Francis Xavier Resch

Francis Xavier Resch
Predecessor	Paul Francis Cope
Successor	Walter Xavier Brown
Orders
Ordination	March 5, 1939 by Paul Francis Cope
Consecration	December 8, 1940 by Carmel Henry Carfora
Personal details
Born	1878 Sanct Georgen, Austria
Died	1976 Kankakee, Illinois
Nationality	American
Denomination	Old Catholic Church of America, North American Old Roman Catholic Church

Francis Xavier Resch was a graduate of Southern Normal University in Huntingdon, Tennessee and received his degree in languages. He taught Latin and German at the public high school in 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.

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 on 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, Resch was anxious to promote the growth and impact of the church. Bishop 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:

"The growth of the church was very slow because of the Archbishop's great care and solicitude against taking in men who were not worthy of the trust. He hesitated taking men into the church until I came along . . . but because his hesitancy to expand and reach out, I withdrew and went over to the North American Old Roman Catholic Church. I was consecrated a bishop in that church by Carfora. I soon learned that I had made a great mistake in joining that church. I went back to Archbishop Cope, to bask again in the sunshine of a saintly man, a man of whom anyone could be proud, After coming back, he told me that he had intended to consecrate me to the bishopric and prevailed upon me to accept the office of auxiliary bishop, which I did. The Archbishop is very conscientious, and he has kept the church free from all evil influences."

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