This is the integrity document of the Church of Bloom. It states plainly that this church is not in communion with Rome, sets out every point of departure with its grounds, and lists what this body declines to claim about itself. If any other page here leaves you with a different impression, this page governs.
The Church of Bloom is an independent catholic church of the Roman Rite in the books of 1962. It is not in communion with Rome. It holds no Roman faculties, exercises no Roman jurisdiction, and has no Roman recognition of its orders, its clergy, or its acts. No sacrament administered here should be presented to any Roman parish, tribunal, or chancery as a Roman act, because it is not one.
This matters practically, not just formally. A Roman marriage tribunal will not treat a marriage solemnised here as it treats one solemnised in a Roman parish. A Roman bishop will not accept a candidate formed here as a Roman candidate. Anyone whose situation depends on Roman recognition needs to know that before they walk through this door, not after.
The Roman Catholic Church has not condemned this body, corresponded with it, or taken any notice of it whatsoever, and nothing here should be read as implying that it has. Silence is not approval. Independent catholic bodies that hint otherwise are trading on a confusion they created, and this church will not do that.
Independence was not chosen as a preference. It was the only honest place to stand for a body that intends to ordain people Rome will not ordain and to receive people Rome instructs its pastors to receive differently. Rather than seek a permission that would never come and act as though it had, this church declared the separation and published it.
The Roman Catholic Church holds that only a baptized male validly receives sacred ordination. In the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code this is canon 968 §1; in the 1983 Code it is canon 1024. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith set out the reasoning at length in Inter Insigniores in 1976: the constant practice of the Church, the choice of the Twelve, the sacramental sign in which the priest acts in persona Christi, and the conviction that the Church has no authority to alter what it received.
In 1994 Ordinatio Sacerdotalis declared that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgement is to be definitively held by all the faithful. Rome does not present this as policy subject to revision. It presents it as a limit on its own power, which is a serious claim seriously made, and it deserves to be reported that way rather than caricatured.
Rome further holds that gender is fixed at conception and reads liturgical and canonical requirements for orders accordingly. That position is coherent within its own premises. This church does not accept those premises, and it does not pretend Rome is confused about what it teaches.
Departure I — Admission to holy orders
Holy orders in this church are open to every baptized person found fit, without regard to sex, gender identity, or gender history. Grounds: Galatians 3:28; Phoebe named as deacon of the church at Cenchreae in Romans 16:1; the documented development of the Church’s own discipline over nineteen centuries; and conscience formed in the tradition. Rome holds otherwise, as set out above.
Departure II — Celibacy
Clerical celibacy is not a condition of orders in this church. Grounds: it is discipline rather than doctrine, it was imposed on the Latin Church late and unevenly, and Rome itself dispenses it for whole categories of clergy.
Departure III — The reading of scripture against people
This church rejects the use of scripture to establish that trans, intersex, or disabled people are disordered. Grounds: Article V of the Declaration of Faith, the plain sense of Genesis 1:27 read as generosity rather than as a boundary, and the reception of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 without an antecedent condition.
Departure IV — Access to the sacraments
No sacrament in this church is withheld on grounds of gender identity, gender history, sexual orientation, disability, or poverty. Grounds: the sacraments are Christ’s and are administered in the unaltered Roman books of 1962; the exclusions are the additions, not the rite.
Roman communion
Not in communion with Rome, and no application, petition, or correspondence is pending.
Not claimedRoman faculties and jurisdiction
No faculties granted by any Roman ordinary; no jurisdiction over any Roman subject.
Not claimedRoman recognition of orders
No recognition of this church’s orders or acts by the Holy See, sought or received.
Not claimedApostolic succession beyond documentation
Any lineage asserted is limited to what the Chancery can produce on request.
Held on fileAuthority over the unconsenting
No jurisdiction, discipline, or claim over anyone who has not asked for it.
Not claimedOrdinations performed
None to date. The discipline is written and in force ahead of the first candidate.
Held on fileCanonists and journalists are answered directly, and corrections are entered in the register with their date.
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