Peter Paul Brennan (November 1, 1941–August 1, 2016) was an American

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in the Independent Catholic movement. He was Bishop of New York for the Old Catholic Confederation, a bishop of the Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of the Americas, bishop of the

African Orthodox Church The African Orthodox Church (AOC), registered as the Holy African Orthodox Church, is an Episcopalian, primarily African-American denomination which was founded in the United States in 1918 by the joint collaboration of its first Patriarch George ...

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

of the

Order of Corporate Reunion The Order of Corporate Reunion (OCR), officially the Christian, Ecumenical, and Fraternal Order of Corporate Reunion, is an ecumenical association of clergy and laity of Anglican origin. The OCR was founded by Frederick George Lee, Thomas Wimber ...

, and president of

Married Priests Now! Married Priests Now! (MPN!) is an advocacy group founded and formerly led by Emmanuel Milingo, a former Roman Catholic bishop from Zambia. MPN is a liberal Catholic organization calling for relaxing the rules concerning marriage in the Latin Rite C ...

(founded by

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

archbishop

Emmanuel Milingo Emmanuel Milingo (born June 13, 1930) is an excommunicated former Roman Catholic archbishop from Zambia. He was ordained in 1958; in 1969, aged 39, Milingo was consecrated by Pope Paul VI as the bishop of the Archdiocese of Lusaka. In 1983, he ...

Biography

Brennan was born on November 1, 1941. In his adulthood, he attended St. John's Atonement Seminary, which closed in 1967. Although Brennan had previously been

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

within an Old Catholic denomination, in 2006 he was consecrated a bishop "''sub conditione''", with four other married priests, by

—then Roman Catholic archbishop of Lusaka in Zambia. As these ordinations were done without papal approval, Milingo was

and eventually

laicized In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the loss of clerical state (commonly referred to as laicization, dismissal, defrocking, and degradation) is the removal of a bishop, priest, or deacon from the status of being a member of the clergy. The t ...

. Regarding Brennan's episcopal ordination by Milingo the

Holy See Press Office The Holy See Press Office ( la, Sala Stampa Sanctae Sedis; it, Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, links=http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/) publishes the official news of the activities of the Pope and of the various departments of the ...

declared, in a carefully worded statement that: "While expressing hope for their conversion, the Church reaffirms what was declared on 26 September 2006, namely that she does not recognize these ordinations, nor does she intend to recognize them, or any subsequent ordinations based on them, in the future. Hence the canonical status of the supposed bishops remains as it was prior to the ordination conferred by Archbishop Milingo." This denial of canonical status means that Brennan had no authority to exercise any ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. The Reverend Ciro Benedettini of the Holy See Press Office, who was responsible for publicly issuing the press conference communique on Milingo, told reporters that any ordinations that the excommunicated Milingo had performed prior to his laicization were "

illicit but valid Validity and liceity are concepts in the Catholic Church. Validity designates an action which produces the effects intended; an action which does not produces the effects intended is considered "invalid". Liceity designates an action which has bee ...

", while any subsequent ordinations would be invalid. On June 11, 2011, the

Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts The Dicastery for Legislative Texts, formerly named Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, is a dicastery of the Roman Curia. It is distinct from the highest tribunal or court in the Church, which is the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Sign ...

issued a statement about illicitly ordained bishops, pointing out the canons which provide for an automatic ''

latae sententiae (Latin meaning "of a/the sentence lreadypassed") and (Latin meaning "sentence to be passed") are ways sentences are imposed in the Catholic Church in its canon law. A penalty is a penalty that is inflicted , automatically, by force of the l ...

'' excommunication for both the ordaining bishop and those ordained. Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the council, explained that the statement applied to the bishops ordained by Milingo as well as to more recent cases in the Chinese Patriotic Association. After the resignation of Bertil Persson as leader of the Order of Corporate Reunion, Brennan succeeded as primate. Brennan died on August 1, 2016, and was subsequently succeeded by Michael Kline as primate of the Order of Corporate Reunion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brennan, Peter Paul 1941 births 2016 deaths American Old Catholic bishops