Friar Don Pratt was born in 1962 on Long Island, New York, and is the youngest of five children. He is the son of an aerospace engineer father and homemaker mother and was raised Presbyterian.    His home church – Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church -- was a house church located in the middle of a suburban neighborhood and was one of the oldest in the USA.   His parents had active roles in the church, taking turns with different church positions in service and leadership, including serving as ruling elders in the church session, Clerk of Session (father), and Director of the Church School (mother).

Friar Don has always had a strong spiritual connection to God through Jesus Christ and was introduced to Catholicism as a boy when he found his mom's Catholic missal (his mom was formerly Roman Catholic). He became attracted to the liturgy and would secretly read the missal, pretending to be a priest saying Mass. However, he became disenchanted with some of the Roman Catholic Church's politics and dogma later in life. Nevertheless, Don remained active in the Presbyterian Church through his teenage – young adult years.

Friar Don studied at Suffolk County Community College and the School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook. He worked in human services:  becoming the director of a county school-based suicide prevention program, executive director of an HIV/AIDS service agency and led a housing program for people living with AIDS through Catholic Charities.

Friar Don was introduced to the Inclusive Catholic Movement through a woman he was dating. She invited him to attend a catholic mass led by a woman priest, who also happened to be married to a woman. This experience affected Friar Don to discern a conversion to Catholicism. As a result, he participated in an RCIA class, adopted the name 'Francis' as his confirmation name, and was confirmed by Bishop Tony Hash.

Friar Don has been active in the United American Catholic Church almost since its formation. He was ordained into the diaconate on December 1, 2007, and the priesthood on August 10, 2013. In addition, he made his lifelong solemn profession of vows to the Order of Sts. Francis and Clare on the same weekend of his ordination. He was a founding member and later Pastor of the Emmaus Catholic Community on Long Island, NY, is now Minister General of the Order of Sts. Francis & Clare is a supply priest in the Charlotte, NC metro area and is currently discerning a new ministry in Salisbury, NC. In addition, he has an active wedding ministry in the Piedmont Region (North & South Carolina). He was the UAOCC Director of Vocations from 2016 through 2017 and then was appointed UAOCC Chancellor. On March 6, 2021, he was consecrated to the Episcopacy and appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the UAOCC – joining the College of Bishops.   He is humbled and honored by his consecration as Bishop, and by the Grace of God, he will work hard to assist in the growth of the UAOCC.

His Beatitude, the Most Reverend Carl Gregory, OSB, GCP - Bishop Carl has lived a rather interesting life, if he does say so himself! Born in Stockholm, Sweden, to an American mother and a Lithuanian father, he grew up and had his first birthday in a three-generation household in Washington, DC. He stayed in DC except for two European adventures.

Bishop Carl speaks eight languages well and accepts being called a polyglot. Linguistically, he felt somewhat impoverished as his aunt spoke 23 languages plus dialects and had a hobby of learning one language a year. He lived with her in Germany from 1958 to 1959, just one of his many European adventures.

From a religious standpoint, he was baptized in the Swedish Lutheran Church, a part of the Anglican Communion. His mother divorced and married a devout Roman Catholic, and they were received into the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. He attended Roman Catholic schools through elementary school, high school, and three years of seminary college. In the second semester of his junior year at St. Mary's Seminary and University, he developed duodenal ulcers and spent his last two weeks of seminary in a hospital bed. At that point, he took a leave of absence from the educational portion of his seminary training. He moved back to Washington and rented an efficient apartment next to Walter Reed Hospital, where he did chaplaincy work and served in the parish. The pastor was thrilled to have a "freebie" deacon equivalent.
 
 In 1991, he was ordained a deacon, six months later ordained to the holy priesthood, and two years after that, he was elected to the Episcopacy.
Bishop Carl is a cancer survivor and continues doing multiple strength training and Zumba sessions weekly. He is a licensed Zumba and Zumba Gold instructor and even acquired the name "the Dancing Bishop!"

His Episcopal motto says, "I come to serve, not to be served!" So, he is here to walk with you, to be with you, and to help you in whatever way he can, especially to bring you to meet God face to face. Peace!

Bishop Carl serves as the as Metropolitan Archbishop of the Orthodox Vicariate of Mary-the-Apostle, Bishop of the Vicariate of Saint Scholastica, the Bishop's Representative to the Leadership Council, the National Church representative of the International Council of Community Churches, as well as the Abbot of the Contemporary Benedictines of Peace, and Ecclesiarch for the Orthodox Monastery of Saint Brigid.