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| Archbishop Louis Wahl Falk |
Archbishop Louis Wahl Falk (December 30, 1935 – January 23, 2025) was an Anglican Traditional (Anglo-Catholic) bishop who served as the president of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America. Until 2002 he was the primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, an international body of continuing Anglican churches. Falk was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1953 he graduated from the University School of Milwaukee. On September 3, 1955, he married Carol Alice Froemming. In 1958, Falk graduated from Lawrence College (now Lawrence University) with a major in philosophy and a Bachelor of Arts degree awarded summa cum laude. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
In 1962, Falk graduated with a Master of Divinity degree awarded cum laude from Nashotah House, a seminary of the Episcopal Church. On January 23, 1962, he was ordained a deacon, and on August 6, 1962, he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. He went on to become a businessman and from 1976 to 1981 he was president of the General Growth Management Company in Des Moines, Iowa. In the late 1970s, Falk joined the Anglican Catholic Church. He became rector of Saint Aidan's Parish in Des Moines. In 1981 he was elected first bishop of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley. On February 14, 1981, in Des Moines, he has consecrated a bishop by James Orin Mote (Diocese of the Holy Trinity), Carmino de Cantanzaro (Anglican Catholic Church of Canada), William F. Burns (Diocese of the Resurrection), William O. Lewis (Diocese of the Midwest), and William Dejarnette Rutherford (Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic).
In 1983, Falk was elected archbishop and primate of the Anglican Catholic Church. In the late 1980s, under Falk's leadership, the Anglican Catholic Church entered into discussions with the American Episcopal Church to effect a union between the two bodies. A portion of the Anglican Catholic Church and the American Episcopal Church united in October 1991 to form the Anglican Church in America of which Falk became the first primate. Falk helped convene and create the Traditional Anglican Communion, also becoming the first primate. In 2002 Falk resigned as primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion and was succeeded by Archbishop John Hepworth. In 2005, Falk retired as primate of the Anglican Church in America and as bishop ordinary of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley. The church re-structured itself and decided not to have a primate, but instead a president of the House of Bishops. Falk was elected the first president of the House of Bishops. He was succeeded as bishop of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley by Bishop Stephen D. Strawn.
In 1997, from the United States, he appointed Bishop Martin Trevor Rhodes as Diocesan Bishop for Colombia and Visitor Bishop for Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil. He ratified the ecclesiastical approval of the Missionary Monks of San Lorenzo (an English-Catholic extension continued in Latin America in 1975 and directed as Provincial Superior by the Spanish-Canadian Missionary Leonardo Marín-Saavedra). In 1999, he also ecclesiastically ratified the Colombian priest Guillermo Antonio Pacheco-Bornachelli as Episcopal Vicar of Colombia and Vicar Visitor for the countries of South America.
This man of God (Archbishop Louis Wahl Falk), was the defender from the United States (when he was Archbishop Primate of the Anglican Church in America), of the then Anglo-Catholic missionary Presbyter Leonardo Marín-Saavedra, when three priests of the Archdiocese of Bucaramanga, of the Roman Catholic Church in the Republic of Colombia and representatives of the Vatican State, orchestrated the murder of Marín-Saavedra in the city of Girón, Santander, Colombia (South America). His Excellency Louis Wahl Falk, together with the Colombian priests Guillermo Antonio Pacheco-Bornachelli and Carlos Alberto Rivera-Loaiza, requested the government of the Republic of Colombia to protect the life of the representative of the Anglican Church in America in Colombia. The National Police of Colombia under the Department of Santander cared for and protected the life of the priest Leonardo, offering him security 24 hours a day (7 days a week). A squad of 6 officers from the National Police of the Department of Santander (Colombia) cared for Leonardo Marín-Saavedra (current Archbishop of the Americas) in his humanity and dignity, and he managed to remain alive by the Grace of God Our King and Lord.
The Republican Government of then-President George W. Bush, together with the United States Ambassador to Colombia (Anne W. Patterson), arranged for the departure from the Republic of Colombia of the missionary Leonardo Marín-Saavedra, and he was installed in the city of Houston, Texas, as parish priest of the mission (The Resurrection of Christ), professor at the University and director of the Institute of Languages of the Hispanic communities in Texas. The United States government granted him a Special Visa as a religious worker (R1), granted him all the rights of residence as an immigrant, and protected this Missionary Monk of San Lorenzo with the necessary documentation to establish himself in the United States and Canada. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England and the United Kingdom granted him a special permit to move around the lands of Great Britain until he obtained Canadian citizenship in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 2005.
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