Our Bishops

Let our bishops introduce themselves.  Click on their link, below, to read about them:

The Right Reverend James R. Judd
Bishop, Heartland Old Catholic Church
Bishop Ordinary

The Right Reverend Charles F. Braun, DD
Bishop, Heartland Old Catholic Church

To contact them, visit our "Contact us" page.  For their line of Aposotolic Succession, click here.

In my younger days, large families were the norm.  One of my school classmates came from a family of 19 children.  It probably had something to do with the healthy spring water abundant in Austin, Minnesota (also known as Spam Town) and the frequency of spam (a famous product of the Hormel Meat Processing Company located in Austin) in our daily diets.  My beloved parents had seven children, five boys and two girls.  Not everyone in Austin opted for large families; some of us left our girl friends and boy friends behind and ran off to become priests and nuns.  I attended Catholic grade school and high school and then on to a Catholic University:  St. John's in Collegeville, Minnesota.

The first two years at St. John's I was enrolled in the preparatory program for priests.  I then became a Benedictine monk and member of St. John's Abbey.  I was ordained to the priesthood in 1958 by the Rt. Rev. Peter Bartholome, Bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud.  As a cleric and priest, I served as a prefect in St. John's Prep School, taught Spanish and Latin, and worked in various parishes on weekends.  I later left the Roman Catholic priesthood, eventually married, and went to work.  For close to twenty-nine years I was employed by the State of Minnesota and the St. Paul Schools, working in rehabilitation and special education.

I continued my priesthood by ministering to family, friends, handicapped children and adults, the poor and the elderly.  I tended to soul development so that I might be a channel of blessing for those I came in contact with each day.  In the 1980's, I found opportunities to continue my priesthood in a more formal and structured way within the Old Catholic Church.  St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish was established and incorporated as the first parish of the Heartland Old Catholic Church.  On July 31, 1999, I was consecrated a bishop of the Old Catholic Church by the Most Rev. Donald Wm Mullan, Archbishop of Christ Catholic Church International (an Old Catholic jurisdiction).

I was happily married to Hildegard H. Judd for forty-four years.  Hildegard went to be with God in January of 2004.  We have four children and many grandchildren.

My childhood was everyone's dream:  a small, historic town in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, surrounded by farms and woods, where people knew each other, and where elementary classes were held in a two room school house, four classes to a room.  Bless those nuns!

Living near the church of St. Andrew, I spent a good deal of time there.  What started as serving Mass for Lent became serving for Advent, and eventually for most of the year.  It was a small, one-Irish-pastor parish, and on Sundays a priest from a religious order whose seminary was about 15 miles from my home would help with Masses.  They, of course, came after me, which included visits to the seminary on occasional Sundays.  Need I say more?

Profession took place in New York in 1962, followed by ordination in 1967 in the chapel at Trinity College in Washington, DC, by Bishop Thomas J. Wade SM.  Over the years I have served as an associate pastor, pastor, and campus minister at Wheeling Jesuit University, where I also served as Director of Performing Arts, and where I was afforded the opportunity to study in England and France.  It was always a joy to work art, theatre and music into faith and liturgy.  The opportunity to direct the symphony orchestra with the university chorus was a chance to expose students to both classical and religious music.  When there was time I would compose music for the liturgy.  And yes, there were hours of counseling the "future of America" --- not to mention lectures on the historical development of the sacraments and liturgy, and other aspects of church history.

In 1999, following the passing of my mother, I returned to Washington, DC where I befriended an Old Catholic Bishop who, when his health was failing, asked me to serve as his Chancellor.  As his poor health led to a heart attack, he then asked me to consider being Bishop for most of the East Coast.  At first I thought he was "yanking my chain".  He was very serious.  It took four months of prayer and discernment before I finally agreed to take on that responsibility.  On October 13th, 2001, at the Church of the Holy City, I was consecrated Bishop for the Diocese of St. John the Beloved by Bishop William Harrison and Archbishop Lawrence J. Harms.  Led by the Holy Spirit, I have had a rich and rewarding life, and look forward to more years with the Community of Heartland Ministries.