Old Catholics Consider Ordination of Women
Episcopal News Service. October 31, 1990 [90283M]
European and North American bishops of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht, meeting in Switzerland during their annual conference in September, agreed to try "as far as possible" to reach a consensus among Anglicans, Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Old Catholics before deciding on the question of ordaining women priests. The Old Catholic International Congress, meeting just prior to the bishops, had suggested that each Old Catholic diocese or group of dioceses be free to reach its own conclusions on the issue, with the hope that all parts eventually reach "the same stage of development." In a related move, the Anglican-Old Catholic Conference of Theologians was again designated as "an official body for consultation and contacts." While most parts of Anglicanism and Old Catholicism are in communion with each other, the Polish National Catholic Church in the U.S., the largest Old Catholic denomination, ended communion with its North American Anglican counterparts in the mid-1970s in response to their ordaining women priests. There are a half million Old Catholics worldwide.