Liberal Catholicism

Liberal Catholic Studies
CSISM devotes particular attention to the movement originating from the Liberal Catholic Church, which was founded in 1916 as a re-organization of the Old Catholic movement in the U.K.

Liberal Catholicism was a movement significantly ahead of its time, with originating influences from Theosophy, panentheism, the religions of the East, the Wisdom Tradition and universalism among others. Its founders, Bishops Wedgwood and Leadbeater, sought to create a church of mystical Catholicism within which would pertain complete freedom of faith and conscience. This movement has spread along with their Apostolic Succession to all corners of the globe and now accounts for one of the most dynamic elements within the ISM.

The Official Records of Synod 1910-15
The Liberal Catholic Church (Old Synod) was the repository of many significant records, including original documents and letters, from the time of Archbishop A.H. Mathew. At some point, Presiding Bishop James Burton compiled these records into two volumes with his own annotations, which we reproduce below.

The official view of the LCC was at that time that the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain led by Archbishop Mathew became the Liberal Catholic Church and that its further continuations by such prelates as Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams were schismatic and, although valid, without jurisdiction. This view is strongly opposed and contested by many Old Catholic groups and is not accepted by all Liberal Catholics. Nevertheless, it is the view brought forward in this work.

The attentive reader will notice some significant differences in dates attributed to particular documents when compared, for example, to the account by Archbishop Persson also available on this website. In these cases (as established by Fr. Gregory Tillett's research), the dates given by Persson have been established as correct.

Regarding the original sources for this material, some correspondence from +Mathew to +Willoughby, along with other letters of the period, was at some stage removed from the main LCC archive at Letchworth and the whereabouts of this material today is unknown. Other +Mathew and +Willoughby correspondence (possibly identical to that described above) was part of the papers of the late Patriarch James Bartholomew Banks and again is currently untraced.

>>Official Records of Synod 1910-15, compiled and annotated by Presiding Bishop James Burton of the Liberal Catholic Church

>>The Minutes of the Joint Clerical and Episcopal Synod of Great Britain and of the Clerical Synod of England and Wales of the LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH (OLD CATHOLIC) Edited by the Rt. Rev. E.J. Burton, M.A. Part II - 1915-20