Sinister Forces blog
"Everything about Tommy Baumler was dark."
-- Timothy Wyllie
Greetings, boys and girls. You may remember my long series of articles (or a series of long articles, mejor dicho) concerning New Orleans, Lee Harvey Oswald, and a veritable apostolic succession of wandering bishops who operated out of Guy Banister's office in the Big Easy. You may recall such names as David Ferrie, Jack Martin, Carl Stanley ... and Thomas Jude Baumler. Well, you'll never believe it, but Tommy Baumler's name came up again in the most bizarre place of all these bizarre places.
He was the lawyer who incorporated the Process Church of the Final Judgment.
Take a breath.
For those of you who need some background on Tommy Baumler, here is an excerpt from my series of articles posted here on the wandering bishops (more may be found in volume one of Sinister Forces):
--
Jack Martin remained a bishop with the American Orthodox Catholic Church to the end of his days, even going so far as to bring in another Banister associate, the corpulent attorney and unapologetic racist Thomas Jude Baumler, to the Orthodox fold, consecrating Baumler a bishop in August of 1974, nearly eleven years after the Kennedy assassination and seven years after the beginning of the Garrison investigation and the deaths of both Stanley and Ferrie. From personal correspondence with an individual involved with this affair, I learned that Baumler had already been ordained a priest by Stanley years before; in other words, prior to Stanley’s death in March, 1967. Baumler’s status in New Orleans society was assured; he came from an old family and was associated with one of the famous Mardi Gras “crewes”.
In addition, according to my informant, Baumler was also a Mason and belonged to the same lodge – the Etoile Polair Lodge of the French Grand Orient – as Mafia don Carlos Marcello, the man for whom David Ferrie was working on the day of the assassination. My informant goes on to insist that Martin could be relied upon to furnish FBI files on
“future applicants for Holy Orders”, a strange capability for a hopeless drunk. It is widely rumored that Martin had a source at FBI headquarters in New Orleans who provided him these files, but he also made it known that he was an investigator for the District Attorney’s office – something of which the DA was presumably not aware. Yet he had an income of some kind, for he was known to travel extensively throughout the United States for years on one errand or another involving the bishops, a true “wanderer”.
What was Baumler’s interest in Carl Stanley and the American Orthodox Catholic
Church? Why was it attractive to become consecrated the Bishop of Baton Rouge-New Orleans in this minuscule, obscure church as late as 1974? Soon after his consecration, he went on to consecrate another bishop, this time William Francis Forbes, in October of 1974. It was Baumler, after all, who told J. Gary Shaw in 1981 that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Guy Banister. He even told Jim Garrison investigator Harold Weisberg in 1969 that he personally met the elusive Oswald himself.
Return of the Bishops
"Everything about Tommy Baumler was dark."
-- Timothy Wyllie
Greetings, boys and girls. You may remember my long series of articles (or a series of long articles, mejor dicho) concerning New Orleans, Lee Harvey Oswald, and a veritable apostolic succession of wandering bishops who operated out of Guy Banister's office in the Big Easy. You may recall such names as David Ferrie, Jack Martin, Carl Stanley ... and Thomas Jude Baumler. Well, you'll never believe it, but Tommy Baumler's name came up again in the most bizarre place of all these bizarre places.
He was the lawyer who incorporated the Process Church of the Final Judgment.
Take a breath.
For those of you who need some background on Tommy Baumler, here is an excerpt from my series of articles posted here on the wandering bishops (more may be found in volume one of Sinister Forces):
--
Jack Martin remained a bishop with the American Orthodox Catholic Church to the end of his days, even going so far as to bring in another Banister associate, the corpulent attorney and unapologetic racist Thomas Jude Baumler, to the Orthodox fold, consecrating Baumler a bishop in August of 1974, nearly eleven years after the Kennedy assassination and seven years after the beginning of the Garrison investigation and the deaths of both Stanley and Ferrie. From personal correspondence with an individual involved with this affair, I learned that Baumler had already been ordained a priest by Stanley years before; in other words, prior to Stanley’s death in March, 1967. Baumler’s status in New Orleans society was assured; he came from an old family and was associated with one of the famous Mardi Gras “crewes”.
In addition, according to my informant, Baumler was also a Mason and belonged to the same lodge – the Etoile Polair Lodge of the French Grand Orient – as Mafia don Carlos Marcello, the man for whom David Ferrie was working on the day of the assassination. My informant goes on to insist that Martin could be relied upon to furnish FBI files on
“future applicants for Holy Orders”, a strange capability for a hopeless drunk. It is widely rumored that Martin had a source at FBI headquarters in New Orleans who provided him these files, but he also made it known that he was an investigator for the District Attorney’s office – something of which the DA was presumably not aware. Yet he had an income of some kind, for he was known to travel extensively throughout the United States for years on one errand or another involving the bishops, a true “wanderer”.
What was Baumler’s interest in Carl Stanley and the American Orthodox Catholic
Church? Why was it attractive to become consecrated the Bishop of Baton Rouge-New Orleans in this minuscule, obscure church as late as 1974? Soon after his consecration, he went on to consecrate another bishop, this time William Francis Forbes, in October of 1974. It was Baumler, after all, who told J. Gary Shaw in 1981 that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Guy Banister. He even told Jim Garrison investigator Harold Weisberg in 1969 that he personally met the elusive Oswald himself.
