WHY ISN'T THE "OLD" CATHOLIC THE "ROMAN" CATHOLIC CHURCH?

 

What Caused the Rift between the Old Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church?

If the Old Catholic Church is not some break-away group or Protestant church, why isn't it "Roman" Catholic? Earlier I made the smartalecky statement that the Roman Catholic Church has a history of breaking away. It broke away from the church that was centered in Constantinople, and as far as Old Catholics are concerned, it broke away from itself.

The issue that fostered the “schism” was that of Papal Infallibility, which was in itself the result of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the teaching that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born without Original Sin so that she could become the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Original Sin is the sinful nature that we inherit from Adam and Eve that was passed down to all of their descendants. The Doctrine of Original Sin states that we are stained by the sin of our first parents even before we ourselves commit any sin of thought, word, or deed. The Immaculate Conception presented as logical line of reasoning to explain how Jesus could be free from sin, yet born of a woman who herself was stained with Original Sin. Either Original Sin is passed down through the male, or Mary must have somehow been free of that sin in order to give birth to Jesus, who was free from all sin"original or otherwise.

In the year 1476, Pope Sixtus IV established a feast day for the Immaculate Conception. This was his right to do. Members of the Roman Catholic Church were left to themselves to decide if this was something they wanted to accept. The doctrine was not forced on anyone, and that’s how it remained for nearly four hundred years.

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