Francis Xavier Resch

Who was Francis Xavier Resch?

Francis Xavier Resch was a graduate of Southern Normal University in Huntingdon, Tennessee and received his degree in languages. He taught Latin and German in the public high school at Earlsboro, Oklahoma in 1912. He married Christine Agnes Dienhart, an Episcopalian, on May 1, 1912, who bore him two children. The first child died in Earlsboro, but the second child, Frederick Sylvester born December 31, 1913 lived to become an Episcopal priest and served in a parish in Kingman, Arizona.

Francis Resch published a newspaper in Earlsboro and later moved it to Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1913. He was superintendent of schools at Leadville, Arkansas from 1930 to 1962 later moving to Kansas City, Missouri where he qualified for the priesthood under Bishop Paul Francis Cope who ordained him March 5, 1939. Bishop Cope was consecrated by Archbishop James Bartholomew Ranks of London who came specifically for that purpose to America and thus the Old Catholic Church of America was officially launched in May 1925.

As an Old Catholic priest, Father Resch was anxious to promote the growth and impact of the Church. Bishop Paul Francis Cope was, in the new priest's opinion, too conservative and deliberate, so yielding to the influences brought to bear upon him by Carforian clergy, withdrew from Cope's jurisdiction to that of Carfora. He describes this in a letter dated August 19, 1942 to Father Charles Bauer of Chicago: