Utah’s ‘Old Catholics’ embrace new movements

[Dale_M]

This concerns a news story in the Salt Lake City Tribune which seems to do a good job talking about the difference between the Catholic Church and Old Catholics.

You see, both priests [who are gay and married to another man] practice a little-known brand of Catholicism, with elements most Catholics wouldn’t recognize. It’s called the North American Old Catholic Church and, according to its website, it preaches openness, tolerance and interfaith dialogue as “an essential way to build a more holistic and loving world in accordance with the Gospels.”

In this incarnation of Catholicism, priests and nuns may marry whomever they wish, every baptized person (including divorced members) is welcome to take communion and women can be priests. Their faith statements read like a litany of progressive concerns — the environment, anti-torture, gay rights, women’s rights, nuclear disarmament, reproductive justice.

The Old Catholics oppose abortion but don’t believe their view should be codified in civil law. And there is no allegiance to Rome. Indeed, the movement started with the question of papal infallibility.

sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/54125985-80/american-bishop-bishops-catholic.html.csp

The article goes on to give quick history of Old Catholics and how they established themselves in the US. It also quickly summarizes key beliefs.

h/t GetReligion.org

My one quibble is that the way the article is written, it seems to suggest that divorced Catholics are not welcome to receive communion. This, of course, is not the case in the Catholic Church.

 

[odile53]

Actually, a former TV weatherman from where I now live managed to get himself ordained in this sect. The idea of him being ordained into anything was a little jarring to me, as I recall his weatherman buffunory days.