Talk:Old Catholic Church

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Contents

[edit] Miscellaneous comments

I have started to read this article and have added something about English speaking Old Catholics as it's important to draw the distinction between Continential European Old Catholics who tend to speak Dutch and Germand and those from the UK and USA. I'm happy to assist with this article although I suspect that too much has been drawn from a rather biased article that relies on 'history'. Forgive me any bluntness on my part but I'm new to wikipedia \\\\--Father Stuart1 15:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)\\\\


The real question of succession and nomenclature is what groups called themselves what and who joined whom. The term "Old Catholic" is, I think, an invention of the German group (the Munich convention, I believe). I can't find anything just off hand on the web to find out what the Utrecht schism called *itself* from the early 18th century until the late 19th century, but I have never in the (admittedly Roman Catholic) material seen a refernce to that group as "Old" until after the Union of Utrecht. There's a book called "Episcopi Vagantes" that would help, but we don't have a copy of it in our little liberal arts college library. --MichaelTinkler

Well, I got the information I added from: [1], which is a somewhat biased source, though I am unsure of the correctness of its factual statements. We both updated the article at the same time, but I couldn't work out which of us was right, so now we have two articles... -- Simon J Kissane

hmm. I'll look around and work on it. We don't have either the book I refer to above and I can't find in my database bibliography the book I read published in the mid-80s about Old Catholics in America.

The text in the first paragraph seems to be a straight-off translation of the text on the referred website [[2]]. Is this a copyright violation?

[edit] Comment from an actual Old Catholic

The "Old Catholic" comes from the Dutch "oud Katholieke", which is how the people in Utrecht described themselves when the Jesuits entered Holland in the 1850s, to "re-establish" a Catholic hierarchy -- ignoring the existing churches. The Roman parishes/dioceses were the "new Catholics", while the existing church in Holland were the "old Catholics" -- lower-case "old".

"Old Catholic" (upper-case "Old") has been used in the sense of a separate denomination (Utrecht always thought of itself as an integral part of the Roman Communion, just separated from Rome by unfortunate politics) only since the 1870s. The first paragraph is a fair statement of the position of the German-speaking communities that came out of the Roman Communion in 1870, over the issue of Papal Infallibility (Vatican I). Utrecht had attempted to take part in Vatican I, but were rebuffed by Pius IX, and thus became open to the idea of a completely separate Church.

+Sam'l Bassett Old Catholic Bishop (Not in communion with Utrecht and the European Old Catholics)

User:Samlb (sig added by Example (talk · contribs) 11:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC))

Wow, I am very glad to meet you! I've been working on the old and ancient catholic articles here for a long time, and would greatly appreciate your involvement. I have based what is here on what i have read, but I havn't been able to find a whole lot, and would love to learn more myself, as well as provide a better series of articles to the readers. Hwta we really need in my opinion is more doctrines, and explanations of where the theology and so forth differs from that of roman catholics. Thank you so much, Example (talk · contribs) 11:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] This is a comment from a German Old Catholic, who is familiar with all of the churches in the Utrecht Union.

Mr. Bassett is simply wrong on the origin of the term "Old Catholic" (Altkatholisch) was a German neologism, directly related to the innovations in the Roman Church during the First Vatican Council. The Church of Utrecht has only used the term more recently, and in the spirit of communion with the other Utrecht Churches; his history is pure fancy.

(Quite frankly, this is the sort of reception that Old Catholics in the U.S. get from the Union of Utrecht -- we try to be respectful and responsible, and get insults. +S.B.Bassett)

This article should be updated to indicate the complete depature of the Polish National Catholic Church from the Utrecht Union. See the article on the PNCC.

Also, the characterization of the church in the first paragraph needs some fine-tuning. The Old Catholic Churches in Europe are state-recognized as entities receiving church taxes separate from the taxes collected for members of the Roman Catholic Church. This is important, as it separates the Old Catholics from the so-called "free" churches, generally protestant denominations which have no official state recognition.

This distinction, of course, is not useful or important in the U.S., where such subsidy of churches with tax money is unconstitutional.

Mein Herr: And your name is? I like to keep track of the few Old Catholics on the Continent +S.B.Bassett

[edit] American Catholic Church in the United States

At American Catholic Church in the United States, someone added the comment, "This church belongs to the family of the Old Catholic sects." Is that true? I assume it must mean outside of the Union of Utrecht, however, if there are no Utrecht churches in the United States (except the Episcopal Church). --Angr/comhrá 21:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes -- the ACCUS is derived from the Duarte-Costa Line, out of Brazil, and are not in communion with the Utrecht Union. +S.B.Bassett

Actualy, i think it's very important to distinguish here between Old Catholics and Independent Catholics. Many non-Roman Catholic bodies in North America, although valid, are not Old Catholic. Old Catholics or Old Roman Catholics in North America can realy be considered 'Independent' as none are in communion with Utrecht. But many Independent Catholics are not true Old Catholics as they are not recognised by Utrecht.

[edit] The Utrecht schism

I think the paragraph dealing with the origin of the Utrecht curch and its originating schims is rather POV. It is not "the evil jesuits" who caused the schism, but the refusal of Codde and his predecessor (who, btw, both never were Bishops of Utrecht but Apostolic vicars of the Netherlands authorized solely by papal nomination, and titulary bishops - Codde was titled Archbishop of Sebaste) to obey Roman teaching and orders. Summoned for his deeds Codde did get a full hearing in Rome but failed to convince anyone of his cause. And, the schism actually didn't happen until long after Codde's death, when in 1723 the Utrecht cathedral chapter illegally elected a successor bishop (Cornelius Steenhoven) who got himself consecrated by a rogue (excommunicated) missionary bishop he had made contact with. Later they created - again without roman permission - two other Dioceses (Haarlem and Deventer) to have enough Bishops to consecrate a new one should one of them die.

Of course Rome had named a replacement for Codde , but he - as well as his later successors, were denied entry to the Netherelands by state officials intent on furthering the schism. Only after the Netherlands constitution of 1848 Catholics had the necessary religious freedom to rebuild the church institutions within their own country. (Catholic affairs in the Netherlands had been run by papal emissaries in Cologne in the menatime)

The antagonism between "evil" Jesuits and god fearing Dutch is mostly a propaganda invention of newly created Utrecht relgion. Wefa 16:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Not sure if I did a good enough job, but I tried to clean it up a little and restore a NPOV. Please let me know what more must be done to remove the Clean up tag. --Kf4bdy 01:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

My personal opinion: The introductory paragraph needs to be rewritten so that it explains what all the subsection names mean. I skimmed this page and it's very far from obvious what the "Union of Utrecht" has to do with the "Old Catholic Church". Is the union a bunch of churches? Are all the UoU churches OCC churches but not vice-versa?
    The Utrecht Union is an organization which includes the European Old Catholic Churches -- the Netherlands,     Germany, Switzerland, and, I think, Poland and the Czech Republic.  All are Old Catholic, in that they derive their Orders from the historic Archdioces of Utrecht.  There are other Old Catholic Churches which are not part of the Utrecht Union. +S.B.Bassett
I suggest the intro paragraph say something like this:
The Old Catholic Church (in Switzerland, Christian Catholic Church) is not so much a religious denomination, as a community of Christian churches. Many of these were German-speaking churches which split from the Roman Catholic church in 1870, after the promulgation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility at the First Vatican Council. However, there are Old Catholic churches that began as early as [date] or as recently as [date]. Some, but not all, [??] of the Old Catholic churches are loosely united; this union is known as the "Union of Utrecht".
This is a guess -- I am unclear from the article whether the Union of Utrecht really is a union of Old Catholic churches. (If the Church of England is a member of the U of U, then it's not, since the C of E is certainly not an "Old Catholic" church in any normal sense of the term.)
  The Church of England is _NOT_ part of the Utrecht Union.  The Union and the CofE have been in Communion since the 1930s, and operate on a friendly basis, but are separate organizations.
So I can't fix the intro paragraph, as I don't know the facts. But somehow the intro paragraph needs to be a broad overview of what's going to be discussed on this page.
If the "History" section includes history only of some churches, it might be renamed to "History of the XX Churches."
Anyway, that's my suggestion. Lawrence King 11:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I gave it another once over. I think the level of the article has increased by nearly double. I would like some thoughts on it. I hope it is cleaned up enough but if not let me know and I will try to work on it some more. :) Still learning what is expected here at Wikipedia. BTW, Thanks to you Lawrence King for the thoughts! --Kf4bdy 12:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. I removed the cleanup tag. I made a few more small edits. You might want to read my most recent edit (use the History tab to diff my last change) to make sure it's right.
I like what you've done with the article. But if you're new here, here are a couple things you might be interested in:
First, not everyone on Wikipedia agrees about how often you should use links. I myself wouldn't make words like "Archbishop" jumps every time they appear; once per article seems right to me. But other Wikipedia writers use links a lot more often.
Second, not everyone agrees on how related pages should be done. This page duplicates information on Archbishop of Utrecht and Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands (note that Ancient Catholic Church redirects to the latter). Some Wikipedians prefer more duplication, others less; others want to merge related pages. I put the "Main article: ..." notice on this page since that's a quick way of indicating that there are closely-related pages.
These are just matters of taste, and there are competing Wikipedia philosophies. Bottom line: thanks for the massive improvements you've made to this article! Lawrence King 22:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor

The change of the first sentence to include the word minor is strictly an American view as there are many Old Catholics in great number in Europe. While they may be a minor church in the US there are not a minor church worldwide. --Kf4bdy 04:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

How many Old Catholics are there in Europe? I have never been able to get a good figure. There are no really good figures for the number of American Old Catholics, but since the European ones are state-supported, theoretically there should be good numbers -- when bureaucrats dispense money, they want documentation. +S.B.Bassett

[edit] Take note!

I am from the Netherlands and well-informed as to this subject. It is not "Petter" Codde, but either Petrus or Peter. "Petter" is not a Dutch name; it might ridiculously sound like "Capper" in English. And Codde was Apostolic Vicar of the Northern Netherlands, provinces above the Rhine, as in those areas - heavily Protestantized in the cities and in many regions - the 1559 Diocesan structure was already completely dissolved by 1620. Not in vain, was Petrus Codde named Apostolic Vicar (Missionary Bishop) to the "Mission of Holland". The Jesuits did not establish rival sees, though Jansenism vs. Jesuit spirituality was one of the causes of the Codde conflict, which however was not very important in the 1723 unlawful COnsecration by a Lebanese Missionary Bishop (who went there from Rome).82.72.148.85 15:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Communion with Anglicans

It would be nice to include some information on when and how it came to be that the Old Catholics are in communion with the Anglican churches. The article mentions that this is the case, but doesn't explain when or how, though someone earlier on this talk page says it happened in the 1930s.

Also, I know that at least certain Anglican churches are in communion with certain Lutheran churches. Does this mean that, by transitivity, the Old Catholics are in communion with Lutherans? --Saforrest 17:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Priestesses" vs Priests

Earlier I changed the caption under the woman presiding over the Eucharist, correctly identifying her as a 'priest', as opposed to a 'priestess'. Nevertheless User:Smith2006 changed it back. I'm not sure quite why this was, but as both the Priest article and the Old Catholic website cited [3] in the footnotes refer to ordained women as 'priests', so should this article. aliceinlampyland 19:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC).

I agree. The term priest is completely acceptable. It is best to leave it that way for the sake of consistency if nothing else. --Kf4bdy talk contribs 09:06, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. "Priestess" is POV. --Midnite Critic 12:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Philologically speaking, priestess is a more appropriate term as in English "priest" is one of the few masculine words, the feminine form being, of course, "priestess". However, I agree that in this case it is more likely a POV issue than anything else. An easy way around this problem would be to reword "woman priest" to "women in the priesthood" or some such. PioMagnus (talk) 06:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV additions

I removed the following because it is almost entirely POV. If someone would like to clean it up then it might be worth placing back in the article, but as it is it appears to be more of an advertisement for their church.

In Britain the Old Catholic movement has various claimants but most are un-orthodox in their teaching or practice and have moved far beyond the original parameters of the founding Churches of Old Catholicism; even the Utrecht Union has, in it's desire to express more fully a "communion" with other 'mainstream' churches, chosen increasingly more 'liberal' interpretations of Faith, Scripture and Apostolic Tradition. However, the Old Catholic Church in Europe, formerly a mission-province of the Old Catholic Church in the USA (with traceable ancestory direct to Archbishop Matthews) is the only remaining orthodox Old Catholic jurisdiction in Great Britain; orthodox by virtue of it's remaining true to the expression of the Catholic Faith and Apostolic tradition as was practised by the original Old Catholic Churches. The OCCE does not for example, ordain women into the Sacred Ministry, neither does it participate in the sacrilegious practice of "sharing" Apostolic Succession by virtue of "ecumenical" co-consecrations (subconditional or otherwise). The OCCE is a member of the World Council of Churches through membership of the ICCC and the only Old Catholic denomination in Britain to be such, it also enjoys cordial relations with other orthodox Old Catholic Churches internationally.

Anyway, I am open to criticism but I think this was the right thing to do. --Kf4bdy talk contribs 23:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

As the author and after reflection - this was indeed the right thing to do! However, I will "clean it up" and resubmit. The thinking here was not so much to advertise a particular church but rather to mention what of the "Old Roman Catholic Church" exists in Great Britain as opposed to the "Liberal Catholic Church" sects which predominate the Old Catholic scene. I think my further contribution might be under the heading "Old Catholicism in Great Britain" with a brief treatment discussing the different "churches" identified as "Old Catholic" and their different emphasis. LloydVG 09:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Thank you. --Kf4bdy talk contribs 10:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ACCUS request to be in External Links section

On WikiEN-L, someone who appears to be Rev. Lawrence Harms, the founder of ACCUS, has asked to be put in the External Links section "Old Catholic Churches" as [4]. Would some editor experienced with the article take a look? Thanks, William Pietri 16:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I have added the link. Thanks for the heads up! --Kf4bdy talk contribs 12:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

For starters let me just start with I am a Christian.

Crhist's Gospel - Christ is a faith claim, it is the greek word for the hebrew word Messiah, which means (the) "annointed one" (of god). Christ's Gospel means the good news of the annointed one of god. While I agreee I doubt this qualifies as NPOV under wiki standards.

provide a witness that is fully inclusive of all of God's beloved children - aside from the obvious religious overtones(which are likely not POV), even if one begins with the idea that we are all god's beloved children, and that the faithful provide witness whether or not to condone gay actions is still a hot button with in the church. Just because A has a strong predeliction and B and A believe in the goodness of god does not mean that A has a right to live out that predeliction. What about Alchoholism? Do Old Catholics tell alchoholics to drink to their hearts content? Or Nymphomania? Do they tell them they can pick up partners indiscriminantly? I should hope not. Do old catholics accept these people as belobed children of god, do they endavour to include them? I should hope so(though I have little personal experience with Old Catholics in any matter). Fighting your inner most desire is no easy matter, it is infact an extraordinary burden to ask of people. But there are times when people committed to a certain set of ideals should be asking each other to do this, and should stand up and say, people who disagree with us can dialogue with us, but can not have positions of instruction unless they agree not to instruct upon this. To say that in asking C despite a predeliction for D is so extraordinary a burden that a benevolent god what never ask you to do it is an interesting position. But to apply it selectively is disingenuous, to use such language for it's selective application could hardly be called NPOV, it manages to assume many things about God, enough to offend most Christians and Non-Christians alike.

Jethro 82 16:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

PS. This is a reductio ad absurdum argument, I'm not saying being gay is as bad as nymphomania or alchoholism, just that I'm tired of hearing the 'would a benelovent god...' argument by people who only half mean it.

[edit] Cleanup Jargon

OK, I tried to find a best fit template for marking the much too technical section Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands. The problem with the section is that it has a main article, but the section is as large as the main article. The main article is somewhat easier to read than the section. The problem with the section is about this: it uses a very technical way to defend the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands' right to call itself an Old Catholic Church and blame the split-off on the Pope! It does so by describing the history in excruciating detail, while the main thread is almost hidden by religio-jargon like in partibus infidelium, ipso facto, null and void. The main thread is as I interpret it:

  • Pope Eugene III and 4th Lateran Council granted See of Utrecht right to elect bishops at vacancy, this occured in 12th and 13th century.
  • During the reformation wars, the See of Utrecht remained active and alive in secret,
  • In 1691 the Apostolic Vicar Petrus Codde was accused of Jansenism from the Jesuits,
  • Two papal commissions exonerated Codde, but yet Pope Clement XI suspended him,
  • This was deeply impopular among Dutch Catholics, and Codde kept his role for 2 years till he resigned in protest,
  • The dissatisfied priests of Utrech waited in 20 years to elect a replacement, and during this schism, Utrech attracted many Roman Catholic dissenter priests,
  • The Dutch Calvinists tolerated the See of Utrecht because of the schism,
  • therefore this separate Old Catholic Church body exists.

This crude sketch contains the information that must remain in the section, in order to keep the article coherent - but most details could go to the article Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 20:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old Catholic Ministry

Could someone have a look at this article with a view to merging into here? It seems to have been created by someone unfamiliar with wikipedia, and is unsourced. Thanks, Seth Bresnett • (talk) 15:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Seth, I'm interested why you would like to merge these two articles and yet you haven't called for the merger of Anglican_ministry and 'Anglican'? That merger of the two Anglican articles would only be equitable and just wouldn't it? Spiorad (talk) 15:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question...

...is it needed or useful to have a link to every different "Old Catholic" congregation? This has shown up large on some people's SPAM-radar, and may be challenged by someone on the grounds of "WP:NOT#LINKFARM". 68.39.174.238 19:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed them. Completely unneeded. нмŵוτнτ 17:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)