Liberal Catholic Church International
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The Liberal Catholic Church International arose from the 1941 schism of the Liberal Catholic Church in the United States, which surrounded the controversy involving American Regionary Bishop Charles Hampton, who wished to keep adherence to theosophical tenets optional for all clergy, in accordance with the wishes of the church's first two Presiding Bishops, J. I. Wedgwood and C. W. Leadbeater. The church had come into existence in 1916 as a reorganization of the Old Catholic movement in Britain.
During the controversy of the 1940s, Presiding Bishop Frank W. Pigott, who embraced a more theosophical vision for the church's future, suspended Hampton and all the clergy under him who refused to endorse his episocopal replacement. Pigott also ordered the confiscation of church property at the Regionary headquarters in California. The American Synod saw this as a breach of canon law and a violation of the laws of California under which the church had been incorporated in America.
The majority of clergy in America, who had supported Hampton, broke with Pigott and continued as the Liberal Catholic Church, with Bishop Ray M. Wardall becoming the next Presiding Bishop in 1943. The church eventually won the right in a court of law to use the name The Liberal Catholic Church (while being called the Liberal Catholic Church International in the rest of the world), although the litigation was settled after Hampton's death.
The church maintains a high level of intellectual liberty for its members in such matters as the interpretion of creeds, as well as freedom of conscience, and since 2004 practices the ordination of women to all Holy Orders up to and including bishop. The current Presiding Bishop is Archbishop Charles Finn.
Also in 2004, the Liberal Catholic Church International admitted to its fellowship the Order of St. Thomas, which became the first religious order to affiliate with the church.
