page_title: Independent Catholicism
section_title: Early episcopal consecrations without papal approval
hierarchical_section_title: Independent Catholicism / History / Early episcopal consecrations without papal approval
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Porträt von Dominique Marie Varlet, geboren 15. März 1678, Bischof von Babylon (1718-1742), gestorben 14. Mai 1742. Abgebildet sitzend in geistlicher Kleidung, in der rechten Hand ein Schriftstück mit den Worten "Adveniat regnum tuum".
context_page_description: Independent Catholicism is a denominational movement of clergy and laity who self-identify as Catholic and form "micro-churches claiming apostolic succession and valid sacraments", in spite of not being affiliated to the historic Catholic churches such as the Roman Catholic and Old Catholic churches. The term "Independent Catholic" derives from the fact that "these denominations affirm both their belonging to the Catholic tradition as well as their independence from Rome."
  It is difficult to determine the number of jurisdictions, communities, clergy and members who make up Independent Catholicism, particularly since the movement "is growing and changing in every moment." Some adherents choose Independent Catholicism as an alternative way to live and express their Catholic faith outside the Roman Catholic Church while rejecting some traditional Catholic teachings.
context_section_description: Beginning in 1724, Dominique Marie Varlet (1678–1742), the Roman Catholic Bishop of Babylon, consecrated four successive men as Archbishop of Utrecht without papal approval. The cathedral chapter of Utrecht, which elected these men, had previously obtained an opinion from Zeger Bernhard van Espen (1646–1728) and two other doctors of canon law at the University of Louvain, which said that the chapter had the right, in special circumstances, to elect its own archbishop and have him consecrated without the consent of the pope, and that, in the case of necessity, one bishop alone might validly consecrate another. Nineteen doctors of the theological faculties at Paris, Nantes, Rheims and Padua approved of this opinion. This consecration by Varlet caused a theological controversy and schism within the Roman Church, which now possessed bishops who were validly consecrated without the permission of the pope. This schism marked the birth of the movement that would later be known as the Old Catholic Church (a term coined in 1853 for the Catholics of Utrecht), and it marked the beginning of an era in the Western Church, in which validly-consecrated bishops enjoyed apostolic succession but were not subject to the structures and strictures of the Roman church.
caption: Dominique Marie Varlet, Catholic Bishop of Babylon (1678–1742)
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