I may be a bit behind in my canon law regarding schismatic Catholic groups, but I’m not sure that this article’s reference to a “bishop” of the American Catholic Church is correct.
Recognized as a valid but “irregular” branch of the Catholic Church, the church does not necessarily follow the edicts of Rome nor does it accept the concept that the Pope is infallible.
It’s certainly not a “valid” branch of the Catholic Church, and I’m pretty sure that ordinations in this group are neither “regular” nor “valid.”
“Old Catholic Church”—it left us in the late 1800s over the definition of papal infallibility.
Not in communion with us—at all.
This “Old Catholic Church,” the “American Catholic Church,” has no canonical links with the original Old Catholic Church in Germany and Switzerland, which along with the Polish National Catholic Church and the Jansenist Church of Utrecht in the Netherlands (from which the Old Catholics and PNCs get their holy orders, which the Catholic Church recognizes as valid) form the Union of Utrecht.
There are a number of self-styled Old Catholic churches in America which are not recognized by the Union of Utrecht and whose holy orders are of dubious origin and validity. Some of these churches are influenced by Theosophy and other New-Age movements.
The Union of Utrecht has a few Old Catholic parishes in America with direct ties to their European counterpart. Also, the Union is in communion with the Anglican/Episcopal Church. The Polish National Catholic Church (which started in America as a schism of Polish parishes which wanted Polish and not Irish-American or German-American bishops over them; and most of whose members are in the United States) is in “broken” communion with the other members of the Union of Utrecht because of their ordination of women priests, which the Polish National Catholic Church does not recognize as valid.
In case you’d like to enlighten them…
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In my book, there’s one word for it: “Protestant.”
If they ordain women, particular if their “apostolic succession” includes “consecrating” women as “bishops, their orders are already invalid by Roman Catholic definition, no matter what version of pass-the-hat-tag-you’re-it they may propagate.
Sorta takes the “Old” out of “Old Catholic,” doesn’t it?