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Old Catholic Church

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The Old Catholic Church is a community of Christian churches. Many of these were German-speaking churches which 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 that 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.

Contents

History

Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands

: Main article: Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands
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 territories of the Dutch Republic, north of the Rhine and Maas rivers, who, governing from the city of Utrecht, sacramentally served the needs of the Dutch Roman Catholics, who themselves assisted by secret priests secretly celebrated 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 of 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 and thereby implicitly abode by Rome's will.

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 according to the right previously granted to the See of Utrecht. However, Van Steenoven and his successors were not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and the Popes of Rome appointed Apostolic Vicars (Roman 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 lasting Protestant Dutch Rebellion against Spanish (Catholic) rule. These appointments were again made without the consent of the Roman Pontiff, who still considered those sees vacant.

Most of the Dutch Catholics, who since 1600 had been mainly served by regular missionary priests, not by secular clergy, did not follow the Old Catholic bishops of the Utrecht chapter and remained in full communion with the Holy See in Rome and with the Apostolic Vicars appointed by Rome.

Pope Pius IX, in 1853, established his own Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Netherlands, to rival 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 hierarchy of 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.

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 outside union with Rome. These churches were supported by the 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" to distinguish themselves from what they saw as novelty (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 Latin Gregorian chant. The vernacular language was slowly adapted in the liturgy by the 1870 Old Catholic churches too. 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, supported the conversion of Roman Catholics to Old Catholicism.

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 homosexuality, contraception and, less frequently, eucharistic liturgy and open communion.

From the Old Catholic Church website [Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany] Old Catholic Church Homepage:

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

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

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

In the area of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Joseph Rene Vilatte began working with Roman Catholics of Belgian ancestry, who tended to separation 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 Bishop 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 real churches and 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. The Old Roman Catholic Church, founded in England by Bishop Mathew and no longer part of the Union of Utrecht, has a good presence in the United States too.

Terminology

The term 'Old Catholic' is used often by many splinter groups, ranging from 'Continuing' or 'Traditionalist' to 'New Age'. Many of these so-called Old Catholic Churches are gatherings of clergy without congregations, and some 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 by the 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.

See also

Notable Old Catholics

External links

Old Catholic Churches

Other links

 

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