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Independent Catholicism

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Independent Catholic Churches are Christian denominations (or congregations) that claim valid Apostolic Succession of their bishops, but which are not a part of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, or Anglican Communion. Independent Catholic bishops are sometimes referred to as episcopi vagantes ("wandering bishops") by the mainstream churches, because of their lack of affiliation with a larger communion of churches.

History

Bishop Arnold Mathew being ordained a bishop by Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht Gerardus Gul at St. Getrude's Cathedral, in the city of Utrecht, on 28 April, 1908.

The actual beginnings of the independent Catholic churches are very difficult to pin down. However, most scholars date the "modern" independent Catholic movement to the 1850s when the Old Catholic Churches split off from the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. After the First Vatican Council in 1870, considerable groups of Austrian, German, and Swiss Catholics rejected the teaching on papal infallibility, and left to form their own churches independent of Rome. These churches were supported by the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, who ordained their priests and bishops; later these groups united more formally under the name Utrecht Union of Churches.[1]

Independent Catholicism came to Great Britain in 1908 when Arnold Harris Mathew was consecrated a bishop in the Old Catholic Church. Bishop Mathew ordained several individuals to the episcopacy and priesthood, some of whom went on to found new groups such as the Liberal Catholic Church.[2]

Joseph René Vilatte is credited with being the first person to bring Independent Old Catholicism to North America.[3] An Old Catholic priest, in 1892 Vilatte travelled to Ceylon where he obtained ordination to the episcopacy by Archbishop Alvarez of the Independent Catholic Church of Ceylon. Over the following twenty-eight years Vilatte consecrated a number of men to the episcopacy; these bishops, or their successors, went on to found many different independent Catholic jurisdictions in the United States, including the American Catholic Church, the African Orthodox Church, the Apostolic Christian Church, the Free Church of Antioch and the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, Malabar Rite.[4]

Independent Catholic groups

Many, but not all, independent Catholic churches claim descent from the Old Catholics of Utrecht, though Utrecht would be hesitant to accept their orders as valid. This is because there were occasions when people purchased their ordination, something which (according to Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Old Catholics) would nullify any ceremony. Some North American Independent Old Catholic groups began life as Protestant and/or Charismatic congregations. For example, the Charismatic Episcopal Church came into being as independent charismatic fellowships rediscovered both sacramentalism and the historical apostolic succession. One group, the former Evangelical Orthodox Church, found its way into mainstream Eastern Orthodoxy: one part joined the Antiochan Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1987, another section entered the Orthodox Church in America, whilst a remnant kept the name EOC. Reception into mainstream Orthodoxy was always accompanied by ordination.

The Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church was founded in the 1940s as Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church in protest over the Church's perceived support of fleeing Nazis and right-wing governments in Latin America. Duarte Costa went on to consecrate other bishops in Europe as well as North and South America. Several independent Catholic bodies today claim to trace their apostolic succession through Duarte Costa.

A number of liturgical churches are sometimes regarded as Independent Catholic Churches, but do not fit neatly in this category. Continuing Anglican Churches are sometimes included in this grouping, but this is controversial, especially with regard to the larger Continuing Anglican bodies. Traditionalist Catholic groups are sometimes regarded as Independent Catholics (i.e. not in communion with the Holy See), but many of these bodies would not see themselves that way, rather believing that it is the pope who has fallen into error. The same could be said of Evangelical Catholic groups such as the Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran, which accept certain Roman Catholic doctrines but consider themselves to be Lutheran in a broad sense, rather than Independent Catholic. Similar controversy exists regarding the Old Calendar Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions, including the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and bodies which split from mainstream Orthodoxy specifically in order to maintain the Old Calendar.

The Polish National Catholic Church is sometimes considered an independent Catholic Church; however, the PNCC itself would reject this designation. The PNCC derives its orders from the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht, but is no longer in communion with Utrecht nor with the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. These relationships were ended because the PNCC rejects the ordination of both women and sexually active gay men. Whilst no longer in communion with any other body, it remains a relatively substantial denomination in its own right, maintaining active dialogue with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and is a member of the World Council of Churches.

A very few independent Catholic groups have grown to a substantial size, but the majority consist of one or two bishops, a few priests and deacons, and a small number of adherents. Often there are more people in the sanctuary than in the body of the church during services. There are many cases of people being ordained as bishops without having any priests under their jurisdiction, and of bishops undergoing several consecrations in an attempt to secure apostolic succession. As mentioned, mainstream Orthodoxy rejects the validity of such ordinations as they have been done outside of the Church i.e. Orthodoxy. Utrecht maintains a similar position. Roman Catholcism, which has tendeded to hold a more mechanistic view of ordination, would still be hesitant to accept the validity of the orders of Independent Old Catholic clergy. This is for several reasons: the proliferation of ordinations makes it difficult to ensure validity, women have been consecrated and others ordained by them, the theology of many in the Independent Old Catholic Movement is (to Roman Catholicism) somewhat suspect e.g. some believe in reincarnation, some reject the Trinity, some believe sacred cystals from which power emanates as the Mass is celebrated. It is significant that those Independent clergy who petition Rome for reconciliation are invariably met with silence.

Within the Independent Old Catholic Movement, fractions occur frequently and new groups are formed as people fall out with one another, issuing excommunications and condemnations. In 1996, Dr. Gregory Singleton, concluded, "Decentralization of religious organizations in the US is a likely trend in the future (we can see some signs of it now). It may be that these independent movements may provide us with models, both of what has not worked, and what might work, if taken seriously."[5].

Faith and practice

Virtually all independent Catholic Churches 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 some combination of two or more of these historical liturgies or one that is unique to the Church in question. By definition, all such Churches are episcopal in polity, being led by bishops and priests who are assisted by deacons. Virtually all hold to some type of sacramental understanding of the Christian faith closely related to that broadly held in common by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, and Anglican Churches. Virtually all also affirm the text of the Nicene Creed, usually with the filioque, but interpretations vary widely.

However, they disagree on ordination of women, ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians, acceptability of same-sex marital unions, abortion, contraception, divorce, and other issues that are controversial also in more mainstream sections of Christianity, whether Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, or Orthodox. However, unlike most of their more conventional counterparts, these Churches, 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 Churches, not so much within them.

These Churches represent a variety of doctrine. Some independent Catholic Churches, such as the Liberal Catholic Church,the Free Church of Antioch, the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch – Malabar Rite (the "Church of Antioch"), and the recently formed Young Rite are characterized by a theosophical or New Age orientation. Others are quite conservative, following extremely traditionalist Catholic or Old Calendar Orthodox positions. Others describe themselves as "Evangelical Catholic" and are High Church Lutherans.

Many of these Churches, possibly turning necessity into virtue, have intentionally embraced an "Ignatian" model of parish organization, in which a bishop, not a priest, is the pastor of a parish and is assisted by a group of priests, an intraparish presbyterium, as well as by one or more deacons. This model was often prevalent during the first centuries of the Christian Church.

Given this, it is rare, while nonetheless possible, to find independent Catholic clergy who are supported financially in their work. Most are "tentmakers," pursuing their ministry as a part-time, volunteer calling, while engaging in some other occupation in order to support themselves and their families.

Ecclesiology

In the past, independent Catholic bishops often received multiple consecrations to assure that their apostolic succession is considered unquestionably technically valid (though illicit) by the Roman Catholic Church. Though perhaps less prevalent than in the past, the practice still persists. Thus Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan of the African Orthodox Church, one of four who were conditionally (sub-conditione) reconsecrated as bishops by Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo on 24 September 2006, was first consecrated a bishop on 10 June 1978, and subsequently conditionally reconsecrated in October 1979 and twice more in March 1987.[1]

This situation has created the phenomenon of bishops who claim to be legitimate bishops of the Christian Church, but who have little or no organizational connections to any communion, historical or newly-formed, although modernly, there is a movement amongst various groups of bishops toward unification.

Their claim is based on an understanding of the "validity" of apostolic succession that has been commonly accepted in Western Christianity at least since the time of the Donatist controversy. According to this understanding, a bishop is a true bishop if consecrated in a valid rite by a bishop even outside the boundaries and against the wishes of the Catholic Church as defined and represented by the Pope. However, some theologians, within the Roman Catholic Church and elsewhere, question whether all such consecrations have effect, on the grounds that an ordination is for service within a concrete Christian Church. Therefore an ordination ceremony that concerns only the individual himself does not, they say, correspond to the definition of an ordination and is without effect. Eastern Orthodox theologians and some others apply this also to an ordination for a heretical or schismatic Church.

The Holy See itself has made no declaration about the correctness or erroneousness of the theory of the need to be ordained within and for an existing Christian Church. While it has more than once declared that certain episcopal consecrations have no canonical effect, it has explicitly stated that it was not thereby expressing a judgement on the validity, in itself, of those consecrations, but merely on their canonical efficacy.

Thus, when it declared devoid of canonical effect the consecration ceremony conducted by Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục for the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face group at midnight of 31 December 1975, it refrained from pronouncing on its validity. It made the same statement with regard also to later ordinations by those bishops, saying that, "as for those who have already thus unlawfully received ordination or any who may yet accept ordination from these, whatever may be the validity of the orders (quidquid sit de ordinum validitate), the Church does not and will not recognise their ordination (ipsorum ordinationem), and will consider them, for all legal effects, as still in the state in which they were before, except that the ... penalties remain until they repent" (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decree Episcopi qui alios of 17 September 1976 - Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1976, page 623).

A similar declaration was issued with regard to Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo's conferring of episcopal ordination on four men - all of whom, by virtue of previous Independent Catholic consecrations, claimed already to be bishops - on 24 September 2006: the Holy See, as well as stating that, in accordance with Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law, all five men involved incurred automatic ("latae sententiae") excommunication through their actions, declared that "the Church does not recognise and does not intend in the future to recognise these ordinations or any ordinations derived from them, and she holds that the canonical state of the four alleged bishops is the same as it was prior to the ordination."[6]

In contrast, the Holy See questioned neither the validity nor the canonical effect of the consecrations that the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre performed in 1988 for the service of the relatively numerous followers of the traditionalist Roman Catholic Society of St. Pius X that he had founded.

However, there is no proof that the numerical size or the ecclesiological attitude of the group was the reason for the different evaluations: other hypotheses could be put forward to explain them, including the fact that Lefebvre was obviously capable of forming the necessary intention. Some have questioned the mental capacity of Archbishops Ngô and Milingo to form the requisite intention to consecrate. On this question it would be extremely difficult to obtain a definitive objective judgement, especially in the case of Milingo. Ngô was advanced in age and was reportedly experiencing a dementia at the time of his actions in question. In any case, this hypothesis concerns the absolute validity or invalidity of the ordinations, not their declared lack of canonical effect.

The officia view of the Eastern Orthodox Church has been summarised as follows: "While accepting the canonical possibility of recognising the existence (υποστατόν) of sacraments performed outside herself, (the Eastern Orthodox Church) questions their validity (έγκυρον) and certainly rejects their efficacy (ενεργόν)."[7] It sees "the canonical recognition (αναγνώρισις) of the validity of sacraments performed outside the Orthodox Church (as referring) to the validity of the sacraments only of those who join the Orthodox Church (individually or as a body)."[8] This applies to the validity and efficacy of the ordination of bishops and the other sacraments, not only of the Independent Catholic Churches, but also of all other Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Assyrian Church of the East.

The above-mentioned declarations by the Holy See that certain ordinations that may have seemed to it to concern essentially only the individuals themselves and not an existing Christian Church lacked "canonical effect" can be interpreted as in harmony with this Eastern view, with this difference: the Roman Catholic Church recognizes bodies such as the Eastern Orthodox Church as indeed Christian Churches, even if schism or heresy has brought separation about, and it therefore recognizes ordinations within these Churches as both valid and efficacious. However, as stated above, it has made no statement about the reasoning on which its declarations were based.

References

  1. ^ http://www.concentric.net/~Cosmas/indcath.htm
  2. ^ http://www.concentric.net/~Cosmas/indcath.htm
  3. ^ http://www.concentric.net/~Cosmas/indcath.htm
  4. ^ http://www.concentric.net/~Cosmas/indcath.htm
  5. ^ Dr. Greg Singleton's Interim Research Notes on Independent/Old Catholic Churches Dr. Singleton is a Professor Emeritus of History at Northeastern Illinois University
  6. ^ Declaration of the Press Office of the Holy See on the present ecclesial situation of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo
  7. ^ Professor Dr. Vlassios Pheidas: Τhe limits of the church in an orthodox perspective
  8. ^ ibidem

See also


Umbrella organizations

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