VECCHI CATTOLICI (Altkatholiken). — This was the name adopted by the members of the schismatic Church that arose in opposition to the First Vatican Council and the proclamation of papal infallibility. The name expresses an attitude of repudiation toward the dogmas then proclaimed and the desire 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 that the opponents of the First Vatican Council, from Germany and other nations, held in Munich in September 1871 under the presidency of the canonist J. F. Schulte (v.). The professors Friedrich and Messmer of Munich, Reusch, Langen Hilgers, and Knodt of Bonn, Baltze and Reinkens of Breslau, and Michelis and Menzel of Braunsberg should be remembered among the principal promoters of the undertaking, Döllinger (v.) warned against setting up altar against altar. In 1873 the new Church elected a bishop in the person of Prof. Reinkens, who received episcopal consecration from a bishop Utrecht (v.). The juridical organization of the new Church was established at the first General Synod, held in Bonn in 1874, and was chiefly the work of Schulte. The Old Catholics of the various nations form individual autonomous national Churches, linked with one another only through the general conference of bishops (since the Old Catholics established a permanent connection with the Church of Utrecht in 1889, 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 laymen: it is responsible for electing bishops and promulgating 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 First Vatican Council. The concept of the visible Church is reduced to the totality of Christian confessions, none of which fully realizes the true Church of Christ. The liturgy, which preserves not only the Mass but also the veneration of the saints and sacramentals, is generally celebrated in the language of the respective nations.
The principal Old Catholic communities today are found in Germany (approximately 25,000 faithful, with a bishop resident in Bonn), Switzerland (30,000 faithful, with a bishop resident in Bern), and Austria (since 1913, with its see in Vienna and approximately 30,000 faithful). Various other schismatic movements with a national character were also incorporated into the Old Catholic community: thus the « Yugoslav National Church », which arose after the First World War (Marco Kalogiera), and the « Polish National Church », which arose in the 19th century among Polish people in America and was subsequently transplanted to Europe as well.