You are correct. The Church will never accept what the Old Catholics have done to the priesthood. Male clergy is a doctrine of the Church. Married clergy is not an obstacle.
According to Wikipedia, the Old Catholic Church opposes the RCC on abortion. If that is true, that would be a permanent deal-breaker.
Who knows? Perhaps, within my lifetime, it will be the Anglicans!
It’s a fairly grim group on CAF nowadays. My lighthearted, irrelevant little posts tend to get (rightly) ignored. People are caught up arguing what color Luther’s horse was, or why the commas in Vatican II documents are **not **defined dogma, and that proves it was just a pastoral council, so the SSPX is right to ignore modernist interpretations that emerged from unholy reliance on those commas. Now semi colons, on the other hand…Huh … I thought someone would have a snappy (or unsnappy) comeback to that.
No sense of humor around here.It’s a fairly grim group on CAF nowadays. My lighthearted, irrelevant little posts tend to get (rightly) ignored. People are caught up arguing what color Luther’s horse was, or why the commas in Vatican II documents are **not **defined dogma, and that proves it was just a pastoral council, so the SSPX is right to ignore modernist interpretations that emerged from unholy reliance on those commas. Now semi colons, on the other hand…
], we already had to close off many parishes because the priests died and there was nobody to replace them. We didn’t tryed to break the Church by nationalization…the movement was just composed like that, and it was decided that it would be best if each country had it’s own synod…kinda like if the SSPX in Italy decided to turn it’s back from the main body of the SSPX, then was followed by Portugal and, for instance, Brazil. But for the sake of being easier to manage, would stay like “National Churches”.I am so sorry that you have not attended Mass for more than 20 years.Okay, I see that I’ve set some rugs on fire on this one!
I still afirm myself as an old Catholic, but to be honest, It’s been almost 20 years since I last attended Mass.
First of all, we splitted from the Roman Catholic church on the following of Vatican I, as we don’t beleave any man can be infalible in any matter [yes, I know that it’s supposed to be only when the Pope is speaking Ex Catedra]. We’re close to the Anglican Communion, and keep many of the ancient catholic tradictions [For instance, my parish had tridentine mass prayed in the vernacular, and we kneeled to receve holy comunion from our priest and her deacons]. Yes, we can be seen as protestants: As we have no Pope, we follow the desisions of the synod, which has more liberal positions than the Roman Catholics. Allowing women and LGBTQI to be priests was a way to balance the vocations, as the number of priests was rapidly decreasing, and at least where I’m from [Born in the Swiss Alps
Anyways, the stance on abortion - although I don’t agree with it, only in specific cases, like rape - It’s that, like planned parenting and counterception, it’s the couple’s perrogative. Old Catholics don’t meddle much in every aspect of life.
And to reply to ThankUJP2,
I’d say that in Europe, we’re shrinking. Many become AngloCatholics, and some go Luteran or Calvinist. The fact that there aren’t as many parishes as one might think [In many places, Old Catholics have to attend Anglican - Or even Roman Catholic Mass - I’ve got to say, it’s still confusing to me to go to receve Holy Comunion and the whole “don’t kneel, the priest won’t like it” thing…]
In Switzerland, the Married Clergy, female priesthood and LGBTQI priesthood got us more vocations and attendance, though…putting us able to try to make a stand against all the evangelical churches and charismatic movements that have emerged over the past 30 years.
Oh, and by the way…the Roman Catholic church had female priesthood on the fifth century. It only started being forbidden arround the eight, ninth century. Later even, if you count places like Ireland.
And now, please don’t use this to start a flame war on me.
The problem is that the Old Catholic Church does not set rugs on fire. It follows - obeys - the secular media establishment. By supporting the right to rip apart unborn babies on demand, it has rejected the sanctity of all human life. Doing this means they also reject both the ancient Christian Tradition, but also they are taking positions that the earlier Old Catholics would have found unChristian. They may argue that they are not under any hierarchy based in Rome, but they are in effect subservient to the political, media, academic power structure and trendsetters in their own countries.
Well, I think SilverAvenger’s “rugs on fire” comment may have been pretty exaggerated, but there’s at least a bit of truth to it. Just look at the article in the OP … Or for that matter, simply read its title: