Old Roman Catholicsm is the modern revival of catholicsm as it was understood in the first centuries - not an attempt to perpetuate the faults either of doctrines or of works, revealed by history in the Christian Church of the early centuries, but an endevour, on the part of our supporters, while conforming to our own times and our own countries, to be guided by the spirit of Christ, our only leader, and to labour, by this spirit, to put an end to the imperfections and vices that have defiled the Church in the course of time.

The chain of Apostolic Succession has been dragged through the mire of worldly ambition many times in the past. That such may have been the unhappy experience of some sections of the Old Roman Catholic Church in relitively recent times does not impair the spiritual solidarity of every link...and our Church is making every effort to restore to it the shining beauty it should always have possessed, and is doing so in full acceptance of the facts, in humility and in truth.

So as we do not attempt to whitewash some of the personages who link us with the past, neither do we attempt to explain away or conceal the evils that have disgraced the Church of Rome or the Eastern Churches. These evils had for their punishment the explosive fragmentation of Christian Europe at the Reformation. We only maintain that in spite of these weaknesses and these crimes, the Roman and Eastern Churches are to be regarded historically and until the Reformation the only legitimate messengers of the Gospel. As far as we are concerned, the history of the first eighteen centuries of the Roman Church is the history of our Church. The spiritual glory of the Roman Catholic Church of history is a glory which we inherited. It's Saints are our Saints.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches were, until the Reformation, the only religious bodies claiming to be 'Catholic' in virtue of Apostolic Succession. They claimed to belong to the True Church of Christ because their clergy held an unbroken succession of order back through the ages to the Apostles and to Christ. The Old Roman Catholic Church bases her own right to this exalted membership on the historical fact of the Apostolic chain of Succession uniting it, through the Roman Catholic Church of the past, to the Divine Master.

It was in 1592 that the dispute between the Old Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church began in Holland. This dispute lasted until 1870 when the Dutch bishops were refused entry to the first Vatican Council. During this time the faith, morals, doctrine and Sacrements of the Roman Catholic Church remained wholly in tack amoung the Dutch clergy. While more negative incentives might be hurled against them, and indeed one can only say with any degree of dispassion that they were disobedient Roman Catholics, but not schismatic or heretical. Many meeting took place over the years to end the dispute between the two sides.

True to her ancient heritage, the Old Roman Catholic Church holds the Catholic doctrines of the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; and other personal union in Him of the two natures, the human and the divine. Unlike some of the 'Old Catholic' sectarians who deny the doctrines of original sin, the eternal punishment of hell or the necessity of faith for salvation, we reaffirm the Catholic position on these doctrines. The Church honours the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God and holds the true Catholic doctrine on the virgin birth of Christ. The Church teaches the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrement and the spiritual efficacy of the Sacrifice of the Mass for the living and for the dead.

The creed of the Old Roman Catholic Church is that contained in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicence Creed. In the latter, the cintroversial words "and the son" (the 'filioque' of theologians) are omitted since they were added by the Roman Catholic Church long after the Council of Nice and against explicit directive that nothing be added or taken away from the Creed. The doctrinal of the first Seven Councils are part of the deposit of our faith.

The Old Roman Catholic Church stands for a viewpoint which is most reasonable when understood. It is this: The various divisions in the Church of Christ cannot be done away with unless a living body of Catholics exemplifies to the world that there is a middle way where we all can meet: a body possessed of an undoubted validity of orders, of a democratic organization, of flexibility of adaptation, of clearcut doctrine, of freedom as interpreted by St. Paul, or respect for the past but daring in it's modern approach to the future. All Catholics and Protestants alike, must admit that what God has blessed for nearly two thuosand years, namely the Catholic conception of religion, with its creed, liturgies, priesthood and customs must have a central core of unimpeachable truths, which once divested of the human accretions of centuries, can hope form the basis of unity.

We Old Roman Catholics are convinced of the truth of our cause. If during the years of our existance we have not worked with great enough skill, we have the hope that, by dint of struggling against thousands of obsticles, we have learned better how to struggle; that the serious events which are overturning the world at the present day will not pass without creating new religions and even ecclesiastical conditions, which with the grace of God and the zeal of the serious Christians of all the Churches, may become fruitful.

Our appeal is chiefly directed to those religious minded people, who, for one reason or another, do not attend the Church of thier Baptism. The step into the Old Roman Catholic Church is comparatively easy for them. We do not care to proselytize the regular members of other Churches for, if they are sincere and constant in thier particular faith, it is our firm belief that they will obatain salvation. On the other hand, to shake the foundations of such a faith, would not only create crisis in the individual soul, but it would be the cause of dissention with other Churches which are altogether unnecessary. The number of churchless people is great enough to occupy all our time and all our efforts.

When we speak of the first centuries we speak sepecially of the first three, but in thought we include the next five also, because, in reality, the Church of the first eight centuries, in spite of it's turmoils and it's numerous dissentions, succeeded in remaining one in both East and West. It was not until the 9th century that Pope Nicholas I fell away from the Eastern Church and caused schism. Although we are Westerners, Old Roman Catholics do not accept the inheritance of the faults of this pope, and claim to go further, by extending the hand to Christians of the East and inviting them to labour with us for the restoration of union between the Christian Churches of the East and the West.

The Old Roman Catholic Church is a legitimate part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, having provable unbroken Succession of Orders from, and teaching the full faith of the undivided Church. She adhires to the forms and formulae established by
the early Church Fathers in order to preserve for suceeding generations the deposit of Faith recieved from our Lord and His Apostles.

The remark is often made that the clergy of the Old Roman Catholic Church lays an exaggerated stress on the validity of our orders... the underlying implication being that we are hypersensitive on the subject because of a subconscious fear regarding our standing. The explainantion is quite different. The Old Roman Catholic clergy are forced by the veary nature of things to present thier credentials at every turn. We are few in numbers, relatively unknown by the public at large, educated or otherwise, and the rare references to us in religious publications most often than not brand us a 'sect'. It is no wonder that our first concern be to establish our identity. There is perhaps no body of clergy in the world so well versed in the historical facts pertinant to their Apostolic Succession as is the clergy of the Old Roman Catholic Church.