The Servants of the Good Shepherd was first established in 1973 to address a growing lack of traditional Catholic clergy in the mainstream of everyday American life. The goal of The Servants of the Good Shepherd has not been to have members who are "professional" clergy but rather, the goal has been on ordaining "worker" clergy who want to live and work among people and minister daily to their needs.
Our Goal is to bring the message and love of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, by example, good works, preaching and ministering the sacraments to those in need.
The Servants of the Good Shepherd was at one time a community in The Western Orthodox Church in America (WOCA). We seperated and formed the Unity Catholic Church. As was past custom, the SGS is the training and ordaining arm of the Unity Catholic Church. We still have a fine relationship with the WOCA based in California. We also have an Intercommunion agreements and informal agreements with many of the Independent Catholic and Orthodox Groups. |
To look at the history of The Servants of the Good Shepherd we will go back to July 25, 1945 and Bishop Duarte Costa started the Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira and registered with the Brazilian government. On August 15, 1945 Salomao Ferraz consecrated by Bishop Duarte Costa united the two Brazilian churches. On Jan 23, 1949 Stephen Meyer Corradi-Scarella was consecrated for a Brazilian mission to Panama. During 1949, no month and date available, Bishop Corradi-Scarella arrives in the United States and starts the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America (later called the Old Catholic Church in America.
On June 30 1973 C.David Luther ordained as deacon and on Nov 25, 1973 was ordained a priest by Bishop Corradi-Scarella.
In 1973 C David Luther founded the Community of the Good Shepherd and in 1977 it changed its name to The Servants of the Good Shepherd.
In May of 1980 the National Catholic Apostolic Church of America changes its name to the Western Orthodox Church in America. On June of 1983 Bishop C David Luther also was the leader of the Western Orthodox Church in America and continued to lead the two groups together for many years.
Two years prior to his death, Bishop Luther retired from the Council of Bishops of the Western Orthodox Church in America (WOCA) leaving the leadership to Bishop Paul Diederich and Bishop Nickolas Careone. By amicable agreement with the other bishops, Bishop Luther retained his position as ordinary of the religious order known as the Servants of the Good Shepherd (SGS). From that time until his passing, the SGS and WOCA operated as separate ecclesiastical entities.
During the next years, the actual existence of the SGS was in limbo basically. The name SGS would have continued with the WOCA in California since it remained connected to them.
Because of my desire to see the SGS continue in its original mission, I meet and spoke to several prior SGS members during the Winter 2003-2004. We found that most of the Bishops had left the SGS and many had been left with no contact with a national SGS office. Due to an error on our part, where we were informed that Bishop Careone had passed away. ( This was given to us from a Orthodox group in MN ) Those SGS and new inquirers meet and decided to reform the original SGS. It was only after we had finished forming the new group we found out that Bishop Careone, presiding Bishop of the WOCA ( California ) was actually still alive.
The decision made at that time was to ask for use of the SGS name and continue our group as a separate new group, but still tied historically to the original SGS group.
I joined the SGS as a brother in the late 83, although I actually started with the goup before that but not officially a brother till then and on Sept 9, 1990, I was ordained by Bishop C. David Luther into the Servants of the Good Shepherd. In June of 2004 by election of the newly formed board of directors of the SGS I was nominated and consecrated as Bishop for the Servants of the Good Shepherd. In July of 2004 the standing Council of Bishops decided to have our church known as the Independent Orthodox Church in America and have the Servants of the Good Shepherd be an order within the church. This was done for legal reasons because we were still using the SGS name. On June 13, 2005 to more properly express our beliefs and tradtions we changed our name to Unity Catholic Church.
While being involved with other ministries for the past few years, and I want to thank all the priests and Bishops that have helped me learn to listen to God and to follow his leadings. Knowing that the Servants of the Good Shepherd was in need of new leadership and having great love for the purpose of the group, I was happy to be have the opportunity to lead the group.
And we hope with some of our newer rules of joint membership, others that could not join before will wish to join a very historic group, tracing our roots through Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh and Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa and to St. Paul, the tent maker.
One just has to look at the background of many of the groups in the Independent Catholic groups and those that also use the Orthodox name, to see them having ties to the historic WOCA of Bishop Luther and the Servants of the Good Shepherd.
We invite you to review our web site, and come and join us, and we even hope that some of those with ties to us will join us in intercommunion of our groups.
At this time, any and all reference to the term WOCA means the historic WOCA which I was a part that was headed and started by Bishop Luther, and which continues today in based in California and lead by Bishop Careone.
There is another group based in MN using and claiming the WOCA name. We are not in fellowship with them and any reference to WOCA does not mean their group, by only the historical group that used WOCA lead by Bishop Luther, and the current WOCA group in California. I have a lot of the church history in forms of letters and items from church meetings. But there is still a lot of the history that was lost when Bishops left or died and we were unable to get their records. And views differ on how some things happened. Allot of the time very different. I can only tell you what I have a record of from the writings of other SGS Bishops, or what I say happen first hand during my over 20 years with the SGS.
It is unfortunate, but the story of the SGS and WOCA is characteristic of much of what is wrong with the Independent Movement. It seems as if each time there were new bishops consecrated that a schism occurred within a year or so. And at times even after a month or so. So many of the groups, I have seen come, and many go, and as with all splits, so it is the birth of our group. |