necessarily be lacking in us as well. One cannot give what one does not possess. At best, Francis Schuckardt could do no more than bestow what he himself possessed - doubtfully valid Orders.

But there is something in addition which makes our Orders even more doubtful than Francis' own Orders. The form of the Sacrament of Orders requires certain words (the form of the sacrament) to be spoken for the validity of the Sacrament. Words, of course, are understood as air starting in the lower regions, passing through the voice box and emanating out of the mouth as an intelligible sound. The problem here is that due to throat cancer, Francis Schuckardt’s voice box had been surgically removed and a plastic cut-off-valve was inserted into his windpipe instead. He had to operate this valve whenever he attempted to speak, thereby altering the normal process of speaking, i.e., he was not speaking through his voice box. And in the case of our ordinations and consecrations, Francis did not operate this valve at all, but rather a third party operated it for him during the ceremonies. This was done due to the fact that Francis' mental capacity had been so badly diminished at this point in his life that he was unable to effectively operate it, even though it was essentially nothing more than a simple off-on switch. The end result being that this became a two-person operation that required joint coordination by both parties in order to supply the necessary form of the sacrament. In other words: Francis' helper became an absolutely integral and necessary part of the form of the sacrament. For without the helper, he was simply unable to accomplish it.

So we are dealing with two doctrinal novelties here: the first ever episcopal consecration by a bishop without a voice box and the first time ever that there were two people having an active partnership in the same form of the sacrament emanating from a single person.

I know the arguments that claim this process would not have affected validity and I think that the arguments, on their face, have some merit; nevertheless, there is no theological support or historical precedent for this whatsoever! It's a novelty, and novelties militate against moral certitude. The Church exists and functions upon that which has been divinely revealed, not the opinions of unqualified individuals who have a personal stake in the matter. To behave otherwise identifies one as a Protestant, not as a Catholic. [2]

And perhaps of even greater importance is the fact that even certainly validly consecrated bishops in possession of certainly ordinary jurisdiction (both absent here) may not introduce new theology in their diocese or anywhere else. Both Church doctrine and Church law absolutely forbid it. Only the Church Universal can do that. Any "bishop" denying this exclusive prerogative of the Church, whether by word or deed, makes himself yet just another one of the 43,000 plus christian sects in the world who have separated themselves from the Catholic Church by usurping Church authority and doing their own thing.

Conclusion

If the case against moral certitude that confronts us simply rested upon a single issue, such as a single doubtful baptism, careful research might be able to overcome that possible impediment. But here we are not dealing with a single impediment, but rather we have layer upon layer upon layer of doubt: multiple doubtful Orders and multiple doubtful Baptisms. This is further complicated by lack of historical evidence as well as the fact that we are dealing with a 100 years worth of miscreant actors and ultimately a consecration novelty (regarding Andrew Jacobs and me). There is no doubt whatsoever that moral certitude is lacking here. Every objective person who has looked into this has come to the same conclusion.

* For a fuller exposé of the errors embraced by "Bishop" Mary Fidelis: "Bishop" Mary Fidelis, aka Andrew Jacobs - His Dangerous Theological Abberations


Bishop Joseph Marie
bishopjosephmarie.org
Email: me@bishopjosephmarie.org

[1]“The Supreme Sacred Congregation establishes a presumption in favor of the validity of these baptisms 'in diiudicandis causis matrimonialibus.' The presumption applies therefore only to decisions in matrimonial cases. In accordance with the axiom, 'Legislator, quod voluit expressit, quod noluit tacuit' [The legislator expressed what he wanted, and what he did not want was silent about], the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office did not intend to establish this presumption as a solution for all doubts concerning the validity of these baptisms.” (The Jurist, Catholic University of America, Vol. 11, p. 193, 1951)