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The Old Catholic Church Ecclesiology

Ben

I recently purchased several Independent Sacramental Ministry books published by Apocryphile Press.  One book had contents that differed vastly from what the title led me to believe.  I am speaking of the book “The Old Catholic Church: Understanding the Origin, Essence, and Theology of a Church that is Unknown and Misunderstood by Many in North America” by Robert W. Caruso.  I expected the book to rehash much of the history of how the Old Catholic Church came to be.  The book briefly reviewed some of the highlights but had a much different and broader project.  I disagree with some of the conclusions of the book as I am not sure the Episcopal Church is truly the Old Catholic manifestation in the United States, but the Eastern patristic Trinitarian and Eucharistic explorations of ecclesiology are spot on.  The book desires to provide a sound ecclesiology for the Old Catholic Church which should not be mistaken as revealed in any of the ISM jurisdictions in the United States that claim to be Old Catholic.  Caruso nicely deconstructs how “Old Catholics” in the United States lack an appropriate understanding of the Church as it is too clerical and neglects authentic communion.


Caruso uses the wisdom of the Cappadocian fathers to show how God “has no ontological content, no true being, apart from communion (p 43).  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are continually giving themselves over to each other in an eternal act of love.  The unity is rooted in the love and self-donation that we fail to understand because of our distortion of self-love.  Just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be understood apart from their relationship, we cannot understand the Church, the bishop, and the Eucharist unless we see them within the context of communion.  For instance, ordained ministry is not so much about the ontological power received by a priest at ordination as it is recognizing the gift at baptism for the broader church within the context of celebrating the Eucharist.  Caruso writes, “At its core, the conciliar church is relational in its sharing of authority mirroring the image of the Trinue God.  Meaning, in the conciliar church, the local bishop is not the sole possessor of all authority in the local body of Christ, being that a bishop’s authority is not internally or solely realized in the concept of the self, but is instead always in communion with the local church he serves as well as the college he is part of with other bishops” (p. 73).


Members of the Independent Sacramental Movement may be unsettled by Caruso’s criticisms of the movement as well as two of the “heroes” that many bishops trace their lineage through.  Caruso provides an ecclesiology rooted in the Trinity, the church fathers, tradition, and challenges the individualistic and Tridentine concepts that so many in the ISM take for granted.  Caruso reads his Orthodox theologians to critique distortions in Western ecclesiology that many in the ISM movement simply take for granted.  Caruso shows why Utrecht rejects “Old Catholics” in the United States as people who are not truly in communion with the broader church.  Finally, Caruso’s reading of the break of communion between Old Catholics and the Polish National Church is fascinating because he looks beyond liberal and conservative notions; he shows how the Polish National Church remains indebted to the ecclesiology it inherited from the Roman Catholic Church whereas the Old Catholic Church has an ecclesiology rooted in the East.


Caruso’s book is not what I expected.  While I would not agree with some of his conclusions, I think most of his theology is spot on and should be read as a prophetic challenge to the ISM movement.  Even those not interested in the ISM movement would find much to appreciate in this book due to its theological content.  The ISM movement needs theologians like Caruso to challenge and help define who we are.

Peace,

Ben

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