Arnold Mathew

Arnold Harris Mathew (1852–1919) was the first Old Catholic bishop in the United Kingdom.

Mathew was a suspended Roman Catholic priest before joining the Old Catholic movement. His early life is the subject of some interest from researchers as a result of his aristocratic connections and his father's connection with colonial India.

The context of Mathew's mission

Mathew has been the subject of criticism from the Continental Old Catholics who claim that Mathew obtained his consecration to the historic Episcopate in 1908 through deception. The consecration of Mathew as a missionary bishop for England has to be set in the context of " _fr. La Succession apostolique dans l’Église anglicane" (1894) in which some Old Catholics within the Union of Utrecht questioned the validity of Anglican orders and "Apostolicae Curae" issued (1896) by Pope Leo XIII which concluded that Anglican orders were so lacking in Catholicity that they were in effect null and void.

The mission of Mathew was to erect a valid Catholic ministry in England where the Anglican Church was viewed as being deficient in holy orders.

Consecration

Mathew was consecrated in 1908 after the Utrecht Union of Old Catholic Churches approved the establishment of a mission in the United Kingdom despite there being a vigorous national (Anglican) Church already in existence in the United Kingdom. It was agreed by the Continental Old Catholics that Mathew had a significant following in Britain, although recent research indicates that his actual congregation varied in the period immediately prior to consecration and during his episcopacy. He was consecrated by Old Catholic Archbishop Gerardus Gul of Utrecht on April 28, 1908. Assisting Gul was Bishop J. J. Van Thiel of Haarlem, Bishop N. B. P. Spit of Deventer and Bishop J. Demmel of Bonn, Germany.

Mission in England 1908-1919

Mathew formally established the Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain, which for a time was part of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht. Mathew eventually raised a number of expelled priests to the episcopacy by himself without notifying the Union of Utrecht. Mathew's consecrations including two former Roman Catholic priests, Fathers Howarth and Beale, who had been excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham for embezzling. Mathew then sent documents to Pope Pius X attesting to the episcopal consecrations. Upon receipt of these documents, Pope Pius X published the bull "Cravi Iamdiu Scandalo" in which he excommunicated Mathew and condemned him as a "pseudo-bishop" without authority and declared him "vitandus", a term in church law which meant that Roman Catholics were subject to censure if they had anything to do with Mathew. Pius X also extended his sentence of excommunication to include those who had been consecrated by Bishop Mathew.

On December 29, 1910, Mathew declared his autonomy from the Continental Old Catholics and their Union of Utrecht due to disagreements with certain practices and disciplines that Mathew felt deviated from Catholic tradition, such as the increasing tendency to discourage frequent auricular confession and veneration of relics and saints by continental Old Catholics.

Mathew later consecrated Prince Rudolph Edward de Landes Berghes, an Austrian formerly-Roman Catholic nobleman, in 1913 for apostolic work among Old Catholics (or: Old Roman Catholics) in Scotland. Research in relation to this historic personality is largely unrevealing and more research is required in this area.

In January 1916 Mathew announced that he would be reconciled to the Holy See but changed his mind two months later, because the Holy See insisted he would only be reconciled as a layman and would be obliged to accept the doctrine of papal infallibility and primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Mathew then sought union with the Church of England but the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury refused to give Mathew any position as an Anglican clergyman. Mathew retired to a village in the English countryside and contented himself with assisting at services in an Anglican parish church as a layman. By this time he had been deserted by his wife (he had married after his suspension as Roman Catholic priest) and had been abandoned by virtually all the priests and bishops he had ordained. Mathew died suddenly in December 1919 and was buried as an Anglican layman in the Parish of Saint Giles, South Mimms, Hertfordshire.

Validity and Hiram Richard Hulse

Critics have called the holy orders conferred by Mathew into question in the period following the departure of Mathew from the Union of Utrecht. According to supporters the consecration of Hiram Hulse indicates that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA (PECUSA) regarded the Mathew line as not only being valid but even desirable. On 12 January 1915 in New York City, Hiram Hulse was consecrated as a Bishop in Cuba for the Protestant Episcopal Church assisted by Bishop de Landes Berghes in the Mathew line. This indicates that there were no apparent perceived problems in relation to valid holy orders in the 20th Century. De Landes Berghes, consecrated after Mathew left the Union of Utrecht, was apparently viewed as valid by his contemporaries despite any adverse comments from Utrecht.

Contemporary significance

Mathews activities as a bishop gave birth to the Liberal Catholic Church, founded by two Theosophical priests he consecrated to the episcopacy, and the more conservative Old Roman Catholic Churches, which are autocephalous churches holding to a Roman Catholic worship style, while rejecting the dogmas of the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) in several ways.

There are hundreds of Churches, 'rites' and ecclesiastic bodies in the English speaking world and some in Continental Europe that are in the Mathew line. This makes Mathew a significant figure in Old Catholic history.

In the USA there are two sedevacantist "traditionalist" Catholic bishops, controversial Francis Schuckardt for example, whose orders are descended from Mathew's consecrations. In the United Kingdom the traditionalist 'orthodox' position is often maintained by the Old Catholic Church in Europe (OCCE) which has as its stated aim the maintenance of orthodox Old Catholicism which would support the original aims of Mathew.