Old Catholic Church

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Old Catholics
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Not to be confused with History of the Catholic Church.
For other uses, see Old Catholic Church (disambiguation).

Old Catholic Church
PolityEpiscopal
Union of Utrecht
Union of Scranton
AssociationsWorld Council of Churches (Union of Utrecht only)
Full communionAnglican Communion (Union of Utrecht only)
Church of Sweden (Union of Utrecht only)[3]
Also known as Old Catholics or Old-Catholic churches

The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches,

Roman Catholic Church over certain doctrines, primarily concerned with papal authority and infallibility. Some of these groups, especially in the Netherlands, had already existed long before the term. The Old Catholic Church is separate and distinct from Traditionalist Catholicism
.

Two groups of Old Catholic Churches currently exist: the Union of Utrecht (UU) and the Union of Scranton (US). Neither group is in full communion with the Holy See. Member churches of the Union of Utrecht are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Anglican Communion;[7][8] and many UU churches are members of the World Council of Churches.[9][10]

Both groups trace their beginning to the 18th century when members of the

Catholic dogma of papal infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council (1870) were thereafter without a bishop and joined with the See of Utrecht to form the Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches. Today, Utrechter Union churches are found chiefly in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. In 2008, the Polish National Catholic Church created the Union of Scranton and separated from the Union of Utrecht. This was done in protest of the older Union's decision to ordain women and bless same-sex marriages. The Nordic Catholic Church
later joined the Union of Scranton as well.

History

Pre-Reformation diocese and archdiocese of Utrecht

Main article:
Archdiocese of Utrecht (695–1580)

In the pre-Reformation era, there were already disputes that set the stage for an independent bishopric of Utrecht between the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, notably during between the 11th to 15th centuries.

Post-Reformation Netherlands

Main articles: Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands and Old Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht

The northern provinces that revolted against the

Catholic sacraments.[11] However, Catholicism did not die, rather priests and communities went underground. Groups would meet for the sacraments in the attics of private homes at the risk of arrest.[12] Priests identified themselves by wearing all black clothing with very simple collars.[13]

All the

England, which likewise became mission territories.[13] The disarray of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands between 1572 and about 1610 was followed by a period of expansion of Roman Catholicism under the apostolic vicars,[14] leading to Protestant protests.[15]

The initial shortage of Roman Catholic priests in the Netherlands resulted in increased pastoral activity of

religious clergy, among whom Jesuits formed a considerable minority, coming to represent between 10 and 15 percent of all the Dutch clergy in the 1600–1650 period. Conflicts arose between these, and the apostolic vicars and secular clergy.[16] In 1629, there were 321 Roman Catholic priests in the United Provinces, 250 secular and 71 religious, with Jesuits at 34 forming almost half of the religious. By the middle of the 17th century the secular priests were 442, the religious 142, of whom 62 were Jesuits.[17]

The fifth apostolic vicar of the Dutch Mission,

cardinals to investigate the accusations against Codde. The commission concluded that the accusations were groundless.[19] In 1702, Pope Clement XI deposed Codde, to which Codde obeyed.[20]

After Codde's resignation, the Diocese of Utrecht elected

excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, and thus began the Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.[12]

While the religious clergy remained loyal to the Holy See, three-quarters of the secular clergy at first followed Codde, but by 1706 over two-thirds of these returned to Roman Catholic allegiance.

Calvinists, the Church of Utrecht was tolerated and even praised by the government of the Dutch Republic.[25]

The See of Utrecht declared the right to elect its own archbishop in 1724, after being accused of Jansenism.

In 1853

religious freedom from King William II of the Netherlands and re-established the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands.[26] The Holy See considers the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht as the continuation of the episcopal see founded in the 7th century and raised to metropolitan status on 12 May 1559, thus not recognizing any legitimacy of Old Catholics.[27]

First Vatican Council, Old Catholic Union of Utrecht

Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview
Patriarchs
compared to popes
Ecumenical councils
compared to popes
Catholic episcopal councils
compared to popes
Political rulers
compared to popes
Existing dogma
compared to popes
Objections and controversy

After the

Utrecht Union of Churches".[29]

In the spring of 1871, a convention in Munich attracted several hundred participants, including Church of England and Protestant observers.[30] Döllinger, an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest and church historian, was a notable leader of the movement but was never a member of an Old Catholic Church.[31]

The convention decided to form the "Old Catholic Church" in order to distinguish its members from what they saw as the novel teaching in the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility. Although it had continued to use the Roman Rite, from the middle of the 18th century the Dutch Old Catholic See of Utrecht had increasingly used the vernacular instead of Latin. The churches which broke from the Holy See in 1870 and subsequently entered into union with the Old Catholic See of Utrecht gradually introduced the vernacular into the liturgy until it completely replaced Latin in 1877.[32] In 1874, the Old Catholics removed the requirement of clerical celibacy.[19]

The Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany received support from the government of Otto von Bismarck, whose 1870s Kulturkampf policies persecuted the Roman Catholic Church.[33] In Austria-Hungary, pan-Germanic nationalist groups, like those of Georg Ritter von Schönerer, promoted the conversion of all German speaking Catholics to Old Catholicism and Lutheranism, with poor results.[34]

Spread of Old Catholicism throughout the world

Old Catholic parish church in Gablonz an der Neiße, Austria-Hungary (now Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic). Some ethnic German Roman Catholics supported Döllinger in his rejection of the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility.

In 1897 a group of Polish migrants in the United States broke away from the Holy See due to theological and liturgical issues; their leader, Franciszek Hodur, was consecrated a bishop by Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht Gerardus Gul, establishing the Polish National Catholic Church, which joined the Union of Utrecht.

Split of Old Roman Catholics and Liberal Catholics

In 1910,

null and void.[37]

Another significant figure,

Joseph René Vilatte, who was ordained a deacon and priest by Bishop Eduard Herzog, of the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland;[38] he worked with Catholics of Belgian ancestry living on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin, with the knowledge and blessing of the Union of Utrecht and under the full jurisdiction of the local Episcopal Bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.[39] However, he subsequently left the Old Catholics and was later consecrated a Bishop by Patriarch Mar Julius I of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, though the validity of such consecration is disputed.[37] He proceeded to establish a number of Christian denominations before eventually reconciling with the Holy See.[40]

Polish National Catholic schism from Utrecht

In 2003, the Polish National Catholic Church voted itself out of the UU due to the Utrechter Union's acceptance of female ordination, and their attitude towards homosexuality, both of which the Polish National Catholic Church rejects.[41][42] Prior, in 1994, the German Old Catholic bishops of the Utrechter Union decided to ordain women as priests, and put this into practice on 27 May 1996. Similar decisions and practices followed in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.[43] By 2020, the Swiss church also voted in favour of same-sex marriage. Marriages between two men and two women were conducted in the same manner as heterosexual marriages.[44]

Old Catholic Church of Slovakia

The Old Catholic Church of Slovakia was accepted in 2000 as a member of the Union of Utrecht.[45] As early as 2001 some issues arose concerning future consecration of Augustin Bacinsky as old-catholic bishop of Slovakia, and the matter was postponed.[46] The Old Catholic Church of Slovakia was expelled from the Union of Utrecht in 2004, because the episcopal administrator Augustin Bacinsky had been consecrated by an episcopus vagans.[47]

At present, the only recognized Christian church in America that is in communion with the Union of Utrecht is the Episcopal Church.[48]

Statistics

As of 2016, there are 115,000 members of Old Catholic churches.[49]

Church Membership
Catholic Diocese of the Old-Catholics in Germany 15,500[50]
Old Catholic Church of Austria 14,621[51]
Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands 10,000[52]
Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland 13,500[53]
Old Catholic Mariavite Church in Poland 29,000[54]
Polish Catholic Church in Poland[b] 20,000[55]

Doctrine

Old Catholic theology views the Eucharist as the core of the Christian Church; from this point of view, the church is a community of believers. All are in communion with one another around the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as the highest expression of the love of God. Therefore, the celebration of the Eucharist is understood as the experience of Christ's triumph over sin. The defeat of sin consists in bringing together that which is divided.[56]

An active contributor to the Declaration of the Catholic Congress of Munich, 1871—and all later assemblies—was

dogmatics at Prague. Von Schulte summed up the results of the congress as follows:[57]

The 1889 Declaration of Utrecht states the Union of Utrecht believes in Vincent of Lérins's following quote from his Commonitory: "all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all; for this is truly what is catholic".[58][59] The UU allows those who are divorced to have a new religious marriage in the church,[60] and Old Catholics had gradually replaced the Latin mass with the vernacular by 1877.[32] In 1989, the Union of Utrecht opposed abortion, but "[u]nusual exceptions should be made in consultation with a priest".[61]

Apostolic succession

Old Catholicism values apostolic succession by which they mean both the uninterrupted laying on of hands by bishops through time, and the continuation of the whole life of the church community by word and sacrament over the years and ages. Old Catholics consider apostolic succession to be the handing on of belief in which the whole Church is involved. In this process the ministry has a special responsibility and task, caring for the continuation in time of the mission of Jesus Christ and his apostles.[56]

According to the principle of ex opere operato, certain ordinations by bishops not in communion with Rome are still recognised as being valid by the Holy See, and the ordinations of and by Old Catholic bishops in the Union of Utrecht churches has never been formally questioned by the Holy See until the more recent ordinations of women as priests.[62]

Ecumenism

The Union of Utrecht considers that the reunion of the churches has to be based on a re-actualization of the decisions of faith made by the undivided Church. In that way, they claim, the

Anglican representatives.[3][63]

Old Catholic involvement in the multilateral

ecumenical movement formally began with the participation of two bishops, from the Netherlands and Switzerland, at the Lausanne Faith and Order (F&O) conference (1927). This side of ecumenism has always remained a major interest for Old Catholics who have never missed an F&O conference. Old Catholics also participate in other activities of the WCC and of national councils of churches. By active participation in the ecumenical movement since its very beginning, the OCC demonstrates its belief in this work.[63]

See also

Movements

People

Notes

  1. ^ The organization Polish Catholic Church in Poland, a member church of the UU, is not to be confused with the Catholic Church in Poland or confused with the Polish National Catholic Church, a former member church of the UU.
  2. Polish Catholic Church in Poland, a member church of the UU, is not to be confused with the Catholic Church in Poland
    or confused with the PNCC, a former member church of the UU.

References

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  2. ^ a b "The Union of Scranton: a union of churches in communion with the Polish National Catholic Church". unionofscranton.org. Scranton, PA: Union of Scranton. Archived from the original on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Agreement" (PDF). Union of Utrecht. 23 November 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Old-Catholic churches". World Council of Churches. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
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  10. ^ "Old-Catholic churches | World Council of Churches". www.oikoumene.org. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
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  36. ^ Pius X Papa (15 February 1911). "Sacerdotes Arnoldus Harris Mathew Herbertus Ignatius Beale Et Arthurus Guilelmus Howarth Nominatim Excommunicantur". Acta Apostolicae Sedis. 3 (2): 53–54.
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  57. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Baumgarten, Paul Maria (1911). "Old Catholics". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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Sources

  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
    OCLC 600855086
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Further reading
  • "La Sainte Trinité dans la théologie de Dominique Varlet, aux origines du vieux-catholicisme". Serge A. Thériault. Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift, Jahr 73, Heft 4 (Okt.-Dez. 1983), p. 234-245.

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Old Catholics".
New International Encyclopedia article "Old Catholics
".
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Catholic_Church&oldid=1217818643"