Old Catholics (Ger. Altkatholiken) is the title assumed by a number of Catholics who at Munich protested against the new dogma of the personal infallibility of the pope in all ex cathedrâ deliverances, proclaimed by the Vatican Council in 1870. It now applies to a communion or church in Germany and Switzerland, which has grown to be considerable in numbers and influence. The Munich protest by forty-four professors, Dr Döllinger and Professor Friedrich at their head, was directed against the binding authority of the Vatican Council and the validity of its decrees. To the Munich protest a number of Catholic professors at Bonn, Breslau, Freiburg, and Giessen declared their adhesion. The leaders of the movement met at the end of August at Nuremberg and drew up a declaration. The German bishops, though they had given warning of the dangerous consequences of the proclamation of the new dogma, submitted to the decision of the Vatican Council, and, in a pastoral letter of the 10th September 1870, called upon all members of the faculty of Catholic theology to signify their allegiance. Against the refractory (numerous professors and one priest) they proceeded by suspending them from their functions, and then by excommunication. The Prussian and Bavarian governments, however, took their respective subjects, the objects of those measures, under their protection.
At first the mass of the priests and laity showed very little sympathy with the movement, only two country congregations declaring their dissent from the decree of the Vatican Council. Pamphlets and appeals issued by the heads of the party elicited but little response. Local committees in furtherance of the cause were, however, formed in towns of Bavaria and the Rhine country. At a general Old Catholic Congress, held in 1871 at Munich, it was resolved to draw the bonds of union close with the church of Utrecht, the Janseists (q.v.) of the Netherlands, which, under its archbishop and two bishops, offered to the Old Catholics the possibility of priestly consecration and confirmation. The congress, while carefully eschewing any decided breach with traditional dogma, and professing the desire simply to maintain the church as it stood before the 18th July 1870, propounded the far-reaching principle that the decisions of an ecumenical council, to be valid, must be in agreement with the existing faith of the Catholic people and with theological science. The hope was also expressed of a reunion with the Greek Oriental Church and a gradual understanding with the Protestants. Old Catholic congregations began to be formed in different towns of Bavaria and the Rhine country. In 1872 the Old Catholic priests in the German empire numbered about thirty. The Archbishop of Utrecht in July made a tour in Germany, holding religious service in Protestant churches and confirming the children of Old Catholics. At a second congress at Cologne, 1872, Professor Friedrich declared that the Old Catholic movement was now directed not merely against papal infallibility, but 'against the whole papal system, a system of errors during a thousand years, which had only reached its climax in the doctrine of infallibility.' Döllinger, the leader of the movement which led to the formation of the new communion, at first disapproved of the establishment of a new sect, but ultimately approved of the action of his friends. Yet till his death he never formally joined the community.
At Cologne in 1873 Professor Reinkens of Breslau was elected bishop of the Old Catholics in the ancient fashion, by 'clergy and people'—by all the Old Catholic priests and by representatives of the Old Catholic congregations. He was consecrated at Rotterdam by the bishop of Deventer, and formally acknowledged by the governments of Prussia, Baden, and Hesse. The Bavarian government declined to forbid Bishop Reinkens holding confirmations in their kingdom. The third congress at Constance in 1873 was taken up with 'synodal and communal regulations,' and with projects towards union with other Christian confessions. There were numerous guests present, Anglican, Russian, and German Protestant clergy. On the basis of the decrees of this congress the first Old Catholic Synod was held at Bonn in 1874, being composed of thirty priests and fifty-nine laymen. They laid down principles for reforms in general, abolished auricular confession and compulsory fasting, and appointed two commissions to draw up a new ritual in the vulgar tongue, and to frame a Catechism and a Bible History. A formula of agreement drawn up at another conference of 1875 failed to command the assent of Easterns or Anglicans. The third and fifth congresses (those of 1876 and 1878) permitted priests to marry, and yet fulfil all ministerial functions, in spite of Jansenist protests. After 1875 the numbers declined. In 1878 there were in Germany 52,000 Old Catholics; in 1890 some 30,000, in 79 congregations. In Switzerland (where a theological faculty was established at Bern in 1874 and a bishop consecrated in 1876) there were in 1890, 53 priests and 45,700 members (against 73,000 in 1877). In Austria there were in 1891 about 10,000, mainly in Bohemia. In 1896 a new bishop, Dr Weber of Breslau, was consecrated in place of Dr Reinkens, who died in January of that year. The Jansenist Archbishop of Utrecht still co-operates with them; but the communion is nowhere growing in numbers or influence. The movement in France headed by Père Loyson came to little; see HYACINTHE.
See DÖLLINGER; Miss Scarth's Story of the Old Catholic and Kindred Movements (1883); an article in the Church Quarterly, vol. xix. (1884-85); 'Döllinger and the Papacy,' in the Quarterly (1891); Janus (Eng. trans. 1869); and German works on Old Catholicism by Forster (1879), Bühler (1880), Beyschlag (1882), and Reinkens (1882).