OLD CATHOLICS (Altkatholiken). - This was the name given to the members of the schismatic Church that arose from the opposition to the Vatican Council and to the proclamation of papal infallibility. The name signifies the attitude of rejection toward the dogmas then proclaimed and the will to remain faithful to the ancient Church, understood as the Church of the first eight ecumenical councils.
The establishment of the new community was decided at the Congress held by the opponents of the Vatican Council, Germans and those of other nations, at Munich in September 1871 under the presidency of the canonist J. F. von Schulte (v.). The professors Friedrich and Messmer of Munich, Reusch, Langen Hilgers, Knodt of Bonn, Baltze and Reinkens of Breslau, Michelis and Menzel of Braunsberg are to be remembered among the principal promoters of the movement, while Döllinger (v.) warned against erecting altar against altar. In 1873 the new Church elected a bishop in the person of Prof. Reinkens, who received episcopal consecration from a bishop of the Jansenist Church of Utrecht (v.). The juridical organization of the new Church was established at the first General Synod held at Bonn in 1874 and is chiefly the work of Schulte. The Old Catholics of the various nations form individual autonomous national Churches, linked to one another only in the general conference of bishops (since in 1889 the Old Catholics became permanently linked with the Church of Utrecht, the conference has been presided over by the archbishop of that sect). The supreme authority in the individual national Churches is the synod, composed also of laypeople: it is responsible for electing bishops and issuing laws.
The dogmatic doctrine of the Old Catholics is more traditional than Protestantism, but it is far from preserving the entire heritage of the truths professed in the Catholic Church up to the Vatican Council. The concept of the visible Church is reduced to the aggregate of the Christian confessions, none of which fully realizes the true Church of Christ. The liturgy, which preserves besides the Mass also the veneration of the saints and the sacramentals, is generally celebrated in the language of the respective nations.
The principal Old Catholic communities today are in Germany (about 25,000 faithful, with a bishop residing at Bonn), in Switzerland (30,000 faithful with a bishop residing at Bern), in Austria (since 1913, with its seat at Vienna and about 30,000 faithful). Various other schismatic movements with a national basis also grafted themselves onto the Old Catholic community: thus the "Yugoslav National Church," which arose after the First World War (Marko Kalogiera), and the "Polish National Church," which arose in the 19th century among the Poles of America and was later transplanted to Europe as well.