Old Catholic

 

Christian denomination established by German Catholics who separated themselves from the Roman Catholic Church when they rejected (1870) the decrees of the First Vatican Council, especially the dogma of the infallibility of the pope. The Old Catholic movement began publicly with a meeting of professors at Nuremberg (1870) under the leadership of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger. By 1874, a new church had been established with a bishop consecrated by a Jansenist bishop (see under Jansen, Cornelis) of the Church of Utrecht, which had itself separated from Rome in an earlier (1724) schism considered to be a precursor of the Old Catholic movement. Church doctrines were codified by the Declaration of Utrecht (1889), which rejected communion with the pope and many Roman Catholic doctrines and practices; priests were allowed to marry and confession was made optional. Roman ritual was retained but was usually performed in the vernacular.

Old Catholicism spread to Switzerland and Austria and then to other nations, arriving in the United States as early as 1885. The Polish National Catholic Church of America, one of the most important early groups, was formed in 1897. Christ Catholic Church, established in 1968, is one of the newest. In 1990, U.S. membership in various Old Catholic churches numbered some 500,000. Other important Old Catholic groups include the Philippine Independent Church, with approximately 3 million adherents, and the German Old Catholics, with some 24,000 members. The German church began ordaining women in 1996.

Bibliography

See K. Pruter and J. G. Melton, ed., The Old Catholic Sourcebook (1983).

The Old Catholic Church is a community of Christian churches. Many of these were German-speaking churches of laymen and clergymen who split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1870s because of the promulgation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility as promoted by the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870. The term "Old Catholic" was first used in 1853 to describe the members of the See of Utrecht, who were not under Papal authority. The Continental European Old Catholic Churches are usually a part of the Union of Utrecht. There are now English speaking Old Catholic Churches in the United Kingdom and North America not "in-communion" with the Union of Utrecht. The Old Catholic Church of Slovakia is an example of a Continental European Old Catholic Church that removed itself from the Union of Utrecht.

History

Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands

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Main articles: Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands and Ultrajectine

St. Willibrord was consecrated to the Episcopacy by Pope Sergius I in 696 at Rome. Upon his return to the Netherlands, he established his See at Utrecht. In addition, he established the dioceses at Deventer and Haarlem. The Church of Utrecht also provided a worthy occupant for the Papal See in 1552 in the person of Pope Hadrian VI, while two of the most able exponents of the spiritual life, Geert Groote, who founded the Brethren of the Common Life, and Thomas a Kempis, who is credited with writing the Imitation of Christ, were both from the Dutch Church.

Granting the petition made by the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad II and Bishop Heribert of Utrecht, Blessed Pope Eugene III, in the year 1145, granted the See of Utrecht the right to elect successors to the See in times of vacancy. This privilege was affirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The autonomous nature of this See was further demonstrated when a second papal grant by Pope Leo X, Debitum Pastoralis, conceded to Philip of Burgundy, the 57th Bishop of Utrecht, that neither he nor any of his successors, or any of their clergy or laity, should ever be tried by a tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church and that, if any such tribunals were called against them, these would be, ipso facto, null and void. This papal concession, in 1520, was of the greatest importance in the later defense of the rights of the Church of Utrecht. During the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands remained under attack and the dioceses north of the Rhine and Waal eventually were dissolved and suspended by the Holy See. Protestants had occupied most church buildings, and those left were confiscated by the government of the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces which favored Calvinist Protestantism.

However about one third of the population north of the Rhine in the Netherlands remained staunchly Catholic. The 17th century Popes appointed one bishop at a time to be Apostolic Vicar for those territories of the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces which lay north of the Rhine and Maas rivers, who, governing from the city of Utrecht, sacramentally served the needs of the Dutch Roman Catholics. The laity were assisted by secret priests secretly celebrating Holy Masses in private homes, farm houses, or small chapels which resembled ordinary sheds rather than parish churches. The Apostolic Vicar of Utrecht thus had to serve from many hundreds of thousands to up to a million Catholics. German and Belgian missionaries secretly helped out. The Apostolic Vicar was at the same time named Archbishop of Utrecht in partibus infidelium (i.e. in the land of unbelievers), not the archbishop of a restored fully operative archdiocese of Utrecht.

In 1691, the Jesuits took the step of accusing the Apostolic Vicar of Utrecht, Petrus Codde, of favoring the so-called Jansenist heresy. The Holy Father, Pope Innocent XII appointed a Commission of Cardinals to investigate the accusations against Apostolic Vicar Codde, violating the previous Debitum Pastoralis. The result of this inquiry was a complete and unconditional exoneration of the Apostolic Vicar.

Undaunted by the decision of the Commission, the new Pope, Clement XI, summoned Codde to Rome in 1700 to participate in the Jubilee Year whereupon a second Commission was appointed to try Codde. The result of this second proceeding was again a complete and unconditional acquittal. Pope Clement XI decided to issue an order which suspended the Apostolic Vicar in 1701 and appointed a successor to the Apostolic Vicariate of Utrecht, despite the ruling of the Commission.

Bishop Peter Codde resented the attempts by the Papacy and the Jesuits to interfere with the affairs of his Apostolic Vicariate. The Dutch refused to accept the replacement the Pope had appointed, and Codde continued in his office until he resigned in 1703.

A replacement Archbishop, Cornelius van Steenoven, was elected by dissatisfied priests in 1723. Van Steenoven was consecrated by missionary bishop Dominique Marie Varlet, who had been made the Coadjutor Bishop of Babylon by the Pope, but never went to the Middle East. Varlet had instead chosen to support the Dutch Jansenists. The episcopal ordination was done without permission of the Pope, but supposedly according to the right previously granted to the See of Utrecht. Van Steenoven and his successors were not recognised by Rome, and Apostolic Vicars (bishops in lands where the Church is not sufficiently strong to organise dioceses) were appointed to the northern Dutch Republic's territories. All those who participated in the ordination of Van Steenoven to the episcopate were excommunicated. This was the beginning of the Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands, also known as the Ancient Catholic Church or the Roman Catholic Church of the Old Episcopal Order.

Van Steenoven appointed and ordained bishops to the sees of Deventer, Haarlem and Groningen, which had all been vacant since the dissolution of the Roman Catholic diocesan structure in the Northern Netherlands. These appointments were again made without the consent of the Roman Pontiff, who still considered those sees vacant.

Most Dutch Catholics did not follow the Old Catholic bishops of the Utrecht chapter but remained in full communion with Rome and with the Apostolic Vicars appointed by the pope. Due to prevailing anti-papism among the powerful Dutch Calvinist Protestants, the non-Roman hierarchy of Utrecht was tolerated and even congratulated by the government of the Dutch Republic.

Pope Pius IX, in 1853, received guarantees of religious freedom from the Dutch King Willem II, and established a Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands, which existed alongside that of the Old Catholic See of Utrecht. Thereafter in the Netherlands the Utrecht hierarchy was referred to as the 'Old Catholic Church' to distinguish it from that of Roman Catholicism. According to Roman Catholic theology, the Old Catholic Church of Utrecht has maintained apostolic succession, and its clergy thus celebrate true sacraments.

Impact of the First Vatican Council

After the First Vatican Council in 1870, considerable groups of Austrian, German and Swiss Catholics rejected the teaching on papal infallibility, and left to form their own churches. These were supported by the `Old Catholic´ Archbishop of Utrecht, who ordained their priests and bishops; later the Dutch were united more formally with many of these groups under the name "Utrecht Union of Churches".

In the spring of 1871 a convention in Munich attracted several hundred participants, including Church of England and Protestant observers. The most notable leader of the movement, though maintaining a certain distance from the Old Catholic Church as an institution, was the important church historian and priest Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890), who had already been excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church over the affair. Despite never formally becoming a member of the Old Catholic Church, Döllinger requested and took last rites from an Old Catholic priest.

The convention decided to form the "Old Catholic Church" in order to distinguish themselves from what they saw as a novelty (the doctrine of papal infallibility) in the Roman Catholic Church. At their second convention, they elected the first Old Catholic bishop, who was ordained by the Archbishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands. In 1874 they abandoned the requirement of priestly celibacy. From the middle of the 18th century onward the Dutch Old Catholic See of Utrecht had increasingly vernacularized its originally Roman Rite Latin liturgy and even Gregorian chant. The vernacular was slowly adapted in the liturgy by the 1870 Old Catholic churches, until finally introduced in 1877. The Old Catholic Church in Germany received some support from the government of the new German Empire of Otto von Bismarck, whose policy was increasingly hostile towards the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy See in the 1870s and 1880s. In Austrian territories, Pan-Germanic nationalist groups, like the Away from Rome! Movement of Georg Ritter von Schönerer, supported the conversion of Roman Catholics to Old Catholicism (or Lutheranism). Liberal politicians and philosophers also sympathised with the Old Catholic movement.

The Old Catholic Church shares much doctrine and liturgy with the Roman Catholic Church. However it tends to have a more liberal stance on most issues, including the eligibility of women for ordination, acceptance of homosexuality, artificial contraception (birth control) and, less frequently, liturgical reforms/innovations and open communion.

From the Old Catholic Church website:^[1]

The "Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany" (Katholisches Bistum der Alt-Katholiken in Deutschland) is an

• autonomous,
• episcopally, synodally structured,
• catholic
• church, which acknowledges the diversity and the essential teaching and institutions of the early, undivided church during the first millennium. Its origins lie in various Catholic reform movements.

Based on critical examination of the historical witnesses of early Christianity, the leaders of the Old Catholic movement developed an episcopal, synodal church structure, which incorporates the historic episcopal and priestly offices into democratic structures at all levels.

Old Catholics in the United States and Canada

Soon after Old Catholicism's momentous events at the end of the 19th century, Old Catholic missionaries came to the United States.

Many Independent Old Catholic bishops in the United States claim to trace their Apostolic Succession to Arnold Harris Mathew and the (later independent) Old Catholic Church of England, which is presently widely known as the Old Roman Catholic Church. Father Mathew was consecrated bishop on 28 April, 1908, by Utrecht Archbishop Gerhardus Gul, assisted by the Old Catholic Bishops of Deventer and Berne, in St. Gertrude's Old Catholic Cathedral in the city of Utrecht. Only two years later, in 1910, Mathew declared his autonomy from the Union of Utrecht, with which he had experienced tension from the beginning. Bishop Mathew sent missionaries to the United States including the theosophist Bishop J. I. Wedgwood (1892 - 1950) and Prince (Bishop) Rudolph de Landas Berghes et de Rache (1873-1920).

Bishop de Landas arrived in the United States on 7 November, 1914. He hoped to bring the various independent Old Catholic jurisdictions into one church under Archbishop Mathew. Bishop de Landas contributed greatly to the growth and development of the independent Old Catholic Church, ordaining and consecrating others including William Francis Brothers and Carmel Henry Cafora.

In the area of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Joseph Rene Vilatte began working with Roman Catholics of Belgian ancestry, who tended to separate from Roman influence due to their isolated geographical position at the time. Vilatte was ordained a deacon on 6 June 1885 and priest on 7 June, 1885 by the Most Rev. Eduard Herzog, Bishop of the Old Catholic Church of Switzerland. After his ordination, Fr. Vilatte worked diligently on behalf of his congregations in Wisconsin, providing the only Catholic presence in his very rural part of the state.

In time, he petitioned the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht to be ordained a bishop so that he might confirm children and perform other ministrations for his people. His petition was not granted. Determined to meet the spiritual needs of his people, Father Vilatte sought opportunities in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

He was ordained a bishop in India on the 28 May, 1892 under the jurisdiction of the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch. A number of western orthodox churches such as the African Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Catholic Church of America claim Vilatte as a kind of founder by virtue of his ordinations and consecrations.

Since the passing of the original organizers from the ecclesiastical scene, the Old Catholic Church in the United States has evolved from a centralized administration with structured oversight of ministry to a local and regional model of administration with self-governing dioceses and provinces. According to some, this local model more closely follows the ancient tradition of the early Christian Churches as a communion of communities each laboring together to proclaim the message of the Gospel.

Today, the largest by far of these Old Catholic communities in the United States is the Polish National Catholic Church. There are many other U.S. groups which claim Old Catholic lineage, but few have any real membership. Unlike the Polish National Catholic Church, these have never been affiliated with or recognised by the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht whose churches have been in communion with the Church of England since 1931. Since late 2003, however, the PNCC has no longer been part of the Union of Utrecht. Among the reasons for disaffiliation are Utrecht's acceptance of the ordination of women, and a more liberal attitude towards the practice of homosexuality, both of which the PNCC rejects.

The Conference of North American Old Catholic Bishops

With the PNCC no longer a member of the Union of Utrecht, the Union's International Bishops Conference asked the Episcopal Church, its ecumenical partner in the United States, to initiate discussions among various Old Catholics concerning how they identify as Old Catholics, the ecclesiology of various Old Catholic bodies, and whether these various churches ordain women. The Episcopal Church, after having gathered this information, reported to the IBC, the summary of the various experiences of those Old Catholic churches that responded. The report was given at the annual meeting of the IBC in August 2005. The IBC asked the Episcopal Church to host a consultation of these American bishops.

In May 2006, four American Old Catholic bishops gathered at the Bethsaida Spirituality Center in Queens Village, New York. These four bishops were the Most Rev. Peter Hickman, the Most Rv. Peter Paul Brennan, the Most Rev. Charles Leigh, and the Most Rev. Robert T. Fuentes. Along with these four bishops, also in attendance was the liaison of the Episcopal Church to the IBC, the Rt. Rev. Michie Klusmeyer, Bishop of West Virginia, the deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations, Dr. Tom Ferguson, and Fr. Bjorn Marcussen, an Episcopal priest who had been ordained in the Old Catholic Church of Austria and who is an Old Catholic theologian. The IBC sent as a representative to this consulation, Fr. Gunther Esser, Director of Old Catholic Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. Key to the discussions was the ecclesiology of the Old Catholic Church, highlighted in the Preamble to the Statutes of the International Bishops Conference. After three days of discussions, the American bishops agreed to the formation of the Conference of North American Old Catholic Bishops, agreeing to pattern itself after the IBC. The CNAOCB has as its central goal the tangible, organic unity among American Old Catholic jurisdictions. The bishops also agreed to meet at least twice a year.

In November 2006, the two bishops who remained engaged to the development and formation of the CNAOCB, met in Los Angeles, to develop the Conference's Unity Statement, to fashion its rules of order, and to set forth the criteria for joining the Conference itself. The Unity Statement, which incorported the ecclesiological understanding of the Union of Utrecht and which all new members must subscribe to, states:

Assembled at St. Paul’s Cathedral Center in Los Angeles, California, on the seventh day of November, 2006, we commit ourselves to these goals:

1. To place Jesus Christ as the head and center of this Conference of Bishops.

2. To conform to the gospel of Jesus and his call to serve God and to serve our neighbor.

3. To call upon the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, to bless, sanctify and guide this Conference.

4. To form this Conference of Bishops as an office, a voice and a center of Old Catholicism in the USA.

5. To model our Conference on the International Conference of Bishops (IBC) of the Union of Utrecht, as outlined in the Preamble of the Statutes of the International Bishops Conference of the Union of Utrecht.

6. To work collegially and cooperatively to form one National Old Catholic Church or a Communion or a Federation of American Old Catholic Churches.

7. To study and discuss Old Catholic documents and history, in order to determine how these documents are to promote the work toward unity.

8. To indicate those elements which identify our churches as Old Catholic.

9. To pray and work for unity among the bishops and the churches we represent.

10. To convene at least two face-to-face meetings each year for consultations on subjects of common interest.

We commit ourselves to these understandings:

1. In order to begin, nurture and perfect a more complete and satisfactory union, we have formed the CNAOCB, basing our cooperation upon the tenets of the Bonn Accord of 1931 between the Old Catholic and Anglican Churches, which states:

A. Each Communion recognizes the Catholicity and independence of the other, and maintains its own.

B. Each Communion agrees to admit members of the other Communion to participate in the Sacraments.

C. Full Communion does not require from either communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold all the essentials of the Christian faith.

2. We acknowledge and accept the Union of Utrecht’s Four Ecclesiological Points, namely,

A. Ecclesiology of the Local Church: The fullness of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church resides in the local church, understood as the local diocese.

B. The Role of the Bishop and Apostolic Succession: Apostolic succession belongs to the church. Bishops are servants of the church, elected by the church, for ordained office in the church. Apostolic succession refers to the passing on of the faith of the apostles in and through the church under the leadership and oversight of the bishop of the local church, ordained for his or her office of bishop through the laying on of hands and prayer. Apostolic succession is not the personal possession of a bishop that can be passed on to others in separation from the office of bishop in the local church. There cannot be a church without a bishop; conversely there cannot be a bishop without church. Here the expression “local church” refers to a community of faith that can best be described as a diocese, which in turn consists of a communion of parishes and missions. Bishops without churches are outside of the apostolic succession, even though they may have been ordained with the proper ritual and the proper intention.

C. The Theology of Communion: Even though the fullness of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church resides in the local church, the local church cannot remain alone. The church’s catholicity must express itself, which it does through communion with other local churches. The bishop of a local church stands at the intersection of where the local church meets with the other churches in communion. The bishop represents the local church to the other churches in communion, and represents the churches in communion to the local church. The bishop brings concerns of importance for the local church that may have consequences for the entire communion to the attention of the other bishops of the communion, and brings the concerns of the bishops of the communion to the attention of the local church.

D. Synodality: Synodality permeates all levels of the church. Members of the local congregation meet and make joint decisions about how to implement the mission, pastoral care and finances of the parish. It elects the pastor from qualified candidates. It elects a parish committee of lay people to govern the temporal affairs of the parish and minister side by side with the pastor. It elects representatives to the Diocesan Synod. Old Catholic dioceses are governed synodically by a synod of elected lay people and clergy. The Diocesan Synod elects the bishop. An elected Synodical Council assists the bishop in the governance of the diocese between diocesan synods.

3. We accept the Declaration of Utrecht (1889), The Munich Declaration (1871), and The Fourteen Thesis of the Old Catholic Union Conference at Bonn (1874).

4. The clergy candidates are to be educated as professionals at the university level or at the discretion of the local bishop, candidates with sufficient pastoral experience may also be ordained Whenever possible, candidates will normally attain a Master’s Degree or its equivalent in theology or ministry.

5. The church is open to all the baptized. Any baptized member who is qualified may be elected to and called to holy orders with the laying on of hands for ministry in the church.

Given at Los Angeles, California, 7th of November, 2006

The signers of the Unity Statement are Bishop Charles Leigh (Apostolic Catholic Church) and Bishop Robert T. Fuentes (Old Catholic Diocese of Napa.

Although there have been various attempts at unity among Old Catholic jursidictions since the turn of the 20th century, none have had the participation or the support of either the Episcopal Church or the Union of Utrecht. Both the Episcopal Church and the Union of Utrecht agree to remain engaged with the Conference. However, the success of the CNAOCB, and the degree of unity among the American churches, rests with the American bishops, both present members and those that will join, and the churches they represent.

The Old Catholic Church in the United States

Old Catholics in the United States interpret and understand Catholicism and the Gospel in different ways. Some are more conservative, not acknowledging female ordination, excluding persons of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender identity from full participation in the life and ministry of the Church, and some even hold to some version of the Tridentine liturgy.

Others have established communities that are fully inclusive, embracing people from all social, economic, sexual, gender, national, ideological and ethnic backgrounds, and have participated in the Liturgical Renewal movement started in the 1940s.

Many Old Catholics in the United States tend toward a revisited version of Roman Catholicism, one that either matches their memory, or how they would have liked the Roman Catholic Church to be.

Some follow closely the foundational documents of the European Old Catholics, namely the Munich Declaration, the 14 Theses and the Declaration of Utrecht, while others find these foundational statements dated, or not in conformity with their views of catholicity.

The Old Catholic Church in the United Kingdom

The English Catholic Church, formally itself an implant of orthodox Old Catholicism from the USA (originally a missionary province of the Old Catholic Church of the USA or 'OCCUS') decided, in consultation with other orthodox Bishops, to re-name itself the "Old Catholic Church in Europe" or 'OCCE[1]' to become not just an English language representative for orthodox Old Catholicism in Europe but also to provide an organisation for orthodox Old Catholics to relate to and be cared for on the Western side of the European Continent (the Old Catholic Church of Slovakia similarly for the East). It must be stressed that these provisions for orthodox Old Catholics have yet to be formally agreed between the Churches concerned. The OCCE is a numerically small denomination and yet it remains loyal to traditional Old Catholicism and engages in partnership working with other orthodox jurisdictions within COUSPP[2].

Terminology

The term 'Old Catholic' is used often by many splinter groups, ranging from 'Continuing' or 'Traditionalist' to 'New Age'. Many of these self-identified Old Catholic Churches are gatherings of clergy without substantial congregations of faithful, and some allegedly exist only on the Internet. Although the Bishops of many of these groups can trace lines of Apostolic Succession through Old Catholic Churches, most of these are regarded as episcopi vagantes even by the established, mainstream churches of the Utrecht Union.

References

• Episcopi Vagantes and the Anglican Church. Henry R.T. Brandreth. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1947.
• Episcopi vagantes in church history. A.J. Macdonald. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1945.
• History of the So-Called Jansenist Church of Holland. John M. Neale. New York: AMS Press, 1958.
• Old Catholic: History, Ministry, Faith & Mission. Andre J. Queen. iUniverse title, 2003.
• The Old Catholic Church: A History and Chronology (The Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, No. 3). Karl Pruter. Highlandville, Missouri: St. Willibrord's Press, 1996.
• The Old Catholic Sourcebook (Garland Reference Library of Social Science). Karl Pruter and J. Gordon Melton. New York: Garland Publishers, 1983.
• The Old Catholic Churches and Anglican Orders. C.B. Moss. The Christian East, January, 1926.
• The Old Catholic Movement. C.B. Moss. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1964.
• The Old Catholics, Anthony Cekada, The Roman Catholic Magazine, 1980.

See also

• American Catholic Church in the United States
• Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada
• Episcopi vagantes
• The Evangelical Old Catholic Comunion
• Free Church of Antioch
• Independent Catholic Churches
• The Liberal Catholic Church
• Old Catholic Church of America
• Old Catholic Church in Europe
• Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands

Notable Old Catholics

• Randall Garrett[3]
• Franz Heinrich Reusch
• Warren Prall Watters
• Arnold Harris Mathew

External links

Churches in the Anglican Communion

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