Lawrence Harms
| Lawrence Harms | |
|---|---|
 Screen Shot 2021-02-27 at 3.29.27 PM.png Bishop Lawrence John Harms | |
| Native name | Lawrence Harms |
| Born | 1946/04/03 |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 💼 Occupation | Independent Catholic Bishop |
| 🌐 Website | http://accus.us/?page_id=15484 |
| Styles of Lawrence John Harms | |
|---|---|
| Reference style | His Excellency |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Bishop |
Lawrence John Harms was an American Independent Catholic bishop. He served as Presiding Archbishop of the American Catholic Church in the United States (ACCUS).
His ACCUS necrology reads: "Lawrence J. Harms, D.D., 66, passed away peacefully at this home in Cottonwood, Arizona on Saturday, April 28. Born April 3, 1946, he was the son of the John F. Harms (deceased) and Florence E. Wamback-Wintjen of Hudson, New York. He was the founder and Metropolitan Archbishop of the American Catholic Church in the United States for the last 14 years, consecrated on March 7, 1998 in Frederick, Maryland. He was ordained a Catholic priest on Holy Thursday, April 7, 1977. He attended Christian Brothers Academy, Albany New York, graduating from Ockawamick Central High School in Philmont, New York. He began his spiritual dedication to the Lord at an early age; an altar boy with Sacred Heart Church, and at age 15, built a grotto to the Virgin Mary in his parent’s back yard. He also served in the US Air Force before being honorably discharged due to medical disability at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama on June 15, 1966 rank AFCT-A3C. He loved to travel, to do photography, as well as spend time with his pets, and bringing the love and compassion of Christ to all he met. His dream was to retire to Arizona and enjoy the beauty of the Southwest, particularly Sedona, Arizona where he had resided for the last year. He studied with the New York Institute of Photography, worked many years in the printing and graphics field before becoming Operations Manager at Jeanne Bussard Center in Frederick, MD, working with those with developmental disabilities. He was a member of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for over 20 years, locally volunteered with Verde Valley Community Hospice, formed the Verde Valley Faith Communities ministerial association, and was actively involved in Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastoral and Outreach Center, along with Fr. Vincent W. Robinson. He is survived by his life partner of over 25 years, Vince Robinson and their dogs Forrest, Lisel and Janie. His mother and stepdad, George Wintjen, sisters Maria A. Dowling, East Greenbush, New York, and Catherine R. Harms, Lake City, Florida, step-sisters Doreen E. Conner, Yuma, Arizona, and Cheryl A. Tanner, Zion, Illinois, and his nephews: John, Peter and Matthew Dowling. He also is survived by Uncle Louis F. Wambach, wife Mary, and several cousins. A Solemn Funeral Mass was celebrated on Sunday, May 6th at 11am at the Chapel at Stauffer Funeral Home, 1621 Opossumtown Pike, Frederick, Maryland with the Most Rev. William A. Johnson presiding celebrant and Rev. Christopher Bisett, Chancellor, as Master of Ceremonies. Final Internment was held at Resthaven Memorial Gardens 9501 US Route 15 N, Frederick, Maryland, on Monday, May 7, at 1:30 p.m."
Eucharistic Communities[edit]
| Title | Community | City | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pastor | Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastoral and Outreach Center | Cottonwood, Arizona | |
| Pastor | Christ the King Pastoral & Outreach Center | Frederick, Maryland |
Other Ministries[edit]
| Title | Ministry | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Founder & Presiding Archbishop | American Catholic Church in the United States (ACCUS) | 1998-2012 |
Significant Dates[edit]
- 3 Apr 1946 - Born
- 7 Apr 1977 - Ordained to the Presbyterate by Roy Bauer
- 19 Sep 1996 - Named Monsignor & Vicar General of the Free Catholic Church, Western Maryland Region
- 7 Mar 1998 - Consecrated to the Episcopate by John Rinaldi (Free Catholic Church), Donald Jeremiah Buttenbusch (CACINA), Joseph Anderson Johnson (CACINA), Jude N. Egbe (African American Congregation), William L. Timlin (Orthodox Catholic Church) & Michael Scalzi (American Catholic Church), in Frederick, Maryland
- 3 Jun 1999 - Created the American Catholic Church in the United States (ACCUS)
- 26 Apr 2012 - Resigned as Presiding Archbishop of the ACCUS
- 28 Apr 2012 - Born to eternal life, in Cottonwood, Arizona
- 6 May 2012 - Buried in Frederick, Maryland
Education[edit]
- Ockawamick Central High School, Philmont, New York
Honorary Degrees & Degrees from Non-accredited Institutions[edit]
- D.D.
In the News[edit]
- Vicar of Provo church is named a monsignor (2001) Desert News
Ordinations & Consecrations[edit]
- 23 May 1998 - Harms consecrated Joseph J. Gouthro to the Episcopate
- 25 Jul 1998 - Harms consecrated Terry Villarie to the Episcopate
- 2000 - Harms ordained Margaret Johnson to the Diaconate
- 2003 - Harms ordained William A. Johnson to the Presbyterate
- 28 Feb 2004 - Harms ordained Gustave Lapeyrouse to the Presbyterate
- 2005 - Harms ordained Maureen Sullivan to the Presbyterate
- 2009 - Harms ordained James Calderone to the Presbyterate
- 3 Oct 2009 - Harms consecrated William A. Johnson to the Episcopate
- Unk - Harms consecrated Michael B. Norton to the Episcopate
Biography[edit]
The following biography was written by Father Jayme Mathias, the last priest welcomed by Harms into the American Catholic Church in the United States two months before Harms' passing.
With roots stretching to 18th-century Netherlands, the seeds of Independent Catholicism found fertile ground in the context of the religious tolerance that marked New Netherlands—what would later become the colony of New York—and which fostered the vocation of Archbishop Lawrence John Harms, the founder of a unique branch of Independent Catholicism in the United States at the end of the 20th century.
Lawrence John Harms was born on April 3, 1946 to John Frederick Harms (1923-1990) and Florence Elizabeth Wamback (1926-2016). The families of John and Florence were settled in the village of Philmont, New York, less than 10 miles from Massachusetts and only six miles from the Hudson River to the west.
Florence was raised on her family’s farm in Harlemville, four miles east of the village of Philmont, where John was raised. John’s parents owned the livery stables that were rented by the stagecoach company and for the carriage horses of the local funeral home. His father would later serve as a constable and as a volunteer firefighter in the village. John’s parents were known as magnanimous volunteers in the village: His mother was a “pink lady,” volunteering at the local hospital, and his father, renowned for visiting the hospital dressed as Santa Claus, was memorialized by the New York Times for his visit to the aged Virgin O’Hanlon, the inspiration of the famous journalistic line, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
At the time of John’s birth, his father was a plumber in a local cement factory, where John would later work. In 1943, at the height of World War II, John was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 19. His draft card states that he had completed grammar school and worked in “unskilled occupations in production of cement, concrete, gypsum, and plaster product.” During a trip home to New York in January 1945, John married Florence. She was nearly three years younger and, after graduating from Philmont High School in 1944, she completed a home study in nursing and was working as a sewing machine operator at Philmont Mills.
After moving to Olympia, Washington, where her new husband was stationed, Florence became pregnant and made the difficult railroad trip back to New York, so that she could be closer to her parents and in-laws. With World War II now ended, John was discharged from the military on March 16, 1946, and his son, Lawrence John, was born less than three weeks later.
Having returned to Philmont, John worked as an insulator at the McCall Refrigerator Corporation. By 1953, he became a tow operator at the factory. By 1957, he, like his grandfather Harms, who was a watchman at the Hudson Limestone Quarry, became a watchman at McCall’s. Meanwhile, Florence was a homemaker and tended to the needs of their son. Fourteen years after Lawrence’s birth, John and Florence would welcome their first daughter, Maria, in 1960, and their last child, Catherine Regina, in 1962.
John and Florence both had ancestors who came to the United States more recently: John’s maternal grandmother was born in Germany, as were all his paternal great grandparents, and Florence’s paternal grandparents were also born in Germany. Both also had ancestors who arrived in the colonies by the early 18th century. Florence’s mother descended from John Pulver, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and from at least ten ancestors who were established in the Colony of New York before 1750. John’s mother descended from families who were settled in Germantown, 19 miles southwest of Philmont, and who professed their faith in the Dutch Reformed Church long before the Revolutionary War. Both families contained Palatine—Protestant German—ancestors who were brought to America in exchange for their labor in work camps along the Hudson River.
Florence was raised in a very religious, Lutheran family. Her parents attended a small German Lutheran congregation in Harlemville, where her mother played the church organ. Her husband, John, was raised by his Roman Catholic father and Methodist mother, who attended different churches on Sundays. Wanting her family to share a single faith tradition, Florence converted to Catholicism and raised her children in the Roman Catholic Church. Whereas John’s shadow seldom darkened the church’s doorstep, Florence was fully engaged in her new faith community. For over 35 years, she served as organist at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church in Philmont, and she was a member of the church’s Altar & Rosary Society.
As a boy growing up in this context, and heavily influenced by his mother’s involvement in the church, Lawrence served as an altar boy at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church. Lawrence’s sister, Catherine, who believes that her brother’s religious vocation was rooted in his mother’s faith and church involvement, shares: “My mother was a bright light, and her faith was extremely strong, and that’s what resonated with my brother.” She says that Lawrence “had a very strong faith at a young age” and that, as a boy, sharing his mother’s love for flowers, he built a grotto in his family’s backyard where he and his mother planted flowers in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Lawrence was also encouraged and inspired from a young age by Father Bruno, the pastor of Sacred Heart, who shared with Lawrence all his childhood sacraments and remained in contact with him throughout his life.
Influenced by his family’s religious beliefs, Lawrence even left the Philmont public school system for a time, to attend Christian Brothers Academy in Albany, 40 miles north of his family’s home. He studied at the academy with his neighbor and fellow altar server from Sacred Heart, Oliver North, who would later be known for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair of the late 1980’s. After a spell at Christian Brothers Academy, the two boys returned to Philmont and graduated from Ockawamick Central High School. Oliver joined the Marine Corps, and Lawrence enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served in the rank of Airman Third Class until his discharge for medical reasons in June 1968.
Lawrence had left the family home at age 18, when his sisters were three and two years old. Catherine remembers that, when her big brother came home to visit, he would lie with them on the floor and watch television, and he would share carousels of slideshow photos from his travels. He would also help his mother to plant flowers around the grotto that he had created as a child in his family’s backyard. Catherine also remembers that he enjoyed sharing ghost stories with his young sisters, saying that the patterns of light that shone through the window of their grandparents’ livery stables were ghosts. She says, “He loved to pick on us and terrorize us; sometimes he would even get me to cry. My sister would say I was adopted, and Larry would say that they found me somewhere underneath the cabbage patch!”
Larry also loved his little sisters. Catherine recalls: “When he was coming home for my fifth birthday, he rolled his Camaro several times, and I remember him coming into the house with stitches all over his head, but in his hands was the present he had gotten me—with the wrapping paper in tatters. I’ll never forget that gift.”
Now back from the military, Larry graduated from the New York Institute of Photography and began work in the fields of printing and graphics. He was a gifted and avid photographer, with an eye for artistic composition that he likely received from his mother, who was a painter. Catherine remembers: “He was able to look at something and place it properly. He was really good at decorating. We would joke that he could throw a pillow, and it would land in the right spot. And he was meticulous: He knew how to line up photos in the frame, so as to get the most out of any picture.” Larry captured photographs for books, and he began filling the walls of his home with photos he had taken from his travels.
During those years, Larry lived in Utica, Syracuse and Liverpool, larger cities that were more than two hours northwest of his parents’ home in Philmont. Catherine recalls that, during that time, “he tried to date [women]. He tried to force himself to be something he wasn’t, and he just couldn’t do it; it wasn’t who he was.” During an era when talk of sexuality was taboo in many places, including conservative Columbia County where he was raised, Larry was coming to an awareness of his sexuality.
Ten years after leaving home, Larry “came out” to his parents. His sister, Catherine, who was 12 at the time, remembers: “That didn’t go over well; there was an argument, and it took my father a while to come to terms with it. That was a time when being gay was a really big deal.” Catherine suspects that his first-hand experience of such alienation compelled Larry to greater compassion for others. She says, “He knew that he would be judged, and that brought him a compassion for other people. He held on to the fact that he was still loved, that God loved him, that he wasn’t a mistake—and he had a compassion for people who were misunderstood or who didn’t quite fit in. And when he started talking about church, he wanted to create something that was all-inclusive, where no one would be turned away, where all were welcomed.”
As a young man, Larry discovered Independent Catholicism as a vehicle that would allow him to fulfill his dream of ordained ministry in the church. At the age of 31, Larry was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Roy Bauer on Holy Thursday, April 7, 1977. Catherine remembers the family’s road trip to Boston for the ordination, though she admits that, at age 14, she didn’t fully understand the significance of ordination. She also remembers his first home Masses as a priest in the family’s kitchen: “He’d set up things [for Mass] on the washer & dryer, and he’d hold Mass—every day. He wouldn’t miss. And we’d sit there and participate in it. It seemed weird: He was my brother—and now he was having Mass on the washer & dryer!”
A real turning point occurred after Father Larry began working with adults with severe developmental disabilities at the Jeanne Bussard Center, a non-profit agency in Frederick, Maryland that provided training, jobs, companionship and learning opportunities for persons with developmental disabilities. His sister, Catherine, was also working with the developmentally disabled in Hudson, New York, so the two siblings shared experiences. Catharine says, “We had a lot in common, to talk about. We would talk about how working with that population changes you—they try so hard, and it’s difficult for them—and about how people in the community view them and try to avoid them.” Father Larry’s successor, Archbishop William Johnson, would later suggest that Father Larry’s vision, which was taking shape at this time, was “to bring in anyone who was hurt, neglected or mistreated, anyone who wanted to be given sacraments, no matter who you were. That was his vision: To serve all of God’s people and to love all of God’s people.” Father Larry dreamed of a church where no one—literally no one—would be excluded from the Church’s ministry and sacraments.
In the mid-1980’s, Father Larry met Vincent Robinson, the man who could complement and support his life and his ministry for over 25 years. Father Larry’s sister, Catherine, remembers how her family immediately took to Vince and received him into their family. She shares: “Together, they were really good; they were a good team. Vince was a saint, because my brother could sometimes be a little difficult. Vince was always supportive of Larry, and Larry loved Vince very, very much. If it wasn’t for Vince, Larry wouldn’t have been able to go as far as he did.” Lawrence’s successor, Archbishop William Johnson, confirms this, saying: “Vince and Larry were left hand and right hand, so to speak. Vince did a lot to support the American Catholic Church and really nurtured Archbishop Harms’ ministry. They did everything together. They worked together, left and right, trying to make sure that everything would come to fruition. Vince had the full-time job to sustain the ministry, and he let Larry—Archbishop Harms—do what he needed to do. Without Vince, there would have been no church, and without Larry, there would have been no church. It’s that simple.”
As a priest in the Independent Catholic tradition, Father Larry now found himself aligned with the beliefs of the Free Catholic Church of Southern California, whose motto was “Love without Judgment.” On September 19, 1996, Father Larry was given the title Monsignor and named Vicar General of the Free Catholic Church’s Western Maryland region.
In 1998, after nearly 21 years of ordained ministry, Monsignor Harms’ peers of the Free Catholic Church elected him to the episcopacy. Monsignor Harms was consecrated a bishop in the Free Catholic Church on March 7, 1998 in Frederick, Maryland. His sister, Catherine, remembers that he asked her to carve for him a crozier for the occasion. She also remembers: “As he got deeper into the church, he just immersed himself, and that was everything for him.”
At the time of Bishop Harms’ consecration, internal strife rocked the Free Catholic Church. Two months after his consecration, he separated from the Free Catholic Church and, with Bishops Bob Board and Joseph Bissel, co-founded the American Catholic Church.
Within months, another division occurred, this time over the issue of the ordination of women. Bishop Harms was of the mind that the Church’s ancient tradition of including women in the Church’s ordained ministry should take precedence over more-recent trends that seek to exclude women. Bishop Harms’ successor, Archbishop William Johnson, sums up that episode of history: “Larry said, ‘No, we have to include women in ordination. That’s just how it’s gotta be. We have to serve all of God’s people. We’re not going back to our Roman roots. That’s not how we do things!’” The differences between the bishops were too great to heal, and the two co-founding bishops took with them the name “American Catholic Church,” and Bishop Harms chose the appended name “American Catholic Church in the U.S.” for the church he still dreamed of bringing to birth. More colloquially known as the ACCUS, Bishop Harms’ church was born on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, June 3, 1999, and would later be recognized as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Bishop Harms styled himself as Presiding Archbishop of the church and shared the church’s new motto: “Serve All with Love.”
As a bishop in the Independent Catholic tradition, Archbishop Harms shared his lines of apostolic succession with two men whom he consecrated bishops for the American Catholic Church in the U.S.: Michael B. Norton and William A. Johnson. He also participated in other episcopal consecrations, including those of Bishops Joseph Gouthro and Terry Villarie.
In many ways, the new church created by Archbishop Harms mirrored the Roman Catholic Church. He instructed his clergy to celebrate Mass with the second edition of the Roman Missal, which had been used by the Roman Catholic Church for nearly 30 years. Like the bishop of Rome, he wore a pallium, established a curia, approved a code of canon law, canonized saints, divided his church into provinces, and shared honorific titles with Monsignors Kevin Crowell of Provo, Utah; David Murphy of Brooklyn, New York; and Art Spring of Bellingham, Washington. The saints he canonized included St. Martin Luther, St. John XXIII, St. Martin Luther King, St. Cesar Chavez, and St. Oscar Romero.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, as was clear in his choices for canonization, Archbishop Harms set out to create the all-inclusive church that Jesus might have imagined—a place where all of God’s children would be welcomed and served.
As a symbol of his willingness to share the sacraments of the Church with all, Archbishop Harms was especially pleased to raise women to ordained ministry. In 2000, he ordained Margaret Johnson to the diaconate, to serve a newly-established mission in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In 2005, he would ordain Rev. Maureen Sullivan of Anniston, Alabama as the first woman priest of the ACCUS. Archbishop Johnson recalls that death threats were made as a result of the announcement of that ordination, and that undercover police officers were present at the ceremony.
Archbishop Harms was quick to encourage vocations to ordained ministry, trusting that the Holy Spirit would work in the lives and ministries of those who had received less formal theological and liturgical training. He created a long-distance institute for the formation of clergy, named in honor of Saint John XXIII, the Roman Catholic pope who convened the Second Vatican Council. He also led the church through various expansions and contractions.
By 2001, the American Catholic Church in the U.S. had expanded from Frederick, Maryland, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Brooklyn, New York. The Milwaukee community was shepherded by William Johnson, who would later be ordained to the priesthood in 2003, and the Brooklyn community was headed by Bishop Michael Norton until his departure from the ACCUS in 2002, when David Murphy would be selected for ordination and leadership of the community.
From 2001 to 2007, the ACCUS expanded to twelve states, served by 21 clergy and seminarians. As Archbishop Harms continued to receive inquiries from clergy and interested laity throughout the world—from countries like Kosovo, Pakistan, India and various African nations—he renamed the ACCUS the “ACCUS Worldwide & Affiliated Jurisdictions.” Only one foreign-born member of the clergy briefly affiliated with the ACCUS during that time.
In 2003, Archbishop Harms ordained William A. Johnson, the man who would later become his successor as Presiding Archbishop of the ACCUS. Archbishop Johnson remembers his first encounter with Archbishop Harms. He shares, “My first meeting with him was pure comfort. It was a joy to be in his presence. He was a very loving and kind individual—overall an exquisite man. He was the epitome of unconditional love when it came to what he did as a bishop and what he did for those who needed him.” Archbishop Harms quickly elevated Father Bill, naming him a Monsignor on December 24, 2004 and Camerlengo of the ACCUS on January 1, 2006. Monsignor Johnson closely worked with Archbishop Harms as his Director of Liturgy & Worship and as his Episcopal Master of Ceremonies.
Archbishop Johnson describes how Archbishop Harms was focused on and energized by serving God’s people: “When it came to liturgical actions, when you got started, the clock was not on his mind. If [the Mass] was supposed to be an hour, and it took two, he didn’t care. He was focused on whatever he needed to do, to get his message across. He was like that with anything he did: If he put his mind to it and wanted it done, it happened.” Archbishop Johnson remembers in particular one visit to a parish community in Ridge Crest, California, where Archbishop Harms celebrated some six Masses to accommodate all the people who had previously encountered obstacles to the sacrament of Confirmation. Archbishop Johnson shares, “We’re talking a desert heat of 108 degrees, and [Lawrence] would just go on and on. He wouldn’t need to eat, and you had to force him to drink something. All those people brought him energy, and he wanted to serve all of God’s people.”
Archbishop Harms’ healing Masses were a special memory for all involved. Archbishop Johnson remembers: “Whenever he did healing Masses, he wasn’t bishop anymore. Somehow, he was transformed into whatever God wanted him to be. He took off his zucchetto. He took off his chasuble during the Mass, and everyone came to him for healing. He would embrace them and hold them, and sometimes people would cry, and he would cry with them. Whatever intimate connection he made, it was between him and that individual. And everyone left feeling renewed and refreshed.”
Archbishop Johnson recalls serving as Archbishop Harms’ master of ceremonies for those liturgies: “When he was in the zone, the clock didn’t exist; that would drive me crazy as master of ceremonies at almost all of his liturgies, because I was trying to keep things rolling—but once you got used to what he did, and why he did it, you just rolled with it, and you understood that this shouldn’t be something that drives you crazy because this is what we’re called to do, to minister to God’s people.”
Due to his actions, Archbishop Harms was no stranger to misunderstanding, controversy and attacks, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church. In 2009, he ordained to the priesthood Dr. James Calderone, a deacon in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Scranton who taught at the School of Social Work at Misericordia University for 23 years. Catholic Online reported the “schism” caused by “the purported priestly ordination” and suggested that the event contributed to “more bad fruit from Misericordia University.” Archbishop Harms would later employ canonists to defend his largest parish community, in Summerville, South Carolina, from attacks by the Roman church. Archbishop Harms even took the arrows of personal attack when a disgruntled member of his clergy falsely accused him in 2007 of not having received valid orders, a charge that was deemed unfounded and later cleared by a canon law tribunal. Archbishop Johnson suggests this suffering may have been prefigured in Archbishop Harms’ choice of the Holy Cross as the patronal feast of his diocese and/or of the Jerusalem cross for the seal of the ACCUS, since the blood-red crosses symbolizing the five wounds of Christ resonated deeply with Lawrence.
As a result of those turbulent times, nine priests and deacons in six states stepped outside the ACCUS. From 2008 to 2012, nine clergy in ten states were added to the sixteen clergy who remained after the 2007 attrition.
In 2009, Archbishop Harms held an election in the ACCUS for a new auxiliary bishop. Father William Johnson was elected to the episcopacy, and was consecrated by Archbishop Harms on October 3, during the celebration of the church’s tenth anniversary in Frederick, Maryland.
Archbishop Harms dreamed of retiring to Arizona, where he might enjoy the beauty of the Southwest with Father Vince and with their dogs, Forrest, Lisel and Janie. They moved to Cottonwood, where they soon established Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastoral & Outreach Center. During this time, Archbishop Harms served the needs of Verde Valley Community Hospice.
Archbishop Harms’ life was cut short by a staph infection that resulted from a routine surgery. Internal hemorrhaging persisted, and blood transfusions were of no avail. As he saw his days quickly and unexpectedly drawing to a close, he resigned as Presiding Archbishop of the American Catholic Church in the U.S. on April 26, 2012, after naming Bishop Johnson his successor.
After 66 full years of life and 35 years of active ministry, Archbishop Harms was raised to everlasting life from his home in Cottonwood, Arizona at 4:00 a.m. on April 28, 2012. Nine days of mourning were proclaimed by Archbishop Johnson in memory of the Founder and Presiding Archbishop of the American Catholic Church in the U.S.
Eight days later, on May 6, 2012, Archbishop Johnson presided at Archbishop Harms’ Mass of Resurrection in Frederick, Maryland. Clergy from throughout the United States and from various jurisdictions gathered to mourn Archbishop Harms’ passing and to celebrate his life and legacy.
Part of Archbishop Harms’ remains were laid to rest at Resthaven Memorial Gardens, and part of his remains were shared with family and with clergy of the American Catholic Church in the U.S.
