Julie Byrne has written a very interesting and timely book in which she explores the history and development of the independent Catholic movement and its various lineages and traditions, making the argument that in order to truly understand the richness of the Catholic tradition in all of its complexity and diversity, we must remove the cultural, political, and historical filters that make it difficult for most Catholics and non-Catholics alike to think of the Catholic tradition as anything other than Roman, dominated by the Papacy and the large bureaucracy that is the Vatican. This is the first of the layers of filters most readers will be challenged to remove before they can fully appreciate the content of Byrne's book and of the Catholic tradition itself: creativity, innovation, and openness.

Using archival research, historical documents, and first-hand ethnographic participation-comprehension fieldwork approaches, Byrne provides her readers with the historical background of the independent Catholic movement, starting with the formation of the Utrecht Union in 1724 and its various evolutions, some of which eventually became known as the Old Catholic Church. As if this important movement of separation by some Roman Catholic bishops from imperial Rome was not significant enough, Byrne outlines the various issues and reforms instituted by the Utrecht Union, many of which presaged the reforms of Vatican II. These include the liturgy being celebrated in the language of the people, conciliar polity, ecumenical aims, and eventually opposing papal infallibility, which only served to proliferate various tributaries of the independent Catholic movement throughout Europe, the United States, and in Latin America.

Following the case study model, so popular among experimental ethnographers in anthropology, sociology, and other academic disciplines in the humanities, Byrne immerses herself in the daily life of one particular independent Catholic community, “using the Church of Antioch as a prism onto the whole” (11), as she describes it. The Church of Antioch was founded in 1959 by a Dutch-born Californian by the name of Herman Spruit, a former Methodist minister who found himself in the end to be more Catholic (but not Roman) than Methodist. Byrne's accounts of the lives of Bishop Herman Spruit and Meri Spruit, his wife, also a bishop, are fascinating and illustrative of the various and diverse types of people that are drawn to independent forms of Catholicism.

The book is divided into three parts, with Part One providing a detailed historical survey of the development of the Utrecht Union, its major players, and its eventual metamorphosis into the various strands of the independent Catholic movement(s) which have proliferated in various places on the planet, but nowhere as much as in the United States. Part Two focuses on issues of apostolic succession, where Byrne clearly documents that, as much as Rome and the Vatican wishes it were otherwise, it does recognize the validity of independent Catholic orders and their connection to the Church of Peter (i.e., the Vatican and the papacy) whereas many independent Catholics see themselves as located much more in the Church of John (i.e., the invisible Church that is more deeply connected with each other through the Mystical Body of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit rather than through the vast corporate bureaucracy that is the Vatican and the Roman Catholic hierarchy). Part Three deals with issues such as the sacraments and saints, and illustrates just how different from Roman Catholicism some forms of independent Catholicism can be. Whereas in the former only men are ordained priests and may hold high ecclesiastical office, in the latter women are also ordained priests and bishops. So too, in the former, where there is fierce opposition to same sex marriage and to openly LGBTQI persons being ordained to the clergy, in the latter same sex marriages are performed and LGBTQI persons are very much welcomed to be open and to be married and ordained to the priesthood and to hold high ecclesiastical office. Additionally, Byrne teases out, in stark contrast to Roman Catholicism, the interspirituality of the clergy and members of the Church of Antioch (and, by extrapolation, other independent Catholics) with some even being ordained in other religious traditions such as Buddhism and also as practitioners of various shamanic-oriented forms of spirituality and healing. This is definitely a far cry from the Roman Catholicism in which I was raised but, in all fairness, it is also a far cry from the independent Catholic communities in which I have participated and in which I myself am an ordained priest, most of which, at least liturgically, sacramentally, and even theologically, are much more traditional except with regard to issues of gender and sexuality, as they pertain to ordination and to full participation in the life of the congregation and the wider Church (of John, not Peter).

Of particular interest to this reader is Byrne's focus on the Church of Antioch and her ethnographic practice in their midst. As someone who was trained to always situate himself within the context of his own ethnographic account of the lives of others as a character in the script, and to even “go native” in order to more deeply and personally understand the lives of those among whom I conduct ethnographic research, it was deeply rewarding and enriching to be invited into the personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences of Byrne as she similarly situated herself as a character in the script of the Church of Antioch and encountered a form of Catholicism that, as for me, was a far cry from the Roman Catholicism with which she was raised.

Another most important aspect of Byrne's The Other Catholics is its significance as an indicator of the future of “religion” in general and how that future may unfold as it encounters rapid and increasingly sophisticated technology and the forces of globalization. Forces that make it possible for the world's religions, in all of their forms (complex and simple), to either retreat into tribalism and fundamentalism or to advance toward the setting up of permeable boundaries which are capable of absorbing other paradigms of practice, theology, and vision, and incorporating them into more historic and traditional practice, theology, and vision.