A handful of area Catholics have begun an effort to create the state's first parish under the auspices of the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America.
The church, often referred to as CACINA, is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
A call to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore seeking comment was not returned.
There are currently less than 10 parishes nationwide, according to Bishop Anthony Santore, the church's national leader, with the most active parishes in Virginia and New York.
The church allows women, married men and lesbian and gay people to be clergy, according to Santore, who oversees the Holy Trinity Parish in Reston, Va.
"We're a slow moving community, but we always look forward to a new parish," Santore said.
Joe Wickless, one of the organizers behind the new parish effort, said he first considered trying to start a local CACINA parish after feeling slightly disenfranchised with the Roman Catholic Church's administration -- not with Catholicism itself.
Both he and his wife, Ruth Ann, have been active members of various area Roman Catholic churches over the years.
An Arbutus resident for 20 years, he said he has served in music ministry and his wife in youth ministry.
They are fond of their faith communities.
But both feel an underlying struggle with some of the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church's leadership, Wickless said.
For example, the church's refusal to allow married men to be ordained "is a big stumbling block," he said.
"After years and years of thinking about things, we began to explore things that were close to Catholicism without becoming Protestant," he said.
In CACINA, Wickless said, he and his wife found that alternative.
"We really feel that it offers people the things they love about Catholicism -- the rituals, the bells and smells, so to speak -- but without the administration of Rome," he said.
CACINA "goes much more to the spirit of Vatican II" than the Roman Catholic Church, he said, in that it stresses an inclusive approach to ordination and the empowering of lay people in running local parishes.
The Catholic Apostolic Church was started in Brazil in 1945 after Bishop Carlos Duarte-Costa, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, broke from the Roman Catholic Church over the Vatican's foreign policy toward Nazi Germany during World War II and the Brazilian church's treatment of the country's poor, according to CACINA's Web site.
The North American church was started in 1949, Santore said.
While CACINA is "not a gay activist church," it is welcoming and inclusive of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, Wickless said.
"We make no discrimination against anybody who wants to come to the table of Christ," Santore said.
The new parish got rolling not long ago, when the Wicklesses and their friends Charles and Patricia Ernst, of Linthicum, began looking for contacts in CACINA and found the Rev. Peter Smith -- pastor at one of the closest CACINA parishes to the Baltimore area, St. Andrew the Apostle in Warrenton, Va.
Smith, who lives in Catonsville, expressed interest in starting a parish closer to his home and offered his support, Wickless said.
After a little planning, the group held its inaugural liturgy on Oct. 26 at the Dewey Loman American Legion hall in Arbutus.
The liturgy was celebrated in the Roman Catholic tradition, as is CACINA custom, and was presided over by Smith.
Santore attended, and after the liturgy he took questions from those in attendance unfamiliar with CACINA and its differences from the Roman Catholic Church.
Parishioners from his parish in Reston also attended to help answer questions.
About 35 people from around the Baltimore area attended, Wickless said, which was encouraging for him, his wife and the Ernsts because news of the event had only spread by word of mouth.
It showed there is broad interest in starting a CACINA parish in Maryland, he said.
"We're basically trying to begin what is a lot like a Catholic parish," he said. "It would look and feel the same way."
The group needs five families to commit to the parish before it will be officially recognized by CACINA and it seems they are well on their way, Wickless said.
They met on Nov. 3 at the Ernsts' house and are now looking for a location to hold a liturgy on Dec. 7.
Wickless is also trying to find a permanent location for the parish.
"We've got a pretty firm commitment, once we have enough people for a financial base, to have a worship space," he said.
CACINA parishioners financially support their parishes, Santore said, because the national church doesn't tax its local communities. Instead, each parish is self-sufficient.
In that way, the organization of the church "is very early-Christian," Santore said.
Wickless said he is excited to see how the parish will grow, where it will find a permanent location and how its community will develop.
Still, he said he understands it may take a while for those things to happen.
"It's a big step for people" to join a CACINA parish, he said. "As disenchanted or disaffected a Roman Catholic is, it's still hard to walk away. There's a lot of memories."
Those interested in the new parish can e-mail him at gbcacina@gmail.com, he said.
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(Source: EBC)