Old Catholic Church

The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches, or Old Catholic movement, designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the undivided church but who separated from the see of Rome after the First Vatican council of 1869–70". The expression Old Catholic has been used from the 1850s by communions separated from the Roman Catholic Church over certain doctrines, primarily concerned with papal authority and infallibility. Some of these groups, especially in the Netherlands, had already existed long before the term. The Old Catholic Church is separate and distinct from Traditionalist Catholicism.

Two groups of Old Catholic Churches currently exist: the Union of Utrecht (UU) and the Union of Scranton (US). Neither group is in full communion with the Holy See. Member churches of the Union of Utrecht are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden and the Anglican Communion; and many UU churches are members of the World Council of Churches.

Both groups trace their beginning to the 18th century when members of the See of Utrecht refused to obey papal authority and were excommunicated. Later Catholics who disagreed with the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council (1870) were thereafter without a bishop and joined with the See of Utrecht to form the Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches. Today, Utrechter Union churches are found chiefly in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. In 2008, the Polish National Catholic Church created the Union of Scranton and separated from the Union of Utrecht. This was done in protest of the older Union's decision to ordain women and bless same-sex marriages. The Nordic Catholic Church later joined the Union of Scranton as well.