Old Catholic Church

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The Old Catholic Church is a community of Christian churches. Many of these were German-speaking churches of laypersons 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. While the European Old Catholic Churches are a part of the Union of Utrecht, there are many more that are independent, especially in the United States.

[edit] History

[edit] Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands

Main articles: Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands and Ultrajectine

Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht Gerardus Gul (1892-1920).

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 Brothers 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 where called against them, those tribunals 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, 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; however he resigned in 1703.

A replacement Archbishop, Cornelius van Steenoven, was elected by dissatisfied priests in 1723. Van Steenoven was consecrated a bishop 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 and Rome-critical clergy. The episcopal consecration was done without the Apostolic Mandate of the Pope, but allegedly according to the right previously granted to the See of Utrecht. Van Steenoven and his successors were not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and the Popes of Rome appointed Apostolic Vicars (Roman Catholic Archbishops in partibus infidelium) to the northern Dutch Republic's territories, while excommunicating the bishops who had taken by their own declaration and without the consent of Rome the Archdiocesan See of Utrecht. 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 on his own behalf appointed and consecrated 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 due to the rise of Protestantism and the eighty years, mostly Protestant, Dutch Revolt against Spanish (Catholic) monarchistic rule. These appointments were again made without the consent of the Roman Pontiff, who still considered those sees vacant. These appointments also affirmed an overruling of the papal primacy from the Ultrajectine side and in Roman Catholic eyes confirmed and consumed the schism.

Most of the Dutch Catholics, who since 1600 had been mainly served by regular missionary priests, not by the secular clergy of whom a part had associated with the Utrecht bishops, did not follow the Old Catholic bishops of the Utrecht chapter but remained in full communion with the Holy See in Rome and with the Apostolic Vicars appointed by Rome. Due to prevailing anti-papism among the powerful Dutch Calvinist Protestants, the anti-Roman hierarchy of Utrecht was tolerated and even congratulated by the government of the Dutch Republic.

Pope Pius IX, in 1853, after the Roman Church had received religious freedom guarantees from the Dutch King Willem II, established his own Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands, which opposed the hierarchy established by 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 the 'new' Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy which had been more recently re-established by Pope Pius IX. Under Roman Catholic Canon law, the line of apostolic succession in the Utrecht church remains "valid, but not licit". The Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands does not possess any ordinary jurisdiction from the Roman point of view.

[edit] Impact of the First Vatican Council

Old Catholic Parish Church in Gablonz an der Neiße, Austria-Hungary (now Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic). A considerable number of ethnic German Catholics supported Döllinger in his rejection of the dogma of papal infallibility.

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 outside union with Rome. These churches 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 Austrian, German and Swiss Catholics 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 a new church to be called 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, which was abandoned in the Dutch Old Catholic Mother Church only as late as 1920. 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 the Gregorian chant. The vernacular language was slowly adapted in the liturgy by the 1870 Old Catholic churches too, until finally introduced there 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, especially during the Kulturkampf period from 1871–1877. 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 sympathized with the Old Catholic movement, as Döllinger and other Old Catholic leaders had firmly denounced Quanta Cura (1864).

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 religious offices, acceptance of openly practiced homosexuality, artificial contraception (birth control) and, less frequently, liturgical reforms/innovations and open communion.

Since the 1990s the Utrecht Union of Old Catholic Churches has ordained women as priests. Dr. Angela Berlis was one of the first women to be ordained to the Old Catholic presbyterate.

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.

[edit] 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.

Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew being ordained a bishop by Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht Gerardus Gul at St. Getrude's Cathedral, in the city of Utrecht, on 28 April 1908.

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 consecrated 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 consecrated 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 are descended from Bishop Vilatte and claim him as a kind of founder by virtue of his ordinations and consecrations.

Many Old Catholic bishops in the United States 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. Bishop Mathew sent pioneers to the United States including the theosophist Bishop James Ingall 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 Old Catholic jurisdictions into one church organization under Archbishop Arnold Mathew of England. Bishop de Landas contributed greatly to the growth and development of the Old Catholic Church during his active years. He ordained and consecrated other priestly pioneers including William Francis Brothers and Carmel Henry Cafora.

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 Old Catholic groups in the United States, some with many churches and a considerable membership. Unlike the Polish National Catholic Church, however, these have never been affiliated with or recognized 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 is no longer affiliated with the Union of Utrecht. Among the reasons for disaffiliation is the ordination of women, which the PNCC rejects, while the Union of Utrecht considers it to be a minor disciplinary issue that does not touch the faith and therefore should not be a barrier to ecclesial communion among its member churches.

[edit] 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. Along with these four bishops, also in attendance was the liaison of the Episcopal Church to the IBC, Bishop Miche Klusmeyer, 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 Roman Catholic Church, founded in England by Bishop Mathew is not part of the Union of Utrecht, but has a good presence in the United States.

Old Catholics also found their way into Canada. The Old Catholic Church of Canada and the Old Roman Catholic Church have long had a presence from which other smaller Old Catholic churches have descended. The Christ Catholic Church International, headquartered in Niagara Falls, Ontario and led by Bishop Donald Mullins, has parishes in both the US and Canada. In 1968 Andre Barbeau was consecrated bishop and first patriarch of the Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada by pro-uniate Old Catholic bishops in Europe. Barbeau served in this capacity until his death on February 14, 1994. Succeeding Barbeau is Archbishop Andre Le Tellier. This church's jurisdiction has spread as far south as Florida and the Southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

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

[edit] Notable Old Catholics

• Randall Garrett[1]
• Franz Heinrich Reusch
• Warren Prall Watters
• Arnold Harris Mathew

[edit] External links