Dear Reader:

With this issue of New Perspectives, we begin our third year of publication.  My brother bishops and I are most pleased with this milestone in the annals of the Old Roman Catholic Church in North America.  We thank the many people who have been responsible for the success of our efforts:  our editor, Ms. Valerie Kane; our editorial advisory board; Fr. Charles Wolff, who heads our subscription department; and the Society of St. Mark, and other agencies of the Church that support this endeavor financially and morally.  And, of course, we thank you, our loyal subscribers.  As we stated in our renewal letter:  "Your support makes possible the publication of articles and discussion that strive to transcend the sharp conservative/liberal divide in the Church, encouraging, instead, a seeking of the truth that Our Lord spoke of when He said:  'But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship Him' (Jn. 4: 23)." 

The truth about Old Catholicism was very much on our minds as the staff and I planned this year's NP.  Long aware that most Christians, most Roman Catholics, even many Old Catholics remain uninformed or are misinformed about Old Catholicism, we decided that the time had come to "get the message out." Thus, throughout 2002, in addition to keeping our eye on the issues affecting the larger Church, we will be focusing on Old Catholicism, its history and its rich intellectual, theological, and spiritual heritage.  We do this not merely to promote Old Roman Catholicism, but to introduce readers-in particular, Ultramontane Roman Catholics who have been deeply shaken by recent scandals in the priesthood-to the Ultrajectine Catholic tradition.   And we begin at the beginning, by exploring the question:  "WHAT IS CATHOLIC?"

Thus, in this issue, we will for the first time confront the extreme Ultramontane view that the defining characteristic of Catholicity is unquestioning submission to the pope.  This is a perverse construct of Catholicism that at no time in the Church's history has universally been held to be true.  (More on that in a moment.)  Its tragic consequences are many, not the least of which is that it is insidiously detrimental to the spiritual development of Catholics who are informed and adult in their faith.

Interestingly, as the staff and I were at work on this very subject, I received an e-mail [see at page bottom] in which unbridled Ultramontanism is on full display.  Recognizing that such views are the result of an ignorance unrelieved by hundreds of years of misinformation and deliberate suppression of the truth, let me share with this gentleman and all our readers an excerpt from the Commonitorium of St. Vincent of Lérins [see at page bottom].  Vincent was a priest of the Abbey of Lérins on an island off the coast of Cannes, now called Saint-Honorat.  His treatise, written in 434 A.D., has come to be known as the Vincentian Canon.  Our Ultramontane brother will note that there is no mention of submission to the pope as a requirement of Catholicity.  Moreover,  since historically, the pope has not been believed "everywhere, always, and by all" to hold universal jurisdiction over the Church or to be infallible, belief in these Ultramontane dicta, according to the Vincentian Canon, is not required  of Catholics.  Of course, a Catholic may believe in them if he wishes, but he need not  in order to be a Catholic!

As this issue goes to press, the harm extreme Ultramontanism has caused individual Catholics, many of them children, and the Church itself is tragically evident.  There is an alternative, a healing one, in the Ultrajectine tradition.  We invite all who are interested to explore our tradition, beginning with this issue.  

In Christ, The Most Rev. Francis P. Facione, Ph.D.

From the Vincentian Canon, 434 A.D.

"Therefore, because of the intricacies of error, which is so multiform, there is great need for the laying down of a rule for the exposition of Prophets and Apostles in accordance with the standard interpretation of the Church Catholic. 

(3) Now, in the Catholic Church itself, we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.  [Italics added] That is truly and properly 'Catholic', as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally.  We hold to his rule if we follow universality, antiquity, and consent.  We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations, which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike. . ."                                                             --St. Vincent of Lérins