// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Wallace David de Ortega Maxey? Max-ey value to history.
Wallace David de Ortega Maxey | |
|---|---|
| Bishop | |
| Church | Catholicate of the West |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1923 by Joseph Rene Vilatte |
| Consecration | 1927 by William Montgomery Brown |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 22, 1902 |
| Died | March 12, 1992 (aged 90) |
| Occupation | Pastor |
Wallace David de Ortega Maxey (February 22, 1902 – March 12, 1992) was an Independent Catholic, Universalist, Theosophist, and gay rights activist in the United States.
Biography
[edit]Ortega Maxey was born on February 22, 1902. By 1923, he was ordained a priest by Joseph Rene Vilatte of the American Catholic Church.[1] He would be consecrated as bishop 4 years later by William Montgomery Brown, before receiving several conditional consecrations after.[1]
During the 1930s, Maxey worked with an Episcopal parish, and by 1937 was left "bound and beaten" after he was "accosted by two men as he left a taxi to enter his apartment".[2] In 1937, he was also deposed as a deacon from the Episcopal Church in the United States.[3]
From 1944 to 1949, he would serve as president and pastor of the Ancient Christian Fellowship; and by 1946, the Ancient Christian Fellowship merged with the Apostolic Episcopal Church.[2] He would later resign from the Apostolic Episcopal Church and Catholicate of the West, being succeeded by Matthew Nicholas Nelson and Lowell Paul Wadle.[1]
In 1958, Maxey published Man Is a Sexual Being and by 1964, was given a 15-year jail term and $19,000 fine for distributing "an obscene book" by mail and common carrier.[2][4]
Maxey became a Unitarian Universalist in the 1950s and hosted gay-themed events at the First Universalist Church of Los Angeles.[2]
In 1970, he returned to the independent sacramental movement and founded the Catholic Christian Church.[1]
Maxey died on March 12, 1992 in Fresno, California.[5]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 Persson, Bertil (1990). Independent Bishops: An International Directory. Apogee Books. p. 305. ISBN 9781558883079.
- 1 2 3 4 Strub, Whitney (2016). "The Homophile Is a Sexual Being: Wallace de Ortega Maxey's Pulp Theology and Gay Activism". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 25 (2): 323–353. ISSN 1043-4070.
- ↑ "The Witness: January 14, 1937" (PDF). Episcopal Church Archives.
MAXEY, WALLACE DE ORTEGA, deacon of the diocese of Los Angeles, was deposed by Bishop Stevens for causes not affecting his moral character.
- ↑ "The Catholic Transcript, Volume LXVI, Number 38, 16 January 1964: The Catholic Transcript". Catholic News Archive. 1964-01-16.
- ↑ "Wallace de Ortega Maxey". LGBTQ Religious Archives Network. Retrieved 2025-08-09.