Old Catholic

American  

noun

1. a member of any of several European churches professing to be truly Catholic but rejecting certain modern Roman Catholic doctrines, dogmas, and practices, especially the dogma of papal infallibility.

2. a member of any of several minor churches, especially in the U.S., differing from the Roman Catholic Church chiefly in their rejection of the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

---

Old Catholic British  

adjective

1. of or relating to several small national Churches which have broken away from the Roman Catholic Church on matters of doctrine

---

noun

1. a member of one of these Churches

Etymology

Origin of Old Catholic

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Bilgri left the church last year and joined the Old Catholic Church, which emerged in the Netherlands in the 19th century and lets priests marry and allows same-sex relationships.

From Reuters • Apr. 12, 2021

Where his predecessor as a Quebec hero, Maurice Richard, was a man of the Old Catholic and agricultural dispensation, Béliveau was a hero of a new and more self-empowered Quebec.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 9, 2014

Even Mother Vittoria has a predecessor in the Old Catholic Church — Mother Teodora Tosatti, who was ordained in 2006 in a ceremony in Bonn, Germany.

From New York Times • Sep. 23, 2010

Maria Longhitano, a member of the breakaway Old Catholic Church, says she hopes her ordination will break down "prejudice" in the Roman Church.

From BBC • May 13, 2010

At Vienna the first Old Catholic congregation was formed in February, 1872, under the priest Anton; and soon after others were established in Bohemia and Upper Austria.

From Church History, Vol. 3 of 3 by Kurtz, J. H.