Many are surprised to learn that not all Catholics are Roman. Certainly the Roman Church is the largest of the Catholic churches, with more than a billion faithful globally, but Rome would be the first to acknowledges that there are authentically Catholic churches outside its embrace. Some of these have maintained their independence from Rome for many centuries; some are of much more recent origin. Some are comparatively large; most, quite small. Why?
All the baptized are one in Christ at a level that time, space, and even death are powerless to divide. But the Church has always struggled to translate this mystical communion into institutional unity. Cracks in the Church’s unity predating the New Testament are visible even in its pages, and ever since there has been an ebb and flow of uniting and separating over issues great and small, profound and petty. Even those of us who believe that the Holy Spirit is present to guide the life of Christ’s people must acknowledge that, in having such difficulties, the Church is much like any other group of persons gathered around deeply-held commitments and ideals. Where there is such intensity, there are bound to be disagreements and divisions.
What it means to be Catholic has been somewhat contentious since the word was first introduced into the Christian vocabulary. Literally, it means “according to the whole.” Catholicism seeks to embrace Christ’s whole church, indeed all of Creation, and to proclaim and live the fullness of the Gospel in the context of the fullness of Christian tradition. Catholicism is unitive; its inner impulse, despite outward disunity, is to draw toward the center, which is Christ.
More specifically, churches understanding themselves to be Catholic tend to have certain characteristics. They share a common approach to Sacred Scripture and the Church’s Tradition. They embrace the Creeds and the Ecumenical Councils that propounded them. They worship liturgically, with the Eucharist as source and summit of their life of prayer. They are served by a threefold order of clergy ordained in the Apostolic Succession: bishops, priests, and deacons. They honor the Bishop of Rome as a symbol of continuity and of ecclesial unity (by aspiration, if not in present fact).
But Rome is also a point of division. Various Catholic churches have, at various times and for various specific reasons, chosen to sever their formal ties with the Bishop of Rome.
The Old Catholic Union of the West traces its lineage to the Old Catholic Churches in Europe, which separated from Rome in the nineteenth century primarily because they could not accept the dogma of papal infallibility promulgated by the First Vatican Council. While our Church is small in numerical terms, we are part of a global extended ecclesial family. In the United States, this family is variously called “Independent Catholicism,” the “Independent Sacramental Movement,” or even (more recently) the “Extraordinary Catholic Movement.” (“Independent” is a somewhat unfortunate adjective here: as Catholics, we are essentially interdependent. But to the extent that the independence referred to is from Roman authority the word does make sense.) For the Old Catholic Union of the West, some areas of difference with Rome involve gender and sexuality. Our Church, for example, believes that the Sacrament of Matrimony should be open to non-heterosexual couples; we believe, too, that the Sacrament of Holy Orders (ordination) should be open to candidates who are not male, and clerical celibacy is not required.
We do not, however, define our Church in terms of how it is unlike Catholic Churches that are in communion with Rome, but in terms of how it lives out fully its Catholic faith. We see the areas in which our practice differs from Roman norms as implications of our understanding of that faith – as aspects of what the Gospel calls us to. And it would be a mistake to think that our Church is in some exclusive way “for” the LGBTQ community, or women, or any one group that feels pastorally under-served or excluded by Roman norms. Our Church is for everyone, as the very word “Catholic” implies. And you are welcome among us.
You can learn more at our Church’s website.