“Catholic” but not “Roman Catholic”: a priest from the “United American Catholic Church” responds

You may remember that I wrote about Rev. William Freeman last month, in a post about Catholic weddings.   Though I quoted extensively from his own website, and used his own words, he took issue with my conclusions, and asked for an opportunity to respond. I agreed. You can read his essay here. 

I think his response speaks for itself. But I would like to make one clarification, which I mentioned to him privately in an e-mail. Rev. Freeman states, “The problem here is that the deacon’s construct is faulty. His starting point is that all things authentically ‘Catholic’ must be ‘Roman Catholic.'”

No. I never said that. My problem with Rev. Freeman is that while he calls himself “Catholic,” unlike numerous Catholic rites (notably from the Eastern and Byzantine tradition) his particular Catholic church is not in communion with Rome and  at least one Catholic bishop has declared his church to be in schism.

A final footnote: Rev. Freeman’s church traces its apostolic lineage to Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa of Brazil, who was excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1945.