All images and text © Kevin Moloney


Bishop Dan Gincig, 58, right, robes for mass beside his wife, Deacon Rathel Gincig, before a mass at his church in Aurora, Colo. as usher Kevin Clement asks a question.

Gincig is the presiding bishop of the American Old Catholic Church, a seven-year-old denomination hoping to attract congregants from the ranks of disaffected Roman Catholics. The American Old Catholic Church now has 10 churches scattered around the U.S. Married priests are preferred, Gincig says, for their ability to counsel married couples and to remove sexual attraction from their relations with congregants.



Gincig raises the host, a wafer of unleavened bread, to consecrate it as the body of Christ. The American Old Catholic Church is on a mission of convergence, hoping to bring together the fractious Christian world under one universal church.



Beside her husband Bishop Dan Gincig, Deacon Rathel Gincig offers communion to parishioner Lia Fallon at the Christ the King American Old Catholic Church in Aurora, Colo.

"The second largest denomination in the country is former Catholics," said Bishop Dan Gincig, 58, himself a divorced and remarried former businessman. Roman Catholic intolerance of divorce brings in 30-40 percent of his congregation. "They can be married here," he says. He also draws single mothers and mixed-religion couples who want their children baptized.



Congregants at the Christ the King American Old Catholic Church in Aurora, Colo., participate in the church's modern mass. Many parishioners come from a Protestant background, bringing different worship styles with them.

The liberal church breaks from Rome on divisive issues in the Roman Catholic Church, such as divorce, but has not yet ordained women, and frowns upon abortion and homosexuality.


All images and text © Kevin Moloney

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