Anthony Girandola

Who was Anthony Girandola?

Anthony James Girandola was a Roman Catholic priest who publicly announced in the 1960s that he had been married while a priest for several years, and that he intended to remain both married and a priest. He later went on to found two separate Catholic groups in the United States.

The Roman Catholic Church, whose laws on clerical celibacy do not permit priests to be married, would not offer him a position in which he could perform priestly functions. Girandola began to organize his own, independent, church, in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

He became a celebrity after his announcement, and was in demand as both a speaker and as a guest on radio and television talk shows. At about this time he wrote a well-known book, The Most Defiant Priest. Finding that the demands on his time as a result of his notoriety severely limited the time he had available for pastoral work, he ordained John J. Humphreys to the priesthood to help alleviate his duties. Humphreys later left Girandola's church, eventually forming the Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church.