The doctrinal status of the Old Catholic denomination was at first simply Tridentine Romanism versus Vatican Romanism, or the Creed of Pius IV. against the Creed of Pius IX. [377] This is the ground taken by the Old Catholics in Holland, and adhered to by them to this day. But the logic of the protest against modern Popery will hardly allow the Old Catholics of Germany and Switzerland long to remain in this position. Their friendly attitude towards Protestants, as officially shown in their letter to the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, is inconsistent with the Tridentine anathemas. Tridentine Romanism, moreover, is as much an innovation on oecumenical Catholicism as the Vatican Romanism is an innovation on that of Trent, and both are innovations in the same line of consolidation of the one-sided principle of authority. There is no stopping at half-way stations. We must go back to the fountain-head, the Word of God, which is the only final and infallible authority in matters of faith, and furnishes the best corrective against all ecclesiastical abuses.
The leaders of the Old Catholic Church are evidently on this road. They still adhere to Scripture and tradition, as the joint rule of faith: but they confine tradition to the unanimous consent of the ancient undivided Church, consequently to the oecumenical creeds, which are held in common by Greeks, Latins, and orthodox Protestants. They have been forced to give up their belief in the infallibility of an oecumenical Council, since the Vatican Council, which is as oecumenical (from the Roman point of view) as that of Trent, has sanctioned what they regard as fatal error. Moreover, Bishop Reinkens, in an eloquent speech before the Old Catholic Congress at Constance, disowned all Romish prohibitions of Bible reading, and earnestly encouraged the laity to read the Book of Life, that they may get into direct and intimate communion with God. [378] This communion with God through Christ as the only Mediator, and through his Word as the only rule of faith, is the very soul of evangelical Protestantism. The Scripture principle, consistently carried out, must gradually rule out the unscriptural doctrines and usages sanctioned by the Council of Trent.
But it is not necessary on this account that the Old Catholics should ever become Protestants in the historical sense of the term. They may retain those elements of the Catholic system which are not inconsistent with the spirit of the Scriptures, though they may not be expressly sanctioned by the letter. They may occupy a peculiar position of mediation, and in this way contribute their share towards preparing the way for an ultimate reunion of Christendom. And this is their noble aim and desire, openly expressed in a fraternal letter to an assembly of evangelical Christians from nearly all Protestant denominations. They declare: 'We hope and strive for the restoration of the unity of the Christian Church. We frankly acknowledge that no branch of it has exclusively the truth. We hold fast to the ultimate view that upon the foundation of the Gospel, and the doctrines of the Church grounded upon it, and upon the foundation of the ancient, undivided Church, a union of all Christian confessions will be possible through a really oecumenical Council. This is our object and intention in the movement which has led us into close relations with the Evangelical, the Anglican, the Anglo-American, the Russian, and the Greek churches. We know that this goal can not easily be reached, but we see the primary evidences of success in the circumstance that a truly Christian intercourse has already taken place between ourselves and other Christian churches. Therefore we seize with joy the hand of fellowship you have extended to us, and beg you to enter into a more intimate fellowship with us in such a way as may be agreed upon by both parties.' [379]
On the other hand, the Old Catholics have extended the hand of fellowship to the Greeks and Anglo-Catholics, and adopted, at a Union Conference held in Bonn, Sept., 1874, an agreement of fourteen theses, as a doctrinal basis of intercommunion between those Churches which recognize, besides the holy Scriptures, the binding authority of the tradition of the undivided Church of the first six centuries. In a second Conference, in 1875, they surrendered the doctrine of the double procession of the Spirit as a peace-offering to the Orientals. [380]
In the mean time the Pope has cut off all prospect of reconciliation. In his Encyclical of November 21, 1873, addressed to all the dignitaries of the Roman Church, Pius IX., after unsparingly denouncing the governments of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, for their cruel persecution of the Church, speaks at length of 'those new heretics, who, by a truly ridiculous abuse of the name, call themselves Old Catholics,' and launches at their 'pseudo-bishop' and all his abettors and helpers the sentence of excommunication, as follows:
'The attempts and the aims of these unhappy sons of perdition appear plainly, both from other writings of theirs and most of all from that impious and most impudent of documents which has lately been published by him whom they have set up for themselves as their so-called bishop. For they deny and pervert the true authority of jurisdiction which is in the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops, the successors of the Blessed Peter and the Apostles, and transfer it to the populace, or, as they say, to the community; they stubbornly reject and assail the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff and of the whole Church; and, contrary to the Holy Spirit, who has been promised by Christ to abide in his Church forever, they audaciously affirm that the Roman Pontiff and the whole of the Bishops, priests, and people who are united with him in one faith and communion, have fallen into heresy by sanctioning and professing the definitions of the oecumenical Vatican Council. Therefore they deny even the indefectibility of the Church, blasphemously saying that it has perished throughout the world, and that its visible head and its Bishops have fallen away; and that for this reason it has been necessary for them to restore the lawful Episcopate in their pseudo-bishop, a man who, entering not by the gate, but coming up by another way, has drawn upon his head the condemnation of Christ.
'Nevertheless, those unhappy men who would undermine the foundations of the Catholic religion, and destroy its character and endowments, who have invented such shameful and manifold errors, or, rather, have collected them together from the old store of heretics, are not ashamed to call themselves Catholics, and Old Catholics; while by their doctrine, their novelty, and their fewness they give up all mark of antiquity and of catholicity. . . .
'But these men, going on more boldly in the way of iniquity and perdition, as by a just judgment of God it happens to heretical sects, have wished also to form to themselves a hierarchy, as we have said, and have chosen and set up for themselves as their pseudo-bishop a certain notorious apostate from the Catholic faith, Joseph Hubert Reinkens; and, that nothing might be wanting to their impudence, for his consecration they have had recourse to those Jansenists of Utrecht whom they themselves, before their falling away from the Church, regarded with other Catholics as heretics and schismatics. Nevertheless this Joseph Hubert Reinkens dares to call himself a bishop, and, incredible as it may seem, the most serene Emperor of Germany has by public decree named and acknowledged him as a Catholic bishop, and exhibited him to all his subjects as one who is to be regarded as a lawful bishop, and as such to be obeyed. But the very rudiments of Catholic teaching declare that no one can be held to be a lawful bishop who is not joined in communion of faith and charity to the rock on which the One Church of Christ is built; who does not adhere to the supreme pastor to whom all the sheep of Christ are committed to be fed; who is not united to the confirmer of the brotherhood which is in the world.' [This cuts off all Greek Bishops as well. Then follow the usual patristic texts for the pretensions of Rome.]
'We therefore, who have been placed, undeserving as we are, in the Supreme See of Peter for the guardianship of the Catholic faith, and for the maintenance of the unity of the universal Church, according to the custom and, example of our predecessors and their holy decrees, by the power given us from on high, not only declare the election of the said Joseph Hubert Reinkens to be contrary to the holy canons, unlawful, and altogether null and void, and denounce and condemn his consecration as sacrilegious; but by the authority of Almighty God we declare the said Joseph Hubert--together with those who have taken part in his election and sacrilegious consecration, and whoever adhere to and follow the same, giving aid, favor, or consents--excommunicated under anathema, separated from the communion of the Church, and to be reckoned among those whose fellowship has been forbidden to the faithful by the Apostle, so that they are not so much as to say to them, God speed you!'
As the Pope's letter of complaint to the Emperor of Germany (August, 1873), in which he claims jurisdiction, in some sense, over all baptized Christians, called forth a courteous and pointed reply from the Emperor disclaiming all intention of persecuting the Catholic Church while defending the rights of the civil government against the encroachments of the hierarchy, and informing his Infallibility that Protestants recognize no other mediator between God and themselves than the Lord Jesus Christ; so this Encyclical was met by an able, dignified, and manly Pastoral from Bishop Reinkens, dated Bonn, December 14, 1873, in which, after refuting the accusations of the Pope, he closes with the following words: 'Brethren in the Lord, what shall we do when Pius IX. exhausts the language of reproach and calumny, and calls us even the most miserable sons of perdition (miserrimi isti perditionis filii), to embitter the uninquiring multitude against us? If we are true disciples of Jesus--as we trust--we have that peace which the Lord gives, and not the world, and our "heart will not be troubled, neither be afraid" (John xiv. 27). O how sweetly sounds the exhortation: "Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not;" "Recompense to no man evil for evil;" "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. xii. 14, 17, 18); "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. v. 44, 45). Let us look up to Christ, our example, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again" (1 Pet. ii. 21-23). "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ."'
The Swiss Federal Government, in answer to the charges raised against it in the same Encyclical, has broken off all diplomatic intercourse with the Papal court. In a new Encyclical of March 23, 1875, addressed to the Bishops of Switzerland, Pious IX. confirmed the condemnation of Nov. 21, 1873, and hurled it with increased severity against the Old Catholics of that country, 'who attack the very foundations of the Catholic religion, boldly reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of the Vatican, and by every means labor for the ruin of souls.' He calls upon the faithful to 'avoid their religious ceremonies, their instructions, their chairs of doctrinal pestilence, which they have the audacity to set up for the purpose of betraying the sacred doctrines, their writings, and contact with them. Let them have no part, no relation of any kind, with those intruding priests and the apostates who dare exercise the functions of the ecclesiastical ministry, and who have absolutely no jurisdiction and no legitimate mission at all. Let them hold them in horror as strangers and thieves, who come only to steal, assassinate, and destroy.'