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."

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.

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.

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 Kalendar 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.)

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.

The Sacred Priesthood On February 2 1996 Father was ordained to the Priesthood by Bishop Pivarunas and was named assistant Pastor of Mount St Michael a function which he exercised diligently until his departure in June of the same year.

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.

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.

Father 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.