Dr Eric,
As Deacon Ed has noted, The Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch (CACA), a/k/a The Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch: Malabar Rite, has nothing to do with Antioch or Malabar. In the world of those who study the "independent Catholic" and "independent Orthodox" Churches, this is one of those frequently described as a "Spruit-line church".
Richard Gundrey, who - last I knew - was its current "Archbishop", was a former Episcopalian who became involved with an obscure sect called the Religious Science Church. While there, he encountered CACA. The following is from his bio and gives you a taste of where he went from there:
in 1985 Richard met a man by the name of Dean Berenz in Santa Fe who was a priest in Herman Adrian Spruit's Church of Antioch. Richard asked Fr. Dean "What are you doing now?" Dean said "I was just ordained in a Metaphysical Catholic Church." Those were the buzz words that Richard needed to hear. A blending of metaphysical concepts with Sacred ritual which was the part of the Episcopal church that Richard loved the most.
and,
The church does not espouse any dogmatic teachings but allows freedom of interpretation and expression. This seemed to be the right place for Richard.
Having set that stage, he proceeded to bring Spruit's theology and Church to Santa Fe, a particularly fruitful area for the "independent movement". He claims (and probably has the best of several claims) to be the legitimate ecclesial successor to the late Herman Spruit. Gundrey forged a remarkably successful marriage ministry through the happenstance that the Church's Cathedral is a rather beautiful setting, a former Catholic chapel and historical site, very popular for weddings.
Spruit himself traced his claim of apostolic succession through a variety of lines, always pronouncing that his principal line was that which came down through the hands of Gerard Gul, a prominent Old Catholic (Utrecht) bishop, and Arnold Harris Mathew, Old Catholic bishop for Great Britain, whose name can be found in the episcopal lineages of a multitude of "independent hierarchs". Additionally, Spruit (among others) claimed to be the legitimate successor to a supposed American-based Greek-Catholic patriarchate said to have been willed to him by Antoine (Joseph) Aneed, a renegade Melkite priest, who put himself forth as having episcopal orders, although he held, at best, the honorific dignity of exarch.
Spruit, like many other
vagante, relied most heavily on his "Catholic", rather than "Orthodox" lines. Vagante hierarchs have generally tended to do this - even in instances where they purport to be "Orthodox" in theology or praxis.
The reason was (and is, though recent indications of a change in thinking by Rome is beginning to undermine reliance on it) in the significant differences between the theological thinking of Catholics and Orthodox as to the validity of orders and the dependent issue of the validity of sacraments.
Historically, there were basically two theories of apostolic succession and, in most instances, the application of the theory held by a given Church effectively determined the validity accorded to claimed presbyteral and episcopal orders and,
ipso facto, the validity of sacraments administered by those claiming to possess valid orders, whether presbyteral and/or episcopal (putting aside - for the moment - issues as to form and intent, since if there is no validity to the orders of the sacrament's minister, other considerations are of no consequence to either Church).
If the orders claimed to be possessed are themselves invalid, the sacraments derived from him who claims to possess orders will, in turn, be invalid if the sacrament is one which requires administration by an ordained minister - essentially any except baptism
in extremis in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and marriage in the Latin Church, where the parties are the ministers and the priest witnesses.
The
Augustinian theory effectively holds that valid episcopal ordination confers an indelible character that is not affected by any schismatic or heretical act or excommunication taken in response thereto or for any other reason. Accordingly, a validly ordained priest once validly ordained to the episcopate retains his capacity to exercise that order, though he may have been deprived juridically of the office or jurisdiction by which he performed episcopal acts. The latter considerations affect only the licitness of his acts.
The
Cyprianic theory effectively holds that a valid episcopal ordination is affected by schismatic or heretical acts and by excommunication taken in response thereto or for any other reason. Accordingly, a validly ordained priest once validly ordained to the episcopate retains his capacity to exercise that order only so long as he continues in communion with the jurisdiction under the authority of which he was ordained to the episcopate (or such other jurisdiction into which he may have subsequently been accepted) and is exercising the office or jurisdiction by which he has the right to perform those acts. There is no distinction made as to licitness.
The Catholic Church historically adhered to the Augustinian theory; the Orthodox Churches to the Cyprianic theory, (although the latter have exercised
oekonomia in its application to instances in which schismatic bodies have returned to communion).
Frankly, the Augustinian theory has been a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church. It effectively assured that all manner of independent hierarchs, both those who pursue their perceived vocation with spiritual and intellectual honesty and those who are
episcopi vagante in the most perjorative connotation accorded to the phrase, could sleep at night with at least a modicum of assurance that they possess valid episcopal orders, unless form or intent are at issue. The time-honored practice in the so-called "independent" Catholic and Orthodox movements of garnering multiple episcopal consecrations or, subsequently, being re-consecrated
sub conditione is effectively a means of leveraging the Augustinian theory.
Most such hierarchs operate on the premise that "more is better" or "there has to be at least one good one here somewhere". With most having an episcopal genealogy that traces back through an average of 30 ancestral lines of succession, from a combination of dissident Latin Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox hierarchs, they can feel reasonably secure. Those lines which cannot be proven valid because there is serious doubt as to the validity of one actor (
e.g., the so-called Melkite-Aneed Line) can and do feel comfortably buffered by such as the Old Catholic Lines, the Duarte Line, and even the Thuc Line (if they believe that Archbishop Thuc was possessed of sound mental faculties that allowed of proper intent in the years that he began consecrating these type of folk).
People sometimes pointed to subsequent acts by bishops of these "Churches" which break faith with Catholic doctrine and perceived these as breaking the line of apostolic succession. For instance, no bishop, regardless of the validity of his episcopal orders, can validly ordain a woman. But, that he did so would not necessarily have invalidated his subsequent ordination of a man, with proper intent and according to proper form. So, it was possible to go rather far afield theologically yet still retain apostolic succession.
None of this is to say that all such entities have valid orders or sacraments; as an example, pertinent to this discussion in fact, the Liberal Catholic Church is certainly suspect, but an inordinate amount of effort had to be put into tracing and verifying or rejecting such when presbyters or hierarchs of these Churches are received into communion by Rome.
The Orthodox Churches, relying on the canonically legal status of the hierarch conferring orders (his status in communion with a recognized jurisdiction to which the Church accords canonical status), had a much simpler task before them in assessing validity and, since they do not make the distinction of licitness, the end result is clear-cut.
The potentially most ironic consideration here is that, applying the Augustinian theory, the Catholic Church would in some instances likely accept the validity of presbyteral and episcopal orders, and, consequently, sacraments, of "independent Orthodox" (and by that I do not mean those essentially mainstream Orthodox Churches which are typically termed "non-canonical" or "of iregular status", but those of the so-called "independent movement") whom the Orthodox themselves would, rightfully, never deem to be of their Communion, under even the most liberal of interpretations.
What does all this mean for Spruit's lines of apostolic succession? He probably garnered at least one valid line, somewhere. Did he transmit it further? Difficult to know with certainty but, over time, his intent certainly became suspect, which would work against valid transmission, regardless of form or his own validity of orders.
A comment on Spruit's CACA by a friend of mine, David Zampino, made in a discussion elsewhere on this same topic
He (referring to Spruit) "collected" numerous "lines of succession", many, if not most, of dubious legitimacy -- and through his actions, any legitimacy that might have been present was almost certainly lost. He "consecrated" women (including two wives); his "theology" had more in common with theosophy and modern gnosticism than Christianity, etc. In Melton's Encyclopedia of Religious Organizations, a fairly standard reference work in the field, Spruit's organization is not listed with any of the branches of Christianity, but rather in the section dealing with occult, or occult-leaning bodies.
The Charismatic Episcopal Church initially had its orders from Spruit but had a belated realization that these might not be the ideal on which to base claims of apostolic succession and subsequently went out and sought them elsewhere.
While not quite so entrenched in theosophy and gnosticism as the various Liberal Catholic Churches (LCC), Spruit's own episcopal orders were received from Charles Hampton, a LCC hierarch, and Lowell Wadle (who fashioned the so-called "Wadle Mass", - the 'liturgy' that you encountered). It is cabalistically-based, to put it mildly and it, or a variation thereof, serves CACA and a few other bodies as their principal form of worship.
All in all, CACA is unlikely at this point in history to have valid orders, other than in the person of clergy who left Catholicism (or another Church with valid orders) for it.
The likelihood of any clergy or hierarchs from the more bizarre of these ecclesial entities being accepted by Rome as having valid orders has significantly decreased in the past few years, as Rome has, thankfully, taken a decided shift toward embracing a theory of validity that, while not as narrow as the Cyprianic theory, is decidedly less inclined to blithely accept these folk than was the historical Augustinian theory.
Many years,
Neil
