The founders of Our Lady of Guadalupe independent Catholic church – made up of primarily Hispanic and Portuguese members who were upset after the diocese merged three Long Branch parishes – have no right to call their group a Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church’s regional bishop maintains.
Bishop David M. O’Connell issued a release saying the church, which is now associated with the American National Catholic Church, was created “by schismatic leaders who deny the unity of the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership and laws.”
No Catholic church can be independent, said O’Connell.
The American National Catholic Church adheres to the teachings of theologian and former Swiss priest Hans Kung, who is now 83 years old.
Among Kung's teachings is the rejection of such concepts of papal infallibility and celibacy for priests.
Father Matthew Bailey, chancellor of the American National Catholic Church, points to statements on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website – which is associated with Rome – that indicate a desire to work with and potentially recognize the Polish National Catholic Church, a similar breakaway church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe was formed by long-time members of St. John the Baptist Church in Long Branch, which was shuttered in 2009 after the diocese made a decision to merge three parishes, including St. John, Our Lady Star of the Sea and Holy Trinity, and form Christ the King parish.
Some St. John church members waged a campaign to keep its doors open, saying it was a growing parish with the potential for strong financial backing.
As the merger plan proceeded, church members and pastor, Father Juan Daniel Peirano, had a number of exchanges, resulting finally in the early closing of the church and the locking of church gates.
Peirano contacted local police for help in leaving the premises at one point, and church officials declared the parishioners to be trespassers.
“Our hope and our prayer is that (Our Lady of Guadalupe members) begin to find the healing and peace they so desperately want and deserve” Bailey said. “Good things are happening for Our Lady of Guadalupe. God is clearly blessing them.”
The release was issued only two days after Our Lady of Guadalupe staged a public celebration of the feast day of Saint John the Baptist – including a Mass celebrated by Bishop George Lucey of the American National Catholic Church and it followed a letter O’Connell sent to “whom it may concern” at the break-away church in April in which he said his principal concern “has been to preserve and protect the unity and communion of the Roman Catholic Church fractured by your actions.
“My greatest fear,” O’Connell wrote, is that Our Lady of Guadalupe founders will take “other well-intentioned Catholics down with them.”
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