Christian denomination organized in Munich in 1871 by Roman Catholics who protested the dogma, proclaimed the previous year by Vatican Council I, of the personal infallibility of the pope in all ex cathedra pronouncements The Munich protest, by 44 professors under the leadership of the German theologians and historians Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger and Johannes Friedrich, was directed against the binding authority of the Vatican Council. To this protest a number of professors at Bonn, Breslau, ( Freiburg, and Giessen declared their adherence). At Cologne in 1873 the German theologian Joseph Hubert Reinkens was elected bishop of the Old Catholics in the ancient fashion, by “clergy and people” that is, by all the Old Catholic priests and by representatives of the Old Catholic congregations. He was consecrated at Rotterdam by the bishop of Deventer, the Netherlands, and acknowledged by the German states of Prussia, Baden, and Hessen. Dollinger refused to become involved in organized schism and eventually broke with the movement, but he never returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Statements on The Old Catholic Movement CATHOLIC VISITOR, INC. 1978 (An official publication of the Roman Catholic Church)
