Faithful and Fearless: The Legacies of Troy Perry and William Brothers

Welcome to "Expanding Your Faith," a podcast that tackles modern-day issues with a focus on spirituality. With Bishop Breyer Godsey, Reverend Mark Trim, Father Match Novel, and Bishop Ben Williams, thanks for listening. Take a breath, open your heart, and let's expand your faith together. We're going to talk about a few characters of faith people that we know or are inspired by or have an affinity for and just kind of do a little history on them. Reverend Mark is going to share with us in just a moment some story and history of the Reverend Elder Troy Terry, the founder of Metropolitan Community Churches. And then somewhere about halfway through, I'm going to talk about the right Reverend William Henry Francis Brothers, affectionately called the Bishop of Woodstock. So, two distinct religious characters in our respective movements. So, Reverend Mark, tell us about Reverend Elder Troy Perry. Reverend Elder Troy Perry is a pioneer, if you will, and he is the founder of Beth Pove, Metropolitan Community Churches. It's the denomination of my church as a part of the worldwide and over 22 countries. And some 300 churches, 40 plus thousand members. So, five. Reverend Elder Troy Perry, and he is a very interesting individual. He's spearheaded some, waiting the waters, the two villages, so folks that are very inclusive, language and ideas and practices and from that movement's birth to the whole denomination. So, some of his impact is very much felt across some of the world. A matter of fact, a member of the things that he had through his journey, but now resides at the Smithsonian. So, it is, I believe, one of his Bibles, some of his notes, and some original material we'll talk about. And sorry to do so. Very interesting and visual. So, Reverend Elder Troy Perry was a former Pentecostal preacher who actually started out in the Baptist tradition. And then, we go over to the Church of God, which is very interesting for me because my background has been a pastor. And it was predominantly great. He's, before we move, my family moved over to charismatic circles. He's put on my blade in the Church of God, same combination, that's for the Perry. My great, great grandfather was one of the founding members of the Church of God, so, a little bit of my history and DNA. But, Reverend Charles Perry, the minister in the Church of God, was along with his journey. He confided in the minister's people. So, we have the same self-subtraction from sexual attraction. And they purged him to marry a woman. It never quite seems to work out the way they hope it will. No. Eventually, people kicked out, thrown out. And spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do next, but having kicked out of my nomination, but having set down from past during the trying to figure out what the next thing happened somewhat, went with the high school. Where he was, what was going on in the full-time ministry over to not. His journey was interesting. He separated from his partner. And he wondered for a little bit, to take suicide. He's really struggling. He was of age in very unaccepting moments in our country. '50s, '40s, excuse me, '50s, '60s and got an out of ministry and then moved into by this time he was over in the Los Angeles area. And following his attention to suicide and then something else that would be deeply impacted, you know, because some of the uprising at the catch bar of the Los Angeles. This is now 1968. So, this is prior to some of the other. witnesses seems, you know, police officers going into the catch bar, the catch bar against known for being the place for LGBT community to go and socialize. And so, as often happened, law enforcement of that day, public loaned purposes, where queer community would go and socialize. They rated it, saw that, arrested, and it's really a pretty big impact on him in terms of writing where what to next, you know, really created a right to see the nation's social such corruption, social oppression towards the community of queer community. And also realizing this, this being a part of the faith community. And obviously, at that time, the LGBT community not largely accepted churches. Matter of fact, lately crossed out. Unwelcome. And some circles that has not changed and other circles, it's got a little bit. So, in 1968, we're beginning about total, we decided that we was gonna launch a something for both spiritual and possibly social justice, education. Right. So, we took that out in 2000 and the Catholic book, he was going to the G.F. hosting, the spiritual service, church service for people, a part of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community, the terms of that day. And I can't even say that without having to think about it, I'm sorry, just saying the other. So, that's extremely bold to do, especially nowadays, right? Well, particularly, yeah, definitely nowadays. But even more so, during that time period, because again, you have police officers going to locations and arresting people. Most places across America, it was not permitted for it to be any type of public gathering where LGBTQ individuals were concentrated. They couldn't have public gatherings. So 12 people showed up. And they went great, you know, they get together. So, he said, you know, let's do it the next Sunday. The next Sunday, they had 14. He said, okay, we're doing something all right. So, the next Sunday, they had 16. And then he tells the story by the fourth Sunday, they had only nine. Just about how every preacher can attest, you know, you have attendance go up steadily and then you have that one or two Sundays where it's like everybody's forgotten. where the church is. So, and then that following Sunday, 22 attended. And from that point forward, MCC has never dropped below 22 people as he tells the story. But so, you know, things begin to happen. Things begin to take place. There seem to be a want for continual church service. and move forward, begin to grow there again in the Los Angeles area. And again, this is 1968. So, this is just before Stonewall. Troy Perry begins to move forward in creating that safe space in several different things that you do as you, you know, form a church and go forth. A couple of months after his beginning, however, they made national news and the look real quick 'cause I'm trying to remember the magazine, hold on. So, they begin, they find it here. So, just a few months down the road from forming MCC or starting the church, that is, there, he performs what is widely considered one of the first recorded public weddings. on record. Of course, it's legally, you know, it was non-binding because legally, same sex could not marry at the time, even in California. And it was to Latino gentlemen that Troy performed a service for. And things begin to grow from that point forward. And as they begin to grow, he took note, you know, months down the road. He took note that there were so many different traditions and backgrounds that were coming to his services. He began to inquire people's backgrounds. The Catholic, Episcopal, Protestants were all in that group and they were coming together. So, you know, he began to formulate how do we make everybody, you know, that's coming from various backgrounds, different backgrounds. How do we do all that? How do we get everybody pulled together? together? How do we, how do we have a worship service that feels inclusive? You know, how do we include all these different types of worship? You know, my background's been a costal. And our worship tradition is vastly different than old Catholic. You know, we only would have, you know, some of the difference, you know, we, we only had communion once every quarter, if that, as opposed to, you know, Catholic tradition. And now the MCC denomination, that's every time we get together, every service, you know, we, we, you know, the gift of speaking in tongues in the Pentecostal circles is heavily emphasized as opposed to other groups and so on and so forth. So you got to get the picture there where he has all these people coming and all of the, and with all these people varying backgrounds. So how do you put that together? And they begin to formulate, begin to put together the ideals and then they started also realizing that their ministry wasn't just on the spiritual side of what they needed to do. They weren't just doing spiritual work as far as church. I don't separate really spiritual or justice and social impacts from spiritual matters, but people can't get the idea of what I'm trying to talk about. You know, how do you do church? How do you do church for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals? How does that, what does that look like? And so they'd be, they started to put all that together and then you fast forward, stone wall happens and all of the events forward with stone wall, you have an increased number of people aware that here we have a whole group of folks in America who are being, you know, ostracized and gone, you know, they're, you know, the new group that police are going after and so on and so forth. They're being denigrated and so on and that moves us into a movement across America to launch pride or to begin to think of what we can do to organize marches and that leads us into the pride marches, leads us into the birth of the pride flag, which originally was seven colors. You know, pink was part of it, but you know, as the history goes, there was a shortage of being of that color available during the birth of the pride and so they were worried about being able to print and so they dropped the pink for that reason and so from New York to Chicago and Los Angeles, these parades get organized and who helps lead one of the first major ones there and that's Troy Perry. He's out there and not only is he a part of a parade, but he's a part of parade advertising showing that, hey, we're a church, we're here, ministering to people in various traditions and so he's out there parading and, you know, you think about this. This is not too far removed from when so many things are happening with civil rights. Dr. King was shot and killed that year that MCC has founded and started and so all of that's going on and here you have a beautiful group of community coming together and marching for the rights of the LGBTQI community. So he's a pioneer. He has the vision that the queer community also has a place at the table of Christ and he begins to do something about it. He has a dream, he has a vision and he often says, you know, he didn't know at that time what that meant, but, you know, all the way over here in the Bible, Bible Belt in Augusta, Georgia founded in 1987, you know, just under 20 years removed, MCC of Augusta. Now MCC of our redeemer is founded and then it moves across America and around the world and his impact of moving towards the message of inclusion begins to start to resonate with varying groups, the Episcopal Church, some of the first to stand up and begin to affirm queer individuals and that they're welcoming the church created to have that inclusive mindset moving over into churches and to places of worship. And, you know, Reverend Perry, he's written several books, the first pamphlet that he wrote that he handed out to people at the church was homosexuality. Not a sickness, not a sin and wrapped up his little pamphlet showing the beliefs of the church and so forth. Then they had, you know, first copies of his books, all this now in the Smithsonian catalogued for gay and queer history and his impact continues even today. You know, he's almost 80, I think 85 now and, you know, not preaching like he used to, obviously, but still, you know, a figurehead in our denomination and the vision continues, you know, we over here at MCC work diligently to make sure that our community is knows that they belong at the table of Christ. That's one of the starting points for us and then we work our way out from there and hopefully we can continue for the next 40 plus years. and become even more active just as he was by his inspiration. So, so many people, so many wonderful groups a lot to a man who was kicked out of his denomination because of who he loved and thrown off to the side. He endured the depression and attempts at suicides, seeing his fellow people ridiculed and he stuck with God and received that vision to begin a safe space for those that everybody else was casting aside. Oh, why you're searching one of the couple of things for him. You know, he held there in Los Angeles County a seat on the commission for human rights relationships in 1973. He was very much opposed to Anita Bryant. in the Save the Children campaign. He, again, several of his materials have been part of, given to the, to the Smithsonian, the charter, the church charter for MCC of San Francisco. That's now part of the museum. Some of the original copy of the Life magazine that documented the first recorded openly queer wedding is, is part of their. So a lot of amazing things are a part of part of our history, both now and our nation, but also part of our denomination. So really neat. The more you dive into it, you, you find out that he was, he was a huge figurehead. 1978, he was honored by the ACLU, lesbian and gay rights chapter. They bestowed a humanitarian award upon him. He's met with several presidents from President Carter, President Clinton, President Obama. Of course, during the time with President Clinton, he spent a good bit of time trying to, he participated in the first White House conference on HIV AIDS. So very much in part of that. And so yeah, he was also part of the one of those prayer breakfasts in the Clinton administration. So here there he is amongst all those other spiritual leaders and being recognized. So really, really amazing person. I've, I've only briefly met him and he's pretty dynamic in ministry in a visionary. Well, and hopefully they didn't make the mistake of sitting him next to Jerry Falwell at one of those breakfasts. Oh, that would have been great. That would have been amazing to watch. Yeah, he probably would have loved it. Probably. I don't know that Falwell would have, but... I will Falwell would have got him left. Well, thank you, Reverend Mark. That's amazing. And I did not know all of that about Reverend Elder Troy Perry. I do remember doing a little bit of digging on him a while ago and learning about everything that happened in New Orleans. And that just amazed me because, you know, he went there and conducted the funeral service after so many LGBT individuals were killed in a bar fire in New Orleans. And he inspired so many of them who were not out of the closet. Right. That they chose to come out the front doors with him even though the press was out there and protesters and everything else. And all of these people coming out of the closet basically at this funeral service. It was amazing. So he's a very inspirational person. Yeah, back in the time where when you did something like that, if you had a career or something very prestigious, it could be career ending. Yeah, Reverend Elder Perry is still alive. But, you know, one last thing he's now added or he's they added his name to the Stonewall Hall of Fame, more than 50 individuals. So he's he's a part of that. It just goes on. It's not necessarily scratched the surface with him and great guy to look into. And you can get some of you can go online and find some of his YouTube videos of him. Well, thank you, Reverend Mark. I appreciate that. I'm going to share probably not as illustrious of a character. He's one of those interesting characters from old Catholicism in the United States. a man by the name of Bishop William Henry Francis Brothers was born in 1886. Interesting fact, he died one month after I was born. I was one month old when he died in July 21st of 1979. So and he was an old Catholic Benedictine and an advocate for immigrants, workers and the poor. He is originally born in England, found his way over here to walk Keegan, Illinois, where he lived for a while with the Reverend Father Bernard Harding, former monk of St. Gregory's Abbey in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma. And so yeah, and he decided to kind of wander around and, you know, ultimately found old Catholicism joined yet and began building Benedictines around him. So and then one of the other big characters in our movement is Archbishop the law and Bishop Brothers was ordained by the law sometime around 1910, 1911. It's a little murky. And then as it typically goes in old Catholicism, brothers then deposed a lot, got rid of him through him out of the church. So that's a really weird situation. Let's see. What are some of the things about him here? He then began after he was ordained and consecrated. He began gathering a group of followers who were basically displaced young men, young men who had nowhere to go. Their families, he kicked them out. They were living on the streets and stuff. And so he began to build this order up in Waukegan and became their abbot, named the monastery St. Dustin's Abbey there in Waukegan. According to the living church, it was a rented house in Waukegan, then he turned into this abbey. And then Bishop Grafton tried to take over it and declared himself their absentee abbot. Again, that's how Catholicism does sometimes. St. Andrews Cross, publication back in 1912, printed a letter which informed Grafton and that Grafton had dedicated the Benedictine Abbey and von de Lach under the title of St. Dustin's Abbey after the former Archbishop of Canterbury. They did mostly work amongst the foreign population in the Diocese of Fond de Lach, working with them at the time. Let's see. After Grafton died in 1912, his successor Bishop Weller did not support the monastery. He basically told him to take a hike. And so the building was then repossessed by the Diocese and Bishop Brothers ended up buying a large home in Waukegan and continued to call it St. Dustin's Abbey. At that point, because of all of the riffs, brothers joined with five other members of his community, the Polish Old Catholic Church under Bishop Jan Techie. So that was interesting. Grafton had actually, this one of the weird things in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was where brothers had come from before he joined Old Catholicism. Grafton had fallen ill and he transferred all of the monastery and its oversight to Techie and the Polish Old Catholic Church and remained in charge of the monastery until 1914. attempts to shut it down. And that's when Techie's Diocese elected William Brothers as Bishop and his ill, health form forced him to give up his duties. So the American movement of Old Catholicism and the English movement of Old Catholicism started to form a rift around 1914. And so, but they had already promised to or to consecrate Bishop Brothers to make him a Bishop when World War II hit. Or World War I hit, I'm sorry, World War I hit. And so it made travel a little dicey, a little dicey. So he waited for two years and then traveled to Europe to be consecrated. Bishop Joseph Renee Velot and Randolph Delondas Burgess were both guests and Old Catholic priests were often stopped by and visit brothers. Brothers was consecrated Bishop for the Czech Old Catholic Church, October 3, 1916 in Waukegan by Delantis. The following day, Delantis consecrated Carmel Henry Kefora as Bishop of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church. And a little fun fact, Carfora is considered a saint in Old Catholicism now. And so brothers changed the name of the church from the Czech Old Catholic Church to the Old Catholic Church in America and became their Archbishop Abbot. And one of the first acts he did is their new Archbishop Abbot was to unite the various ethnic communities and congregations that were independent of the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Episcopal Church, USA, but they still maintained their catholicity and united them, brought them all together. Let's see. In 1945, the Kingston Daily Freeman printed an article on on Bishop Brothers in which they said he had worked among underprivileged children in Chicago prior to his move to New York. And he often worked with the poor and often exploited industrial workers in Chicago. So around 1939-ish or so, well actually 1920, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. 1920 brothers moved the headquarters of the Old Catholic Church in America and the Old Catholic Benedictines to New York. He was sitting and at that point he guided the church through the rough times of the Depression while still maintaining his spiritual support of all those people. During the Depression, he joined with other religious leaders to feed the hungry. His benefactors gave him large sums of money to meet the needs of New York and to help them set up soup kitchens throughout the city of New York. Down to the people in the vicinity in which he worked and where as a child he came to reside with his family, and they arrived from England, he had forsaken the opportunity of the business world to minister for the uncared for, exploited immigrants working in the still mills, in the midst of the despised foreigner, his sympathetic understanding of their problems, and his practical attempt to solve them made his mission bountiful and good works. And so he became known throughout New York, not just the city but the state, that if you were a young man homeless or in need of guidance or a retreat, you could show up at the abbey any time day or night and would find a place of safety. So that was wonderful. Then in 1938, now he gets to 1938, where the story gets good. He moved from New York City to a little city that none of y'all have ever heard of before, called Woodstock, New York. The very following year, 1939 Bishop brothers, they called him Father Francis in New York. And three members of his seven member Marivite group, prepared and abandoned Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA. Chapel on Overlook Mountain to use is nothing more than a monastic chapel. The chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Church of the Holy Transfiguration of Christ on the Mount. There's a name for your stationery. There you go. Be keeping and raising goats as a farmer and as a teacher. As one does, as one does when you need to. I mean, right? That's right. In 1940, the Kingston Daily Friedman reported that Francis of the community of Flesia now planned to lease a 20 acre property for his proposed non-sectarian summer school for boys, which will be known as St. Dustin's School. He planned to convert it into a permanent year-round institution in the future. Around the same time, another property was leased to Francis congregation. Property included an old barn that was converted into a place of worship known as St. Dustin's Church. It was destroyed in 1945 by a fire started by a kerosene stove explosion while Francis was preparing for a service. That's one way to get out of having services. I'll keep that one in my back pocket. That's it. Yeah, you might need it someday. By the 1950s, the document account was embellished into a story that converted barn was burned during the war. Whether by vigilantes or act of God, no one knows. You know, that's how things happened back in the 1940s and '50s. Didn't have to be true. It just had to be sensational. Francis invited M. on Hennessy who wrote the 1952 book "Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist" to visit him in Woodstock. Hennessy wrote of him this kindly thin and agile old man was my matching conversation. He knew many old-time radicals whom I had known. Oh, there you go. A social activist in the Catholic Worker movement started by St. Dorothy Day. Hennessy was a Christian anarchist and anarchist pacifist. He was a member of both the Socialist Party of America and the industrial workers of the world. Hennessy said, "As I understood it, these people were not radical but had meekly followed their leader just as many others do. He narrated how Francis had a friend drive Francis and himself to Mary Farm to the Catholic Worker movement farming commune near New Bird, New York, where Francis thought he would meet St. Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, but she had just left for New York. Talk about timing. Hennessy went on to reflect about Francis as a group at Woodstock. I was not attracted to this small denomination because it did not seem to have any life with its simplicity, kindness, and spirit of love. It just wasn't wild enough for Hennessy. For a long while, there were no postulates coming into the order of Benedictines. So it was just Father Francis and Brother Cyril and they would go around and do good works around the area. He was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Hearst family and several other society families who contributed to his church there in Woodstock. Now, here's the interesting thing. A lot of people don't know that I keep saying that, I know. A lot of people don't know this about Bishop Brothers or Father Francis, whichever you want to call it. But there was this little unknown unheard of pop-up thing that happened in Woodstock called the Woodstock Festival. I know most of you have never heard of that. What's that? People like Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin and all these people who were supposedly seniors or something who came and spent time in Woodstock and on this farm. And so during the Woodstock Festival, Father Francis opened up the church and the monastery, the Benedictine monastery. So that these ragamuffins could come and clean up. They could come and do their laundry, they could come and take showers, and he would always have food for them to eat. Because a lot of the people who came to Woodstock literally hitchhiked across the country in order to be there. They didn't have hardly any money, they didn't have any supplies, they were just there. And so he made sure that if anybody at Woodstock needed food or shelter or care of any kind, they were welcome to come to the church, come to the monastery and receive it. And so according to history, Father Francis presided over many funerals in Woodstock and as well as many joyous weddings and baptisms. Most of the artists and hippies in Woodstock would go on to be married or baptized or put in the ground by Bishop Brothers. So that is interesting. If you want to know more because we're running a long time I see, if you want to know more about Father Francis there's a documentary by Toby Carey called Father Francis that talks some about his life and what he did in Woodstock in particular. So yeah, if you want to check that out that is always available. I'll leave you one last tidbit about him. He was also very friendly with the Tibetans. hung out around Woodstock which in the 1940s to 1960s was not exactly a good thing. They were considered deviance, they were considered subversives. And so he was very much a friend of theirs and would routinely go over for tea, have tea with the Tibetans. Really cool guy. If you get a chance, check him out because he is one of our big names in the Old Catholic movement. That's great. Wow. This was a good idea. Thank you, Navi for suggesting it. That's right. We'll have to do another one of these at some point, come up with a few more inspirational figures to highlight and talk about. We'll have Bishop Ben lead us next time. Right. Ben can tell us about the great and holy darling. Anyway, I want to thank our ever mark and Bishop Ben for being here tonight. It's always a pleasure to have you guys on. Thank you for hosting us. Thank you. Absolutely. Happy to. We will you all not next Saturday. Next Saturday is a gust of pride fest. And so we will probably be dead by 8 p.m. Saturday. evening, most likely. So, but we will see you in two weeks for our next edition of expanding your faith. Remember to catch us on podcasts.myocci.social on Apple podcast or wherever you find your podcast. Until then, when we once again attempt to expand your faith, keep shining bright, my friends. Thanks for spending this time with us on expanding your faith. If today's conversation encouraged you, share the episode. It helps more people find the show. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts and you can also find us online at pod.myocci.social and our Saint Francis dot org. Follow us on Facebook at expanding your faith. Our producer is Bishop Ben Williams expanding your faith. is an outreach ministry of Saint Francis parish and outreach in Augusta, Georgia, produced in cooperation with the Metropolitan Community Church of our Redeemer in Augusta, Georgia. Until next time, keep expanding your faith.