Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement or ORCM is a group of priests founded by Fr. Francis E. Fenton acting on the suggestions of Fr. Joaquin Saenz y Arriaga, S.J., and was the U.S. organization parallel to the Mexican organization, the Union Catolica Trento founded by Fr. Saenz along with Frs. Moises Carmona and Adolfo Zamora.
Fenton was a member of the conservative John Birch Society, a political organization founded with the stated purpose of fighting Communism, and was on its speakers bureau circuit (i.e., the American Opinion Speakers Bureau).
Originally a diocesan priest, Fenton became disaffected with the Vatican II reforms of the liturgy being implemented in the U.S. in March, 1970 and quit to form the ORCM.
Fr. Fenton began celebrating the Tridentine Mass in a private home in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. In March, 1972 the group acquired a chapel in Brewster, New York. Later they purchased a chapel in Monroe, Connecticut, where in January, 1973 they installed as pastor the Dominican priest, Fr. Robert McKenna, who had recently joined the ORCM.
By fall 1975, the ORCM had gained Frs. Paul Marceau, Charles P. Donohue, Leo M. Carley and Daniel E. Jones ("Dan Jones"), the English Benedictine Placid White, Joseph Gorecki and some other priests, totaling eleven, and services were being held in California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey and New York. A growth period followed, and by 1979 a circuit system set up among the eleven priests offered the Tridentine Mass in sixteen states.
The ORCM was an active movement, and from its presses came several books and numerous pamphlets on the Mass, modest dress, freemasonry, obedience to the Pope, and modern trends in the Catholic Church. The movement stood firm on Pope Pius V's legislation Quo Primum Tempore and the belief that Pope Paul VI's New Mass was doctrinally unsound, that it is influenced in the Protestant direction, and was thus faithfully following Luther's and Cranmer's gradual reforms of the liturgy.
The ORCM set up its priestly seminary in Colorado and Fenton approached Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre C.S.Sp. for ordinations; when Lefebvre refused, the ORCM sent four of its seminarians, under the leadership of Anthony Ward, to Lefebvre's SSPX seminary at Armada, Michigan.
Controversy plagued the ORCM from the beginning. Fr. Fenton's membership in and vocal support for the John Birch Society led to continual criticism from potential supporters. While many respected the "conservative" stance of the Society and its strong opposition to Communism, they disapproved of Fenton's support of a non-Catholic organization, believing that this distracted followers from the more central concerns of the Traditionalist Catholic movement.
In the late 1970s internal disputes that had grown within the movement became public. Fr. Fenton and Fr. McKenna O.P., never friendly, came into conflict over the latter's addition to the ORCM's board. A two-year battle for control of the ORCM led to a split with Fr. McKenna coming out in control (1981).
It is alleged that one of the ORCM's wealthy patrons instigated and funded the McKenna faction's takeover of the ORCM.
It is not known whether Fenton was ejected or if he resigned when he lost control over it.
After this, Fenton retreated to Colorado Springs, along with Fr. Placid White, where fellow-Birchites William and Rita Quinn harbored them, and where he founded the Traditional Catholics of America and began to publish The Athanasian, named after St. Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, who had been forced into exile by the Arian heretics.
A small group continued to follow him into the 1990s, including John Kenneth Weiskittel. For a time, Fenton was associated with the Society of St. Pius V. Current information on the Fenton group is not available, and it is believed that Fenton died sometime after 1993, when the Athanasian last mentioned him.[citation needed]
Among present or former ORCM members, besides McKenna (in 1986), it seems that Fr. Paul Marceau too had been consecrated a bishop, for he is credited with having performed the consecration of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima at Spring Hills, Florida on its history page.[citation needed] (That church is presently presided over by independent Terence Fulham, a bishop derived from the Carlos Duarte Costa succession.)
The movement, what remains of it, exists nominally and no longer has the vibrant life that it had before the displacement of Fenton. Under Fenton, the movement was not merely organized to provide Masses, but also had an active intellectual component, which died out with his displacement.
McKenna now heads the movement from his headquarters in Monroe, Connecticut, and reports several chapels and missions with regularly scheduled masses. Since McKenna himself has become Sedeprivationist from the time of his episcopal consecration, the present ORCM as led by him, is also Sedeprivationist and no longer a Sedevacantist Theory body.
