Who Are The Independent Catholics?
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Catholic denominations in general follow the traditions of sacramental worship and the preaching of the word as established in the early church before the church was split up into many denominations. The actual theologies, rites, and practices of independent Catholic churches vary from conservative to liberal. Its own Bishops run each denomination. The Pope is a Bishop. The word bishop comes from the Greek for: There are variances but in general, the bishop of an independent Catholic church is elected by a synod or governing council of bishops to be the Patriarch, Matriarch, Presiding Bishop, the Archbishop, the Prime Bishop or leader of the denomination with a variety of titles.
Independent Catholic churches - RationalWiki
This person in general is considered the CEO of the denomination. Apostolic succession is a process which involves a priest being consecrated to the High and Holy Order of Bishop by the laying on of hands and the anointing with sacred Oil of Chrism by a validly consecrated bishop. The consecrating bishop must be able to trace his succession through an unbroken line of bishops back to the original church founded by Jesus the Christ and his Apostles. As a general rule there must be two validly consecrated co-consecrators in participation with the main consecrating bishop to insure the validity of the consecration.
Once a person becomes a priest or a bishop they are ordained spiritually for their entire life.
Over the thousands of years of church history there have been validly consecrated bishops from Catholic denominations including the Roman Catholic Church who have broken their affiliation and allegiance to a particular denomination. These bishops and denominations have been called schismatic. Those bishops who have left a denomination are still valid bishops and may continue to ordain priests and consecrate new bishops, thus the valid Apostolic Succession is carried on.
The major splits or schisms, from the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church sometimes called the greater Catholic Church founded years ago, were The Eastern Orthodox separation in and the Anglican community in There have been a few times in church history where the Church at Rome has given permission for a particular Diocese to elect its own bishops without being appointed by the Pope.
Bishops, independent of Rome, have come about through both of these mechanisms. Each independent Catholic denomination establishes their own Code of Canon Law, and their own theological stand on these issues. As previously stated the various denominations move from very conservative to very liberal.
After the First Vatican Council in , considerable groups of Austro-Hungarian , German and Swiss Catholics rejected the declaration of papal infallibility and left to form their own churches, independent of the pope. The churches were supported by the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht , who ordained their priests and bishops.
The Union of Utrecht incorrectly believed that Mathew had a significant following in the United Kingdom and that there would be a wave of clergy wanting to leave the Church of England as a result of Pope Leo XIII 's declaration that Anglican orders were null and void. Mathew believed that Old Catholicism would provide a home for those disaffected clergy, but the mass conversions failed to occur. Before separating from the Union of Utrecht, Mathew ordained several individuals to the episcopacy and priesthood from whom a number of new churches quickly developed, including the Liberal Catholic Church , whose first bishop, James Ingall Wedgwood , was consecrated by Frederick Samuel Willoughby, who had been consecrated by Mathew.
In , Vilatte traveled to India , where he obtained ordination to the episcopacy by the Oriental Orthodox bishops in India. Over the following 28 years, Vilatte consecrated a number of men to the episcopacy. Those bishops and their successors went on to found many different jurisdictions in North America. A number of Traditionalist Catholic groups, who have advocated for a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council , have left the Roman Catholic Church and begun their own religious organizations.
Evangelical Catholic groups such as the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church formerly the Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran describe themselves as Lutheran rather than Catholic because of their Lutheran heritage and the fact that they accept the clauses of the unaltered Augsburg Confession that agree with their understanding of the Roman Catholic magisterium. The Pope is a Bishop. As an example, Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan of the African Orthodox Church , one of four conditionally ordained to the episcopate on 24 September by Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo , who was therefore excommunicated , claims to have been first consecrated on 10 June and to have been subsequently conditionally reconsecrated several times before participating in the Milingo ceremony. In what is called "cross-consecration", bishops representing different lines of apostolic succession consecrate each other to multiply the claims of each to genuine apostolic succession. The traditional Catholic position holds that a validly consecrated bishop shares apostolic succession with the bishops he consecrates and the priests and deacons he ordains regardless of any heresy or schism he may have committed. This person in general is considered the CEO of the denomination.
Most of these schismatic Traditionalist Catholics belong to the Latin Rite , although some groups are part of the Byzantine Rite. The Old Catholic Church is a Christian denomination that split from the Holy See in the s because they disagreed with the solemn declaration of the doctrine of papal infallibility promulgated by the First Vatican Council — Some groups such as the Polish National Catholic Church arose as a result of grievances relating to the second-class status of immigrant Polish Catholics by the American Irish and German dominated church hierarchy.
Independent Catholicism
Ethnic grievances still play a role in the church today as in the case of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in St. In , King Henry VIII of England, who had previously been awarded the title "Defender of the Faith" by the Pope, signed into law the Act of Supremacy, placing the ecclesiastical governance of the Catholic Church in England Ecclesia Anglicana , under his own jurisdiction in order to grant himself an annulment from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon , establishing the independence of the Church of England from the See of Rome.
Since the English Reformation the English Church, known as the Ecclesia Anglicana or Church of England, has experienced various other reforms over the centuries, all the while maintaining its via media character as established by the Elizabethan Settlement of , wherein the church was understood to be both Catholic and Reformed. Many but not all independent Catholic clergy claim descent from the Union of Utrecht member churches, but Utrecht does not officially accept their orders.
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Like Orthodoxy, Utrecht holds that ordinations cannot be done except within the church as a whole and with appropriate authority. Some parishes later entered the Orthodox Church in America , but a remnant, which does not claim traditional apostolic succession, kept the name Evangelical Orthodox Church and continued as an independent church.
Since the orders of the EOC were not regarded as valid by the Orthodox bishops, the reception of clergy into mainstream Orthodoxy was always accompanied by ordination.
Independent Catholicism is a movement comprising clergy and laity who self- identify as Catholic and who form "micro-churches claiming apostolic succession . This is a list of independent Catholic denominations which identify themselves as being within Old Catholicism or other independent Catholic traditions.
The Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church was founded in by Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa , who withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church, opposing its position on clerical celibacy and divorce and accusing it of Fascist sympathies, which he saw evidenced in documents such as Rerum novarum , Quadragesimo anno and Divini Redemptoris. A number of liturgical churches are sometimes regarded as independent Catholics but do not fit neatly in the category. Continuing Anglican Churches are sometimes included in this grouping, but that is disputed, especially with regard to the larger Anglican bodies, and the continuing churches do not count themselves as being within the independent Catholic movement.
Peter are sometimes regarded as independent Catholics, but they do not see themselves in this manner; rather they regard themselves as being the true church, believing that Catholicism has embraced teachings which are schismatic , or even heretical since the Second Vatican Council.
A similar controversy exists regarding the Old Calendar Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions, including the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and bodies that split from mainstream Orthodoxy specifically in order to maintain the Old Liturgical Calendar. There have been attempts to construct broader categories to include many of these groups, such as the Independent Sacramental Movement , but most of the groups would be uncomfortable with such a characterization.
Evangelical Catholic groups such as the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church formerly the Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran describe themselves as Lutheran rather than Catholic because of their Lutheran heritage and the fact that they accept the clauses of the unaltered Augsburg Confession that agree with their understanding of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Others, such as the Antiochian Catholic Church in America , describe themselves as Catholic and claim that their doctrine is based, with variations, on that of a church unrelated to the Roman Catholic Church for centuries.
The relationships ended because the PNCC rejects the ordination of both women and sexually active homosexuals. Whilst no longer in communion with any other body, the PNCC remains a relatively substantial denomination, maintaining active dialogue with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. It is also a member of the World Council of Churches.
Very few independent groups are as large as either the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, with 27 congregations in the United States and 6 in Europe, [5] or The Old Catholic Church, Province of the United States with 13 congregations or the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America, with 10 congregations; [6] most consist of one or two bishops, a few priests and deacons, and a small number of adherents. In numerous cases, bishops have been consecrated without having any priests under their jurisdiction.
- Independent Catholic denominations?
- List of independent Catholic denominations?
- The Cull!
- Autumn and Other Stories.
Some bishops have received multiple sequential consecrations see below , often as conditional consecrations, in an attempt to secure a more widely recognised claim to apostolic succession , for example, Bishop Hugh George de Willmott Newman. Virtually all members of the independent movement worship according to a set liturgy , usually derived from a mainstream historical Christian rite , such as the Syriac, Byzantine, or Roman.
Sometimes they use a liturgy that is a combination of two or more of these historical liturgies or one that is unique to the group in question.
Independent Catholicism
It was not uncommon for leaders of the various churches in early Christianity to develop rites such as the Divine Liturgy of St. By definition, all such groups are episcopal in polity, being led by bishops and priests who are assisted by deacons. All hold to a sacramental understanding of the Christian faith related to that broadly held in common by the Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , Oriental Orthodox , Assyrian , and traditional or high church Anglican and Anglo-Catholic churches low church or evangelical Anglicans are more Reformed in their understanding.
Independent Catholicism also affirms the text of the Nicene Creed , but interpretations vary widely based upon how many councils are recognised by the independent Catholic Church in question. However, independent groups disagree on the ordination of women , homosexuality , abortion, contraception, divorce, and other issues that are controversial also in more mainstream sections of Christianity.
Unlike most of their more conventional counterparts, these groups, usually being quite small, tend to be internally fairly homogeneous on these and other issues; in other words, divisions on these and other questions are between these groups, not so much within them. These independent congregations represent a variety of doctrines. Other independent groups are quite conservative, following extremely traditionalist Catholic or Old Calendar Orthodox positions; still others describe themselves as " Evangelical Catholic " and High Church Lutheran.