When Old Catholics come into Full Communion

[John_of_Patmos]

Are there any groups of ex Old Catholics, in full union with the pope?
Theoretically, would they get their own ordinariate?
How are our ecumenical relations with them?

 

[John_of_Patmos]

Anyone?

 

[Filioque]

There are no groups that I know of who have returned to the Holy See. Individuals have, I know of only two priests who derived their orders from Old Catholic lines who were allowed to enter into a Catholic Seminary to assure a proper formation, (after they returned to the Catholic Church. and waited for two years of discernment) one is in Italy, and was once attached to a group that followed one of the supposed Marian Apparitions here in the U.S.A. that was pronounced by the Church to not be authentic. I won’t give any more details, as it is his story to tell.

Historically however O.C. Clergy, at least outside of the Netherlands and Germany who are received into or return to the Church are recieved as Laymen, and not permitted to function. Since most would not need an Ordinariate, As the more Catholic of the O.C. churches either use the EF or the OF,as such they do not have a Liturgical Patrimony like that of the Anglicans, or Eastern Catholics, there would be no real need to set up an Ordinariate.

There are only two types of ordinariates that I know of, the first is for the Military in each country, as when a serviceman or woman is stationed to a base, within or outside of their country of origin, and they seek the sacraments from a Military Chaplain, these priests need to have faculties making it difficult to always and everywhere be able to obtain them. So they have their ordinary who is a Bishop assigned the task for each country which has the Military Ordinariate.

As for the Anglican Use. Those who are recieved into the Church, are fully Catholic, and allowed to retain those liturgical practices that are unique to Anglicanism, but also completely Catholic. Having their Ordinariate, they can maintain those practices, which are different from local Eastern Catholic, or Roman Rite practices.

Since the Ordination of Women and other issues by many O.C. groups, and the fact that outside of the Polish National Catholic Church, and the Dutch/German Old Catholics, most others have little or no formation or structure, even the largest in the US and Canada, (Christ Catholic Church) has any number of clergy who vary from O.F. Liturgies in Latin, to Charismatic very Low Church protestant style services. I’ve met a couple of their bishops who have little or no formation, who are married to their third or fourth wife, and are only bishops in the CCC because they were bishops somewhere else. The PNCC,and the Dutch/German O.C. do have a fairly good formation, even if it is not 100% in line with the Catholic Church’s teachings. There has been dialogue with the PNCC, and a limited intercommunion agreement was made a decade or so ago if there was grave reason and a layman of one group or the other could not recieve the sacraments from a priest of his own Church.

 

[LoyalViews]

They might just join an Anglican ordinariate, since they ARE in full communion with the Anglican Communion.

Although, maybe they’ll just be incorporated into the diocese closest them?

 

[Alexander_Roman]

There are no groups that I know of who have returned to the Holy See. Individuals have, I know of only two priests who derived their orders from Old Catholic lines who were allowed to enter into a Catholic Seminary to assure a proper formation, (after they returned to the Catholic Church. and waited for two years of discernment) one is in Italy, and was once attached to a group that followed one of the supposed Marian Apparitions here in the U.S.A. that was pronounced by the Church to not be authentic. I won’t give any more details, as it is his story to tell.

Historically however O.C. Clergy, at least outside of the Netherlands and Germany who are received into or return to the Church are recieved as Laymen, and not permitted to function. Since most would not need an Ordinariate, As the more Catholic of the O.C. churches either use the EF or the OF,as such they do not have a Liturgical Patrimony like that of the Anglicans, or Eastern Catholics, there would be no real need to set up an Ordinariate.

There are only two types of ordinariates that I know of, the first is for the Military in each country, as when a serviceman or woman is stationed to a base, within or outside of their country of origin, and they seek the sacraments from a Military Chaplain, these priests need to have faculties making it difficult to always and everywhere be able to obtain them. So they have their ordinary who is a Bishop assigned the task for each country which has the Military Ordinariate.

As for the Anglican Use. Those who are recieved into the Church, are fully Catholic, and allowed to retain those liturgical practices that are unique to Anglicanism, but also completely Catholic. Having their Ordinariate, they can maintain those practices, which are different from local Eastern Catholic, or Roman Rite practices.

Since the Ordination of Women and other issues by many O.C. groups, and the fact that outside of the Polish National Catholic Church, and the Dutch/German Old Catholics, most others have little or no formation or structure, even the largest in the US and Canada, (Christ Catholic Church) has any number of clergy who vary from O.F. Liturgies in Latin, to Charismatic very Low Church protestant style services. I’ve met a couple of their bishops who have little or no formation, who are married to their third or fourth wife, and are only bishops in the CCC because they were bishops somewhere else. The PNCC,and the Dutch/German O.C. do have a fairly good formation, even if it is not 100% in line with the Catholic Church’s teachings. There has been dialogue with the PNCC, and a limited intercommunion agreement was made a decade or so ago if there was grave reason and a layman of one group or the other could not recieve the sacraments from a priest of his own Church.

There is a former Polish National Catholic parish up here that is now in full communion with Rome and has married priests. I don’t know where it is, but I’ve spoken to people who have been to it.

 

[DhuAlQarnayn]

There would be no need for any separate ordinariate or particular church since the liturgy is essentially identical to Rome’s. Priests do convert on a case-by-case basis and continue in holy orders, including married priests. There are large seminaries in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands which provide good formation (most seminaries in this part of the world are state-supported, and they have a Catholic wing, a Protestant wing and an Old Catholic wing in the same facility).

In North America it’s more difficult because most of the traffic goes in the other direction. In my town we have an Old Catholic parish with two priests, one a former Catholic priest and one a former Catholic nun. As far as I know there’s no Old Catholic seminary in North America, at least not one that the Vatican would accept as sufficient to transfer in a priest.

The Polish National Catholic Church left the Old Catholic communion a few years back and there were rumors that they were going to be folded back into the Catholic Church but it hasn’t happened yet.

 

[LoyalViews]

There would be no need for any separate ordinariate or particular church since the liturgy is essentially identical to Rome’s. Priests do convert on a case-by-case basis and continue in holy orders, including married priests. There are large seminaries in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands which provide good formation (most seminaries in this part of the world are state-supported, and they have a Catholic wing, a Protestant wing and an Old Catholic wing in the same facility).

If you don’t mind me asking, but how does that work? I never knew there were seminaries like this

 

[DhuAlQarnayn]

If you don’t mind me asking, but how does that work? I never knew there were seminaries like this

The seminaries are housed at major public universities – they’ll have a department of Catholic theology, a department of Evangelical and Lutheran theology, and sometimes a department of Old Catholic theology or Orthodox theology. We have something similar in the US where all the seminaries in a given city will form a consortium, for instance St. John’s Seminary and the Jesuit Seminary at Boston College are part of the Boston Theological Institute, which also includes Episcopal Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, etc. Students at one can attend classes at any of the others.

 

[Peter_J]

Hi all. Interesting thread you’ve got here.

I came across this video a month or two ago: I am leaving Old Catholicism. Not really anything earth-shattering, just one priest’s situation.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Hi all. Interesting thread you’ve got here.

I came across this video a month or two ago: I am leaving Old Catholicism. Not really anything earth-shattering, just one priest’s situation.

Fr. Nathan is a great guy!

 

[JReducation]

I was thinking about the question of ecumenical relationships with the OC. I don’t think we have any, because the OC are not a Church or even an ecclesial community. They seem more splintered than many Protestants. For example, Lutherans, Anglicans and Episcopalians have bishops. Even though there is not really a central government as the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches have, at least there is a diocesan government. To the best of my knowledge, the OC are not organized that way. I have always found it difficult to understand how they’re organized or how they are governed. I would be interested, if anyone knows more about this.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[DhuAlQarnayn]

I was thinking about the question of ecumenical relationships with the OC. I don’t think we have any, because the OC are not a Church or even an ecclesial community. They seem more splintered than many Protestants. For example, Lutherans, Anglicans and Episcopalians have bishops. Even though there is not really a central government as the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches have, at least there is a diocesan government. To the best of my knowledge, the OC are not organized that way. I have always found it difficult to understand how they’re organized or how they are governed. I would be interested, if anyone knows more about this.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

They are highly organized in Central Europe, where each country has one independent Old Catholic church that is a member of the Union of Utrecht and is organized into dioceses and parishes just like the Catholic Church. There are active ecumenical dialogues in Europe between RCs and OCs, although since the main point of OC theology is basically just that they’re not in communion with the pope, there’s not always a lot to talk about.

In North America, the movement is extremely splintered and there are dozens of separate groups in the Old Catholic tradition, who generally have bishops descended from one of the Union of Utrecht churches. There aren’t really any formal ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic church in North America that I know of, although since many of the Old Catholic priests are former Roman Catholic priests and nuns, they do know each other. The Old Catholic parish in my town frequently uses the diocese’s retreat houses for events and everybody seems to get along pretty well.

There’s currently a movement under way to survey all the various Old Catholic groups in North America to create some type of umbrella organization and eventually maybe a church that would join the Union of Utrecht, but it’s still very much in the preliminary stages. They’ve invited all the active bishops they can find to participate, but many of them are waiting to see how things will play out before getting involved.

 

[Peter_J]

I was thinking about the question of ecumenical relationships with the OC. I don’t think we have any, because the OC are not a Church or even an ecclesial community. They seem more splintered than many Protestants. For example, Lutherans, Anglicans and Episcopalians have bishops. Even though there is not really a central government as the Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches have, at least there is a diocesan government. To the best of my knowledge, the OC are not organized that way. I have always found it difficult to understand how they’re organized or how they are governed. I would be interested, if anyone knows more about this.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

Huh? When did the Old Catholics stop having bishops?

 

[JReducation]

In North America, the movement is extremely splintered and there are dozens of separate groups in the Old Catholic tradition, who generally have bishops descended from one of the Union of Utrecht churches. There aren’t really any formal ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic church in North America that I know of, although since many of the Old Catholic priests are former Roman Catholic priests and nuns, they do know each other. .

That sounds more like what I have seen. I don’t know them from Europe. My first contact with them was when I was assigned to Miami, where there is one OC parish. It seemed rather isolated from other OCs, not because of its location, but the way that it functions. It always gives me the impression that it belongs to some splinter group rather than a diocese. Your explanation clarifies why that is. In America, they are in fact less cohesive than in Europe. Thanks.

Huh? When did the Old Catholics stop having bishops?

I didn’t say that they don’t have bishops. They do. That’s why they’re valid. I said they don’t have a diocese led by a bishop. But Dhu has explained how they function in the USA. It seems that in the USA they don’t really have the diocesan organization that Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Episcopalians have.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[Peter_J]

Hi again. I see now that we’ve been talking about two different things. I was thinking of Old Catholic Churches in the specific sense of the Union of Utrecht. If you’re talking about other groups that identify as “Old Catholic”, then yes that’s a very different matter.

 

[JReducation]

Hi again. I see now that we’ve been talking about two different things. I was thinking of Old Catholic Churches in the specific sense of the Union of Utrecht. If you’re talking about other groups that identify as “Old Catholic”, then yes that’s a very different matter.

As I said above, those are the only OCs to whom I’ve ever been exposed.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[DhuAlQarnayn]

That sounds more like what I have seen. I don’t know them from Europe. My first contact with them was when I was assigned to Miami, where there is one OC parish. It seemed rather isolated from other OCs, not because of its location, but the way that it functions. It always gives me the impression that it belongs to some splinter group rather than a diocese. Your explanation clarifies why that is. In America, they are in fact less cohesive than in Europe. Thanks.

I didn’t say that they don’t have bishops. They do. That’s why they’re valid. I said they don’t have a diocese led by a bishop. But Dhu has explained how they function in the USA. It seems that in the USA they don’t really have the diocesan organization that Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Episcopalians have.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

Basically, the church developed here in bits and pieces before the organizational hierarchy had a chance to catch up. The early history of the Orthodox churches in North America is similar. The largest Old Catholic group in North America is the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, which has (I believe) six dioceses and around 40 parishes. Several of the dioceses have pledged to join the Union of Utrecht once an official North American church is established and the rest are taking a wait-and-see approach. Most other groups are much smaller, often only one or two parishes.

 

[JReducation]

Basically, the church developed here in bits and pieces before the organizational hierarchy had a chance to catch up. The early history of the Orthodox churches in North America is similar. The largest Old Catholic group in North America is the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, which has (I believe) six dioceses and around 40 parishes. Several of the dioceses have pledged to join the Union of Utrecht once an official North American church is established and the rest are taking a wait-and-see approach. Most other groups are much smaller, often only one or two parishes.

Thanks for that. I’m understanding their infrastructure better thanks to you guys.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV