When the Most Rev. Michael J. Scalzi was growing up as a Roman Catholic, he dreamed of becoming a priest. Decades later, the divorced father of three is a priest and a bishop, although not in the Roman Catholic Church.
Scalzi serves in the Old Catholic Church Province of the United States, a national church formed last September after the merger of three “Old Catholic” jurisdictions.
Old Catholics are Christians who believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ but not in key elements of the Roman Catholic Church.
Scalzi heads the Old Catholic Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, which covers Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and New York.
The diocese includes the 25-member Faith Community of St. Joseph, which meets in the Unity Church in Hampden Twp., and at a church forming near Newark, N.J.
“We are not an angry faith community,” Scalzi said. “We’re a welcoming and inclusive church, an ancient faith serving the modern world. I see the Roman Catholic Church as our mother church. It deserves respect. Like the Roman Catholic Church, we celebrate the seven sacraments.”
The Old Catholic Church has clear differences from the Roman Catholic Church, Scalzi said.
Old Catholics allow married and divorced priests. Roman Catholics don’t.
Old Catholics allow women priests. Roman Catholics don’t.
Old Catholics allow gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender priests. Roman Catholics don’t.
Old Catholics celebrate same-sex marriages. Roman Catholics don’t.
Old Catholics do not believe in all the teachings of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholics do.
Old Catholics are not in unity and Communion with the Pope, although Scalzi said they respect him. They do not recognize Pope Benedict XVI as the supreme head of the church nor his infallibility on matters of faith. Roman Catholics do.
Locally, Old Catholics are not part of the Diocese of Harrisburg and under the leadership of Bishop Joseph P. McFadden. Roman Catholics are.
Scalzi doesn’t like his church to be called “schismatic” because “schismatic is such an ugly word. It smacks of anger and ‘anti-isms,’ both of which we are not.”
He said that the predecessors of the Old Catholic Church broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1800s over the issue of papal infallibility.
“Our church is a democracy in its operations,” Deacon Madeleine Redmond said. “We’re a church of the people. We believe in the participation of the laity on every level, fully promoting the equality of the baptized with the ordained clergy.”
As a deacon, Redmond helps set up the Unity Church altar into an Old Catholic one for the weekly Old Catholic Mass that Scalzi celebrates at 5 p.m. Saturdays. She also assists at the Mass.
Rebecca Brooks, executive board secretary for the Faith Community of St. Joseph, said she finds spiritual nourishment in those Masses.
“I grew up as a Roman Catholic,” she said. “But I felt, as a female, I was looked down upon in the Roman Catholic Church. ... I felt that I couldn’t speak to a Roman Catholic priest about marriage because he’s never been married. Here, I feel included.”
Redmond said she likes that her church does not require formal confession and doesn’t deny anyone the Eucharist.
She said she values its “warm relationship” with the Unity Church.
She and Scalzi said they found what they were looking for spiritually in their church and hope others can, too.
Scalzi was married and fathered three daughters. When his marriage ended after 15 years, he said he felt called to the priesthood but didn’t qualify as a divorced Roman Catholic.
“My soul found a home,” he said. “I was ordained a priest in the American Catholic Church in 1994 in New York. I came to Harrisburg with a dream but not a church or congregation.”
He invited 50 friends to his first service at the Holiday Inn Harrisburg East in Swatara Township.
Only two people came the next few weeks, Scalzi and one of his daughters.
Then, he said, his congregation started growing.
Over the years as an American Catholic Church, he rented spaces from hotels, churches, municipal buildings and even a funeral home.
Redmond said she disagreed with the Roman Catholic church on some “lifestyle issues.”
She said she tried a Methodist Church for five years, then was “un-churched” a few years before finding the Old Catholic Church. She’s been there ever since and became a deacon last September.
“Ever since I’ve been a little girl, God’s been under my skin,” she said.
“When I came here, I felt renewed, invigorated and wonderful. I was a lost soul. Now, I really know who God is.”
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