OUR LADY OF FATIMA
CATHOLIC CHURCH
|
|
OUR LADY OF FATIMA CATHOLIC CHURCH |
|
|
|
Terence Robert Peter Fulham, was born on November 1 1967, in Liverpool England and comes (on his Father’s side) from a long line of clerics and Catholic priests. However, given the weakness of the Faith in his own country, and despite his heritage, Father was a baptized, practicing Anglican until the grace of God showed him otherwise. Formal Secular Education In his youth he attended Holy Trinity Primary School, Formby, a Church of England run school which closed its doors in September 2005; Farnborough Road School, Southport, England and Birkdale High School for Boys, likewise situated in Southport, England. He completed the usual academic disciplines through High School. He became a school librarian in his third year and was the school's senior librarian for his final two years. In addition to being senior high school librarian, Fulham was a keen bird-watcher and a member of the Young Ornithologist's Club (Y.O.C.) the junior branch of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (R.S.P.B.). His interest in Latin began at age 13, studying the language for a total of three years at high school, in addition to French and Spanish all subjects in which he excelled. In his last two years at school he was awarded the Library prize both years (as senior librarian) and also won the School Spanish prize in his final year. His final high school years (the American equivalent of grades 11 and 12) were completed at King George V Sixth Form College, Southport, England. In addition to continuing studies in French and Spanish, he also took a two-year course in British Government and Politics as an A-Level option and added another language with a two year course in German as an O-Level option. He was elected president of the College's Chess Society (whose constitutions he radically revised) was a member of the College Bridge Society and a member of the elected student council during his senior year. |
Father Fulham attended the University of Liverpool, in England, from which he graduated after a four year course with a Joint Honors Bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish in 1990.
Divine Stirrings and a Re-appraisal
During his sixteenth and seventeenth years God dealt with Father Fulham in a singular way and under the inspiration of grace he experienced what he believed to be a vocation to the Anglican Ministry for which, after several years of mutual discernment he was tentatively accepted by the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, England. He was baptized an Anglican in the simple Lady Chapel (the chapel to the left in the picture) of St James Birkdale September 30, 1984 and confirmed (as an Anglican) the following year.
However, at the same time as he was discerning his vocation, Father Fulham began to examine the theological differences between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Convinced of the inherent contradiction of Anglicanism as opposed to the beauty and symmetry of Roman Catholic belief Father Fulham decided upon conversion to the True Faith.
His journey was not to be an easy one, though, for he received extensive instruction by a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool, who, although he was ordained before the changes of Vatican II, and had been for most of his life a seminary professor, sought to convince Father Fulham that the theology which he had previously studied, and which had brought him to the Catholic Faith, needed to be updated and revised in accordance with the new teachings of Vatican II.
Disheartened by all of this, Father Fulham could again see an apparent contradiction between the Faith of all time, and that embraced by the modern church in the wake of the upheavals of the sixties. Unaware of the existence of the Traditional Movement Father decided that perhaps the Roman Church as She had always been no longer existed. He remained an Anglican.
Tradition Re-discovered
In 1988, as part of his four year University degree program, Father was assigned to teach English in a French high school located just to the south east of Paris.
Just days before taking up his post as English Instructor at the Lycée Techinque Louis Armand at Nogent-sur-Marne the Episcopal consecrations of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre at Ecône, Switzerland were splashed over the media in Great Britain on June 30th 1988. Father voraciously watched every news bulletin on National television that night. The Catholic Church he had so desperately sought was alive and well he just needed to find it.
Paris and St Nicolas-du-Chardonnet
In one of the extended news segments later that same evening it was revealed that one of the largest Latin Mass communities could be found at Archbishop Lefebvre’s church in Paris. Upon arrival in Paris a few weeks later Father intitiated a search for this Church.
 |
The first time Father assisted at a Missa Solemnis at St Nicolas-du-Chardonnet one Sunday morning (and it was standing room only even though the church seats several thousand and has 4 morning Masses) for several hours afterwards he was in a delirious daze of joy as he had experienced for the first time what Father Frederick Faber the famous English Anglican convert to Catholicism of the 19th Century called: "The most beautiful thing this side of heaven." |
CERTIFICATE OF CONDITIONAL BAPTISM 1989
(BY FATHER ANDRÉ LEMIEUX)
|
|
Eager now to pursue the True Priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enter the Traditional Roman Catholic Church, Father Fulham wrote to Archbishop Lefebvre asking where His community was to be found in England. In a simple but moving letter, the Archbishop graciously responded and Father Fulham was conditionally baptized in 1989 by one of the priests of the Society of St Pius X (the priestly community which the Archbishop had founded in 1970 to perpetuate the Traditional Priesthood and Sacraments throughout the world.) The following year he received the Catholic Sacrament of Confirmation from the newly-consecrated Bishop Bernard Fellay, the current Superior General of the Society.
CERTIFICATE OF CONFIRMATION 1990
(BY BISHOP BERNARD FELLAY)
|
 |
The Seminary- Years of Formation
| Upon completion of his university pursuits, Father entered the Pius X seminary in October 1990 to pursue a vocation to the traditional Catholic priesthood where he received the clerical tonsure and the minor orders. |  |
CERTIFICATE OF FIRST TONSURE 1991
(BY BISHOP RICHARD WILLIAMSON)
|
|
CERTIFICATE OF FIRST TWO MINOR ORDERS 1992
(BY BISHOP RICHARD WILLIAMSON)
|
|
|
CERTIFICATE OF SECOND TWO MINOR ORDERS 1993
(BY BISHOP RICHARD WILLIAMSON)
|
|
|
It was here that Father acquired a great love for Gregorian Chant, and since our rector was a bishop we were all enriched by the beautiful ceremonies of our holy Catholic Faith as the Calendar winds its way through the Church Year. Meeting young men who share the same faith, moving on from youth's simple ideals, discovering new imput - imagine having to go to the USA to develop a real passion for Gilbert & Sullivan's operettas !
Appointed Prefect of the Seminary Library at the beginning of his second year he began a serious program to computerize the library catalog system a program that was two thirds completed by the beginning of his fourth year.
After four years of the SSPX party line being pounded into our heads: "we accept the Pope when he's Catholic" (How could the Pope ever be anything other than a Catholic?), and unable, at that time, to reconcile the contradiction of accepting the authority of a pope who hinders the practice of the True Faith, Father entered the Traditional Seminary of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen where he completed his studies for the priesthood under the tutelage of the seminary rector Bishop Mark Pivarunas from whom he received the subdiaconate in 1995. (In 1998, Fr. Fulham as result of extensive study of Catholic dogma in the area of the Papacy and Infallibility, would later abandon the sedevacantist position.)
CERTIFICATE OF SUBDIACONATE 1995
(BY BISHOP MARK PIVARUNAS)
|
|
Mount St Michael Spokane
Washington
 |
Father was ordained to the
diaconate in June 1995 by Bishop Pivarunas and was assigned to the large
Traditional parish of Mount St Michael in Spokane Washington State in the
Pacific North-West of the United Sates of America.
There at the former Jesuit scholasticate for the province of Oregon, he entered upon a six month period of pastoral training, which included teaching high school, sick calls and preaching. |
CERTIFICATE OF DIACONATE 1995
(BY BISHOP MARK PIVARUNAS)
|
|
|
|
|
The Sacred Priesthood On February 2 1996 Father was ordained to the Priesthood by Bishop Pivarunas and was later named assistant Pastor of Mount St Michael - a function which he exercised diligently until July of the same year. Later in 1996, Father Fulham was transferred and nominated Pastor of Our Lady of Fatima in Spring Hill, Florida. Father Fulham assumed his responsibilities on the feast of St. Cecilia in November of 1996. He continues in that position to the present day and has been the longest serving pastor since the church's inception in 1979. |
CERTIFICATE OF PRIESTHOOD 1996
(BY BISHOP MARK PIVARUNAS)
The Pilgrimage of Grace
Before reporting to his next assignment, Father Fulham returned home to collect his library, vestments and personal effects to ship them to the United States. After packing seven or eight very heavy boxes and transporting them to the local Post Office. What was the consternation to discover they were too heavy and had to be re-packed in fifteen smaller ones ! Life indeed is a cross sometimes !
Once the visa to return to the United States was received, there was enough remaining time to make a pilgrimage to shrines in Europe asking for Our Blessed Mother’s intercession upon the endeavors yet to be undertaken for Her in Florida.
The Florida Apostolates
Father Fulham returned to the US in late November 1996. He immediately assumed his present responsibility as Pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Spring Hill, Florida, where he has continued to exercise his priestly ministry there ever since.
|
|
 |
The steady pace and firm guidance of Father have seen his parish flourish. The chapel fills quickly these days, and the one Mass on Sunday has now blossomed into two.
|
|
During his work at Our Lady of Fatima, Father Fulham has also been called upon to exercise his priestly expertise in another Traditional parish, that of St Filumena at Eustis, a task which he performed on a weekly basis for several months in 1997, in addition to his regular parish duties in Spring Hill. From 1998 — 2000, Father committed himself to the establishment of a Mass Center in the State Capital of Tallahassee — a journey of some eight hours round-trip every other week in addition to the two Masses that he now says regularly in his own parish on Sunday.
|
| The years of his priestly
ministry at Our Lady of Fatima Spring Hill, have seen Mass attendance
multiply by almost 400 % from 40 — 50 regular attendees in 1996 to 140
— 160 in the year 2002.
The continuance of adherents to the Latin Mass is surprising indeed, particularly when the number of young families coming to, and remaining at a Mass that disappeared from most of the Latin Rite almost 25 years ago — i.e. before they were born. |
|
|
|
In addition to his regular work
at Our Lady of Fatima, Father has also brought the sacraments to two other
chapels in Florida
— Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel, in Tampa Florida and Our Lady of Sorrows chapel in Orlando, Florida until other means could be obtained to procure the Sacraments. |
| From early 2001, Father Fulham was also the
chaplain of St Michael the Archangel Church in
Jacksonville, Florida.
This group, originally founded in the mid 1980s under at first the auspices of the Society of St. Pius X, and later under the patronage of the Society of St. Pius V, grew from just over 30 people to over 60 people under Father Fulham's (later Bishop Fulham) guidance. In early 2006 Bishop Fulham relinquished his post at St Michael the Archangel - the 6 hour round trip was becoming too much to expect each Sunday. After consultation with Bishop Fulham, the parish lay board subsequently contacted the Society of St. Pius X, who recommended (the current chaplain) Father Marshall Roberts to the chapel, with whom Bishop Fulham had studied at the St. Pius X seminary at Winona in the early 1990s. |
|
Bishop Fulham believes that the only thing required of us in the present upheaval in the Church is fidelity. We must be faithful - to grace, to the Sacraments, to prayer, and to the Catholic Church. His attachment to this theme of fidelity, is seen by his firm commitment to his priestly duties.
THE EPISCOPAL ORDINATION IN 2003
On March 25, 2003, Father Fulham was raised to the episcopate by Bishop John Simmons of England (a traditional Catholic bishop) at the Church of the Good Shepherd and Our Lady in Penge, London during a solemn pontifical Mass.
This fortuitous event has enabled Bishop Fulham to bring all seven sacraments directly to his flock.
Bishop Simmons unfortunately passed to his eternal reward in June of 2003 whilst undergoing surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm.
CERTIFICATE OF EPISCOPAL ORDINATION 2003
(BY BISHOP JOHN SIMMONS)
|
|
Apostolic
Succession
(With date of Episcopal Ordination)
Bishop Terence Robert Fulham (2003)
Bishop John Christopher Simmons † (1993)
Bishop Harold James Norwood (1990)
Bishop Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez (1948)
Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa † (1924)
Sebastião Leme Cardinal da Silveira Cintra † (1911)
Joaquim Cardinal Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti † (1890)
Mariano Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro † (1882)
Edward Henry Cardinal Howard † (1872)
Carlo Cardinal Sacconi † (1851)
Giacomo Filippo Cardinal Fransoni † (1822)
Pietro Francesco Cardinal Galeffi † (1819)
Alessandro Cardinal Mattei † (1777)
Bernardino Cardinal Giraud † (1767)
Pope Carlo della Torre Rezzonico † (1743)
Pope Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini † (1724)
Pope Pietro Francesco (Vincenzo Maria) Orsini de Gravina, O.P. † (1675)
Paluzzo Cardinal Paluzzi Altieri Degli Albertoni † (1666)
Ulderico Cardinal Carpegna † (1630)
Luigi Cardinal Caetani † (1622)
Ludovico Cardinal Ludovisi † (1621)
Archbishop Galeazzo Sanvitale † (1604)
Girolamo Cardinal Bernerio, O.P. † (1586)
Giulio Antonio Cardinal Santorio † (1566)
Scipione Cardinal Rebiba †
Consecration of Most Reverend Terence R.
Fulham
Church of Our Lady and the Good Shepherd
March 25, 2003
On Lady Day (Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary) 25 March 2003 in the Church of the Good Shepherd and Our Lady, Penge, London, England, the Most Rev. John C. Simmons conferred episcopal consecration on the Rev. Terence R. Fulham. Fr. Fulham, a Catholic priest active for a number of years in the traditional movement in the U.S., is Pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Church. The ceremony followed the pre-Vatican II Roman Pontifical and took place during the course of Solemn Pontifical Mass. Four traditional Catholic priests participated, along with other Traditional Catholics from the British Capital.
The consecration was one tangible fruit of greater cooperation in recent years between priests originally associated with the line of bishops consecrated by Archbishop Peter Ngô-Dinh-Thuc of Vietnam, and those associated with the line of Bishop Carlos Duarte-Costa of Brazil.
It is the expressed hope of many that Bp. Fulham’s consecration will be another step toward greater unity among traditional Catholics.
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLEMN CEREMONY
The Traditional Rite of Episcopal Consecration, when conducted in its most solemn form, is the most complex and impressive ceremony of the Catholic Church. A second altar was prepared at which the bishop-elect was to concelebrate the first part of the Mass. The ceremony opened with the solemn vesting of the Consecrator and the bishop-elect. The lengthy ritual examination of the candidate followed, in which he publicly affirmed his belief in the principal articles of the Faith. Next the clergy vested filled the sanctuary for the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar.
After the Gradual, the rite of consecration proper began. Bp. Simmons read the short exhortation: "It befits a bishop to judge, to Interpret, to consecrate, to ordain, to offer sacrifice, to baptize, to confirm." Fr. Fulham then prostrated for the chanting of the Litany of the Saints. After the Litany, Fr. Fulham, accompanied by the two assistant priests, came forward and knelt, Gospel Book, opened to the Gospel for the Ascension ("Go ye therefore and teach all nations.") was placed on his head and shoulders. Bp Simmons imposed his hands on Fr. Fulham’s head, and recited the words Accipe Spiritum sanctum — Receive the Holy Ghost.
The bishop then recited the first section of the lengthy Preface, which concludes with the essential sacramental formula "Fill up in Thy priest, the perfection of Thy ministry..." The Veni Creator was intoned, invoking the Holy Ghost. A linen band was tied around Bp. Fulham's head, which Bp. Simmons anointed where a small tonsure had been shaved "May this head be anointed and consecrated in the order of High Priest..." Then the second section of the Preface: "May constant faith, pure love, sincere piety abound in him... Let him who shall curse him, himself be accursed, and him who shall bless him be filled with blessings... May he be untiring in solicitude, fervent in spirit... May he be a debtor to the wise and to the foolish, so that he may gather fruit from the progress of all." The new bishop’s hands were anointed as Samuel anointed David to be King and Prophet, so be they anointed and consecrated." He received the crosier ("that in fostering virtue thou may soothe the minds of thy hearers"), the ring ("the pledge of faith") and the Gospel book ("preach it to the people committed to thee").
The Mass resumed with the Gospel. At the Offertory, Bp. Fulham then took his place at the side of the high altar, from which he concelebrated the Mass. Before the Last Gospel, Bp. Fulham was invested with the miter ("guarded by the power of both Testaments, may he appear terrible to the enemies of truth") and gloves ("by offering saving Sacrifice with his hands, may he be found worthy to obtain the blessing of Thy grace.") Bp. Simmons took one of Bp. Fulham’s hands, and enthroned him on the faldstool. The hymn Te Deum was intoned ("We praise Thee, 0 God"), and the new bishop processed with crosier through the church, blessing the people.
Firmetur manus tua — "Let thy hand be strengthened," Bp. Simmons intoned. After a prayer, Bp. Fulham solemnly imparted the threefold Pontifical Blessing for the first time. He then approached Bp. Simmons, and genuflected three times, each time chanting: Ad multos annos — the prayer that his consecrator live "for many years." After the Last Gospel the solemn procession of bishops, clergy and servers departed. A reception followed.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SOLEMN CEREMONY
|
|
|
|
|
The Scrutiny |
idem |
Prayers at the foot of the Altar |
|
|
|
|
| The Bishop elect in his chapel | Litany of the Saints | Prayer of Consecration |
 |
 |
 |
| idem | Transmission of the Pastoral Staff | Concelebrating at the High Altar |
 |
 |
 |
| Elevation of the Host | The New Bishop receives Communion | Concelebrating at the Gospel Side |
 |
 |
 |
| The New Bishop is Enthroned | First Blessing | Ad multos annos ! |
FOR
A FULLER TREATMENT OF SOME OF THE ISSUES
DISCUSSED ON THIS PAGE PLEASE CLICK HERE
  
|
Our Lady of Fatima Spring Hill, |
|
