Brian Burch, rector of St. Thomas Parish, Toronto, the chancellor of both the National Church and of the Diocese of Hamilton and Corporation General Manager. Also on this same date, Bishop Keating was appointed the Secretary-Treasurer of the Corporation. The Old Catholic Church of Canada recognises and accepts the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church of the first thousand years of the Christian Era, and therefore, not the doctrines of Papal Infallibility or the Immaculate Conception. The Liturgy of the Old Catholic Church of Canada is based on the Tridentine Roman Ritual. However, the Service Books of the Eastern Church and the traditional Anglican Book of Common Prayer may also be used in congregations as they choose.
Clerical celibacy is optional.
The Most Reverend Robert Ritchie was born on 22 March 1907 at Kylsith, Scotland. For many years his secular employment was with the Westinghouse Corporation in Hamilton, Ontario, where he rose to the position of Production Supervisor. His theological training was by taking correspondance courses from Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, and by tutoring by the Hamilton Old Catholic clergy. During the time that Archbishop Richard A. Marchenna of Chicago was serving as Episcopal Visitor to the Canadian Church, it was decided that the new diocesan bishop for the Diocese of Hamilton would become the presiding bishop of a truly independent national church as a way to avoid the infighting of the USA Old Catholic bishops that followed the death of Archbishop Carfora in 1958. Ritchie, who was then serving as chancellor of both the Diocese of Hamilton and of the National Church, was elected to become the first Presiding Bishop of the Old Catholic Church of Canada.