Preface: Old Catholicism
“We are
called Old Catholics because we have returned to the Catholicity of Scriptural
and primitive times. But Catholicism is
neither old nor new, or rather, it is ever old and ever new.
For us, the Pope of Rome is neither the source,
nor the unique channel of authority in the Church of God. For, as Michaud says: The Pope holds his
authority from the Church, not the Church from him. The Scriptures and the history of the Church show that the
sovereignty resides, not in the will of the Christian community, and that the
government of the Church ought to be democratic” [1]
In short, Old Catholicism retains the ritual and philosophy of
Catholicism but rejects the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility of 1870.
As with all evolutions, it is difficult to determine exactly when the
ecclesiastical changes began to occur and result in permanent change. But what is clear is that the Doctrine of
Papal infallibility of 1870, where the Vatican Council decreed the Pope
infallible in matters of faith and morals, caused an obvious split in the
Catholic Church. The schismatic groups
now needed to procure a hierarchy and, insisting on apostolic succession,
turned to the non-papal, also known as Jansenist, Catholic Church in Utrecht,
The Netherlands.[2]
The Old Catholic Movement took root in Utrecht where Edward
Herzog was consecrated in 1876. In
France, Loyson started the Gallican Movement.
In Holland, the Jansenists united with the Old Catholics, and in
England, A Mathew, founded an Old Catholic Benedictine community.[3]
Joseph René Vilatte
The Old Catholic Movement reached the United States, albeit fifteen
years later. Joseph René Vilatte, a
charismatic and dramatic type, was instrumental in bringing the Old Catholic
movement from Europe to Belgian, Swiss, and Canadian settlers of Northeast
Wisconsin.
Vilatte’s critics, principally the Roman Catholics and the
Episcopalians, considered him frivolous, egotistical, an opportunist, an
exaggerator and a “proselytiz[er] of the unsuspecting and guileless colonists
into his strange brand of Catholicism”[4]. His
followers saw him as honest, truthful, trustworthy with church funds, and loved
him for his dedication and charisma.[5]
Joseph René Vilatte was born near
Paris on January 24, 1854 to parents who were members of the Petite Eglise, a non-Papal Catholic
Church in France.[6] His
parents died when he was young and he was raised in an orphanage in Paris run
by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.
He was re-baptized and confirmed at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in
1867. Towards the end of the
Franco-Prussian War he enlisted in the Garde
Nationale. [7]
The end of the Franco-Prussian War
ushered in the bloody anti-Christian Paris Commune. The seeds of religious doubt were planted in young Vilatte’s mind
as he observed one religious faction massacring another.[8] In an
attempt to escape political and religious strife in France, he left for Canada,
having been attracted by the advertisements for settlers in the rural
areas. Soon after he landed he found a
job as a teacher in a Catholic school near Ottawa. Anson reports that since
there was no Catholic Church nearby, he “acted as a catechist and on Sundays
when there was no chance of getting to Mass conducted services.”[9] One of
the nearby priests was impressed with Vilatte and taught him Latin. He returned to France after two years. After he received notice for duty in the
French military, he escaped to Namur, Belgium where he entered the Community of
Christian Brothers. Not content and
wanting to become a priest he emigrated to Canada.[10]
In 1878 he entered St. Laurent College near Montreal where he spent
three years. In 1878 he entered St. Laurent
College near Montreal conducted by the Holy Cross Fathers where he spent three
years. According to the Salesianists,
critics of Vilatte, he was “no serious student, [but] his character seemed
good. His forte was dramatic. This was his trump card throughout his life,
for everyone admitted his charm and affability. Voluntarily he left the school in search of adventure. Thus he found himself in the realm of
religion.”[11]
But Vilatte writes that “the
teaching of the seminary was so rabidly Romanist that all other beliefs were
condemned as heresies, which brought eternal damnation to all that accepted
them.”[12] It was
in Montreal that he heard of a famous French-Canadian former Roman Catholic
priest, Charles Chiniquy, who now preached about the evils of Romanism.[13] Vilatte
writes that he attended several of Chiniquy’s sermons “and returned to the
seminary with my mind much disturbed…[because] I saw plainly that while on the
one hand Romanism has added much error and corruption to the primitive faith,
Protestantism had not only taken away Roman errors, but also a part of the
primitive deposit of faith”[14]
Charles Chiniquy was excommunicated
from the Roman Catholic Church for his biblical and community based
teaching. On April 11, 1858 Chiniquy’s
followers in St. Anne, Illinois turned their parish into a Community Church and
appointed Chiniquy as Pastor. A year
later on September 13, 1859 a church society was organized under the name
Christian Catholic (Community) Church and
Chiniquy was elected President of the Board of Directors. This new society made intercommunion
agreements with other Christian churches, the first of which was with the
Presbyterian Communion.[15]
Vilatte joined Chiniquy’s new
French-Canadian Community Movement . And
at Chiniquy’s suggestion, Vilatte entered the Presbyterian ministerial training
program at McGill University and graduated in 1884.[16] Upon
his graduation , he became pastor of a French Presbyterian parish which was
located on Doty Street, today the site of the Brown County Court House in Green
Bay, Wisconsin.[17]
But other sources do not say that he graduated from McGill
University. Peter Anson writes that “in
an effort to obtain peace of mind about 1882 he abandoned his studies at McGill
University and, having been reconciled with the Roman Church, retired to the
house of the Clerics of St. Viator, at Bourbonnais, Illinois.”[18] Stanley
Green says that in 1883 Vilatte came to Green Bay because the Presbyterian
Church needed a minister and that he had been a Methodist and Congregationalist
before that.
Chiniquy advised Vilatte to contact
Hyacinthe Loyson another unfrocked Roman priest. Loyson, founder of the Gallican Catholic Church, advised Vilatte
to look to the Old Catholic movement that was popular in Europe at that time. This new
movement appealed to Vilatte because he could keep the religion of his French
heritage yet reject what he did not like about it.
Sources also differ on the circumstances under which Vilatte came to
the Green Bay area.
Anson says he was a “freelance Presbyterian missionary.” Melton and
Preuter also say he was a “freelance Presbyterian missionary” and that he met
with little success, quickly perceiving that the Belgians were not about to
become Presbyterians.[19] Stanley Green
says that he came to Green Bay to fill a Presbyterian pastors position but
then came into contact with the Episcopalian Bishop Brown of Fond du Lac.
According to Greene, Bishop Brown was concerned that the religious
Europeans who came to America, like the Belgians, Germans, Dutch, and
Bohemians, were giving away to atheism and the schismatic Spiritist
sects. He
was particularly concerned about the very sincere Belgian Catholics. They had been
used to an urban setting with a nearby church in Europe. But now, they
were in the wilderness of Door County with churches few and far between.
What made it worse was that the Belgians were not happy with the
traveling priests Europe provided them with. They were the poorest of priests, drank
heavily, misappropriated and ran off with church funds, and abused their
positions. An Old Catholic publication writes that:
Facts of gross
immorality and drunkenness on the part of these priests have come to my
knowledge, facts so frequent and of such character that I no longer wonder
that these poor people lost all respect and belief in religion and its
representatives.
As one young man observed to me: ‘These priests show plainly by their
conduct that they have no fear of hell or future punishment; how could they
make us believe in it?’ Fortunately for some of the priests the
Canadian frontier was near enough to place them beyond the reach of law. Other Roman
priests have made a traffic of their religion and of the Holy Sacraments, and
so made religion itself hateful and odius to the people. They were
accustomed to extort money in sums of ten and fifteen dollars before they
would consent to administer the last Sacrament. Even Holy Baptism has been made a subject
of traffic by these faithless priests. Not long ago a mother, in order to have her
infant child buried, was requested to pay five dollars to the priest for his
labor, and as she had not the money she was left to bury the child with her
own hands in her own garden. About the same time, after a baptism, the
godfather and godmother each presented the priest with half a dollar. The priest threw
the money indignantly on the ground, reproaching them for their scanty
offering; but the godfather picking up the money and putting it in his pocket
replied properly: ‘If you do not judge it worth the trouble to receive a
dollar in your hand, I think it worth the trouble to pick it up.’ One of our
poorest farmers called on a priest, living at a distance of some eighteen
miles, requesting him to administer the last Sacraments to his dying
wife. The
priest told him to provide him with a carriage and pay first on the spot the
sum of eight dollars for his labor. As the poor man had not with him the money
required, the woman was left to die without the religious rites she
implored.[20]
Newspapers even
ran warnings for parents to watch out for priests who would molest women and
children. In
short, the Belgians were devout Catholics but disliked the priests Europe
provided them with.[21]
So Vilatte contacted Bishop Brown and sold him his plan. Vilatte argued
that a Protestant mission would not be well received by Catholics. But an Old
Catholic Mission would offer the people something they could accept as
Catholics.
He persuaded Brown that the best thing to do was to send him to Bishop
Herzog, the Old Catholic Bishop in Switzerland, and have him ordained as a
priest. He
would then lead the mission at Little Sturgeon.[22]
Bishop Brown replied that he would be happy to help the Old Catholic
Movement. He
explained that this would promote good relations between the Protestant
Episcopal and the Old Catholic Churches, which in Europe were working to break
the power of the papacy.[23]
Peter Anson provides the most complete account of what happened next to
Vilatte.
Loyson had already written to Vilatte, asking him to come to Europe so
that he could possibly be ordained priest by Old Catholic Bishop Herzog in
Berne, Switzerland.
Vilatte had also heard that the Episcopalians of Fond du Lac Diocese
believed that their “Anglican succession of Apostolic authority” was
preferable to that of the Old Catholics. Vilatte, in other words, should be
consecrated priest by Bishop Brown because: 1) it would add to the number of
“Anglican” ordinations in the United States; 2) it would “save time and
expense”; 3) it would assist in knitting together the Old Catholic and
Episcopalian communities.
Vilatte responded that he did not want to accept “Anglican” orders via
the Episcopalian Diocese, simply because his Catholic Belgians would not
support a mission that received orders from an “Anglican” hierarchy. He insisted that
Bishop Brown write a letter on his behalf to Bishop Herzog. Brown relented
and wrote the following letter:
My Dear Brother,
Permit me to introduce to your confidence and esteem the
bearer of this letter, Mr. René Vilatte, a candidate for Holy Orders in the
diocese of Fond du Lac. Mr. Vilatte is placed in peculiar
circumstances.
Educated for the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, he found
himself unable to receive the recent Vatican Decrees, and for a short time
associated himself with the Presbyterian communion, but, at last, by the mercy
of God, was led into contact with this branch of the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church.
He resided for a while at Green Bay, a city of this diocese. In the
neighborhood of this place there are settled about 30,000 Belgians. Of these a large
number, probably 8,000, are believed to be inclined to the principles of a
pure and primitive Catholicism. Several delegations of these Belgians have
waited on Mr. Vilatte, and besought him to become their priest. Mr. Vilatte’s
character for piety, sobriety, purity, intelligence and prudence has been
attested to the satisfaction of the authorities of this diocese. Our canons,
however, require a longer probation as a Candidate than the exigency of the
circumstances will bear. At the suggestion of Pere Hyacinthe
[Loyson] approved by the Bishop of Connecticut and other Bishops, and by the
Faculty of Nashotah Seminary, and by me, Mr. Vilatte approaches you,
requesting you to ordain him to the priesthood, as speedily as you can find
possible that he may enter upon the great work to which he seems specially
summoned . It has been
expedient to us to send him to you that he may learn personally something of
the aims and spirit of the great movement of which you are a recognized leader
and to be fitted to co-operate with you in some degree in this country. Mr. Vilatte’s
pecuniary means are limited and he desires to be absent from this diocese as
short a time as possible. I ask you to ordain him to the priesthood
and attest his character, briefly but sufficiently, by saying that I am
willing to ordain him, if it should not seem expedient to you so to do.
Truly and lovingly your brother and servant,
in the Holy Church of our Lord,
J. H. HOBART BROWN,
Bishop of Fond du Lac[24]
Brown also assured Vilatte that although he would receive funding from
the Fond du Lac Diocese, he would never be subject to the
Episcopalians.[25] This promise to
Vilatte was broken soon after Brown died, by his successor Bishop Grafton.
Joseph René Vilatte was ordained deacon and priest in Berne,
Switzerland on June 6 and 7, 1885.
Anson and other sources claim that upon his return to Wisconsin,
Vilatte opened a mission church for the Belgians in Little Sturgeon
(Gardner)—The Church of the Precious Blood. But Stanley Green and an Old Catholic
source describe Vilatte’s initial struggle among the Belgians. According to
Green, the Belgians, being a very close-knit community were not very receptive
to a stranger coming into their midst preaching a Catholicism that was
slightly different than what they were used to. The only thing he had going for him was the
fact that he spoke their language. Otherwise he was threatened and
ostracized.
He finally got a family to accept him and let him use a log cabin on a
lake shore.
However, according to the Old Catholics, when the woman who finally
admitted him under her roof, when told by her husband that he was not a Roman
priest, assigned him a couch of straw saying “that it was a bed good enough
for a heretic.”[26]
His makeshift church consisted of an old log cabin with an alter made
out of an old kitchen door supported by rough boards. He lived in one
room where he used old wooden boxes and barrels for chairs and old carpets and
hay for a bed.
Here Vilatte lived for one winter on mainly bread and cheese.[27]
Curiosity got the best of the local Belgians and slowly they trickled
into Vilatte’s church. The idea that they could be Catholics and
not Roman was new to them. But he and his message must have been very
attractive because within a month he had nineteen families in his church and
was “crowded to suffocation.”[28]
Stanley Green describes how it was possible that Vilatte could attract
so many people in a short period of time. Vilatte was a big and good-looking
man. He
drank but never got drunk. He was never known to be dishonest,
untruthful, was not an appropriator of funds he should not have. When he ran out
of money to build a church to replace his small chapel, he sold his only
heirloom, his gold watch. Above all, he had extreme dedication and
charisma. He
had to have had, argues Green, in order to gain the acceptance of the very
skeptical Belgians.
Vilatte is described as flamboyant and overly dramatic. But this was what
the very poor, hardworking, and dispirited Belgians were hungry for. He provided
leadership, courage, zest, pomp and drama. For example, when the Bishop came to town,
Vilatte would lead the people out to meet him. The bishop would then be led into town by a
procession of farmers with wagons, along with the waving of flags, banners,
and the discharging of shotguns.[29]
But, besides his effusive personality, as the Old Catholics point out,
Vilatte also attracted the francophone settlers with church services in their
native tongue.
While the Roman Catholic Churches still conducted services in Latin, a
language the common people did not understand, Vilatte used the French version
of the Swiss Catholic liturgy, issued by Bishop Herzog in 1880.[30]
The initial plan Vilatte proposed to Bishop Brown proved a successful
one. Vilatte
catered to the settlers spiritual and national preferences and the
Episcopalians were happy to gain religious control, although indirectly, of
the area.
The following letter, written by Bishop Brown to The Church
Eclectic provides a summary of and insight into Vilatte’s work in the area
as of 1885.
My Dear Brother: -- For some time a
movement of an important character has been going on in this Diocese, some of
the features of which have just become public. I am anxious that it should not be
misunderstood, and so write to you that you may have accurate
information about it, as a Church editor ought to have. This is it, in
brief. In
this Diocese English speaking people are in a minority. We have masses of
Germans, Belgians, Hollanders, Welsh, Danes, Swedes, Poles and
Norwegians.
In some districts English is hardly known. This state of
affairs is very trying to the Diocese, as missions and parishes succumb to the
foreigner and new work is difficult. I have long felt that the Church ought to
meet he stranger and be his guide and friend, and that then his children would
naturally become hers. Near Green Bay are 30,000 Belgians,
French-speaking, of course. Many of these—I am told six or eight
thousand—are somewhat affected by the Alt Katholik movement. An unusually
intelligent and sagacious young Frenchman offered himself to me as a
missionary to these people. His acquirements being sufficient and the
exigency great, I determined, after consulting with some of our Bishops to
send the young gentleman to Bishop Herzog. The object was two-fold. First, to save
discussion as to authority. We had reason to think that all Alt
Katholik ministrations would be welcomed. Ours would be questioned. Next, we wished
to win the immigrants of mature age, men and women with religious habits
formed and with prejudices fixed, and not likely to even learn the English
language.
This class are the leaders of new communities. If they become
indifferent or irreligious, their children are likely to be worse than
themselves.
If we get them, the next generation will be with us thoroughly. It is too much to
ask these people to set aside the tastes and sentiments of a lifetime. Hence I am
seeking to say to them: “Accept the Church’s authority, her ministers and
Sacraments, but keep your ritual, so long as you keep your nationality and
native language.
Sing your grand old hymns, light your candles, burn your incense, but
have a pure faith and maintain Catholic unity.” You see how the plan would take in its
scope Scandinavians as well as Germans and French.
Bishop Herzog kindly assented to my request. Mr. Vilatte is
back and at work.
I send you a copy of our Diocesan paper, with a letter in it from Dr.
Hale which is both interesting and important. You will infer, I think, the rest that I
might say.
Faithfully yours,
J.H. Hobart Brown[31]
But Joseph René Vilatte was a troublemaker and a menace as far as the
Catholic church was concerned. One day, for instance, he visited the
Catholic Church in nearby Dykesville. There he confronted the priest and created
a big public controversy. The result? Half of the congregation decided to leave
the Catholic Church and build a church for Vilatte in Dykesville.[32]
The Roman Catholic Bishop then decided that it was not enough to
excommunicate Vilatte, but he also took it upon himself to write to contact a
few of Vilatte's parishioners personally. Here is one of his letters.
DIOCESE OF GREEN BAY,
GREEN BAY, WIS, SEP. 3, 1886.
Mr. N--, Little
Sturgeon, Wis.:
DEAR DIR,--I
am sorry indeed to hear of you that you have really turned your back to the
Church of your fathers and follow a man who is an apostate from his
Church. Who
would have thought this of you , whom I would have trusted more than
anyone!
Listen now to me, your bishop; learn the wrong way, the way that leads
to perdition.
One day sure you will be sorry for what you have done, but perhaps too
late, alas!
The wrong you do is greater yet because you have some influence, and
thereby draw many others into ruin. You ought to know your holy religion better
than to be deluded and seduced by a man who, within the space of a few years
has professed three or four kinds of religion. You ought to esteem the faith of your
ancestors higher than to sacrifice it for a farce, for this Old Catholicism or
Christian Catholicism is but the latest religious farce. There is but one
Catholicism, the Roman, the true one. If I find it worth while to write you,
please find it worth while to listen to me and to think about your eternal
salvation; for a Catholic who falls away from his Church cannot be saved. You will find it
out—but no; I hope you will return before you find it out.
Yours,
Fred. Katzer,
Bishop-elect[33]
This tactic apparently did not work. When they found out that Vilatte was
planning to build a college or seminary in Sturgeon Bay, they considered this
even more of a threat. According to the Old Catholics, the Bishop
decided to come from Green Bay to Sturgeon Bay and preach against the heresy
of Vilatte and the Old Catholics, as well as freely announcing
excommunications.
But then he made the mistake of telling Vilatte’s followers that
Vilatte had never been ordained priest and had no spiritual power or right to
administer the Holy Sacraments, but that he was only an “imposter sent by the
enemies of the Church to destroy the work of God and scatter the flock of the
Lord.”[34]
This further alienated Vilatte’s followers from the mainstream Catholic
Church as they knew these accusations and others against Vilatte were
unfounded.
Vilatte responded by publishing the translations of his ordinations by
Bishop Herzog, in Sturgeon Bay’s two newspapers with the following
introduction:
To Whom it May Concern:
Inasmuch as Father Vilatte thinks of establishing himself
in the city of Sturgeon Bay, he has concluded, in answer to certain rumors
against the fact
of his ordination to the Priesthood, to publish the following
translations of his Letters of Orders, for the quieting of those persons who
have been made to doubt his ordination, and in order that henceforth all
persons may have evidence in regard to Father Vilatte’s ordination, and my
know that the objector is liable to legal proceedings.[35]
Aside from being the Catholic “menace” all seemed to go well for
Vilatte for the first few years. In 1887, the Fond du Lac diocesan magazine
referred to Vilatte as “the young pioneer priest of the Old Catholic work in
America, tall, with a winsome countenance and enthusiastic manner, a model of
a priest and pastor. A young man of energy and dignity, culture
and education, he has sacrificed his life to the cause of the Old Catholic
reform. We
pray God to open the hearts and hands of Churchmen all over the land to the
aid of his noble work.”[36]
That same year,
Jean-Baptist Gauthier, a friend of Vilatte’s from Chiniquy’s French-Canadian
movement, joined him in Gardner during the summer. He had also
attended McGill University and had been working as a teacher and
catechist in
Illinois since 1885. On July 7, 1887 Vilatte and Gauthier,
together with a missionary who had come to work with Vilatte, Marcel
Pelletier, formed a religious order called the Society of the Precious
Blood. In
1888, the Belgian Independent Catholic parish in the Kewaunee area joined
Vilatte’s movement, and a permanent church and rectory was built in
Dykesville, also known as Duvall, the Church of St. Mary. A seminary was
established in Sturgeon Bay September of that year. Gauthier was
ordained a priest in Berne and became pastor of the Church of the Precious
Blood in Gardner in 1889.[37]
Bishop Brown died on 2
May, 1888 and was succeeded by Charles Chapman Grafton. Though he
approved of the Old Catholic Missions, he decided that they were “free-lance
affairs” and decided that it was best that he have them under his Episcopal
command.
Grafton persuaded Vilatte to legally transfer his missions to the
Trustees of the Diocese of Fond du Lac, to be held in trust for the Old
Catholics.
In return, the Trustees agreed to pay stipends to the Old Catholic
clergy and finance their work. [38] Vilatte would
soon realize he made a big mistake.
When Mgr Heykamp , Old
Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, heard about Vilatte’s new funding arrangements
he wrote to Vilatte on September 19, 1889 telling him to break ties with the
Protestant Episcopal Church, Anglicans, “who at bottom are not Catholics but
Protestants. [39] As the following
letter to Vilatte by Pastor Harderwyk of Delft, Holland on September 11, 1889
illustrates, the question of apostolic succession was of prime importance to
the Old Catholics.
That is, could the Episcopalians legitimately trace their succession of
ecclesiastical power to Peter, the first apostle, like the Old Catholics
could?
“You must disentangle
yourself from the American Episcopal Church. For that reason you have acted prudently in
not having Mr. Gauthier ordained priest by Dr. Grafton, who has, to say the
least, a doubtful, if not invalid, consecration….. It is impossible for you who
are a Catholic to remain under the jurisdiction of a bishop (?) who is,
seriously speaking, Protestant, and whose apostolic succession is very
doubtful.
For this reason I counsel you to separate yourself totally from the
Episcopal Church.
You will say then that it is absolutely necessary for you to have a
truly
Catholic bishop and sine dubio valide necnon legitme consecratus, and
this is very true….
Unite yourself with the Catholic Church of Holland. I do not doubt
but that our bishops will participate with you as soon as you seriously ex toto corde
subscribe to her Catholic doctrine. Your churches, or rather the Catholic
Church of America, would then be a daughter of the Church of Holland.” (Vilatte, Ecclesiastical
Relations p.4)
What this letter also
illustrates is that the Dutch Old Catholics planted in Vilatte’s mind the
possibility of becoming the Old Catholic Bishop of North America
Since Grafton, after
their ecclesiastical deal, now considered Vilatte his subject, he did not
react too kindly to Vilatte’s request to become an Old Catholic bishop. He also was angry
at the sudden rebuff by the Dutch bishops and blamed it on Vilatte.[40] He began a long
and vicious attack on Vilatte. In September 1890 he circulated warnings in
all the Episcopalian newspapers. He asked readers not to send any more
contributions to the Old Catholic mission of Dykesville because Vilatte had
“been, during the past year, seeking to obtain the Episcopate at the hands of
the Church of Holland. Failing this he applied to Bishop Vladimir,
asking to be admitted into the Orthodox Eastern Church. Lately I
discovered that he was making proposals to the Roman Catholic Bishop at Green
Bay, with a view to return to Rome.”[41]
Grafton also demanded
that Vilatte relinquish his Old Catholic missions to the Episcopal
Diocese.
Although the deeds to Vilatte’s churches stated that they were
Episcopalian churches for the Old Catholics, Vilatte lost his
churches. He
did not have the money to legally defend himself against the
Episcopalians. The lawyer for the Episcopalians even
told the Episcopalians that it was fortunate that Vilatte did not have the
money because there was a good possibility the Episcopalians would have lost
the case.[42]
Grafton continued on the
warpath. He
railed against the establishment of a “third” Catholic Church in America,
garnishing support from the Episcopal and Old Catholic bishops in Europe. Grafton’s efforts
in attacking and harassing Vilatte paid off. In September 1890, Bishops of
Utrecht decided in a Congress in Cologne, to abandon Vilatte and his efforts
in the Church of Utrecht. Bishop Holman adds, “As had happened in
England, the initiator of Old Catholicism in America was abandoned as the
Synod of Utrecht jettisoned principle to establish a curious partnership with
the Anglican Church. It would appear that Utrecht was impressed
with ‘numbers’ and power to say nothing of income. Revenue had been
cut off, of course, by the Episcopalian Diocese. The separation
now which has occurred between Utrecht and the Episcopal Church adds a touch
of irony to the whole picture.”[43]
Vilatte did not let the
Old Catholic and the Episcopalians stop him. He looked to the East for jurisdiction in
order to carry on his mission. He asked Archbishop Vladimir, the Russian
Orthodox Bishop of Alaska and the Aleutians, living in San Francisco, to raise
him to the episcopacy. Although Vladimir approved of Vilatte’s
missions in Wisconsin, he did not reply to Vilatte’s request. So eventually
Vilatte made contact with Alvarez, also known as Mar Julius I Metropolitan, of
the Independent Catholic Church, the Jacobite Church, of Ceylon, Goa, and
India.
Alvarez agreed to consecrate Vilatte. Vilatte then left his Old Catholic missions
in the care of a Brother Augustine and left for the Far East citing the
following reasons, as reported by Anson, for his long trip:
1.
Because the Old Catholics in America were forbidden by
the Archbishop and the Bishops in Holland to present their candidates to the
Anglican Bishops for confirmation, or to use holy oils blessed by them;
2.
the fear that in the case of his death, his people would
be responsible should they be compelled to submit to the Roman Catholic
bishops;
3.
the long silence of the Holy Synod of Moscow, and the
apparent indifference of the Orthodox Church towards the Old Catholic Movement
in North America;
4.
the expressed Orthodoxy of the Independent Catholic
Church of Ceylon, together with the urgent invitation to go there and receive
the Apostolic Succession.[44]
Anson writes that although Vilatte sailed from New York
on July 15, 1891 it was not until May 29, 1892 that Alvarez felt justified in
consecrating a “free-lance French priest”. Apparently Patriarch Ignatius Peter III of
Antioch was consulted first. But the ceremony finally took place in the
former Portuguese Catholic Church of Our Lady of Good Death in Colombo,
Ceylon.[45]
Vilatte returned to the Untied States to realize that he had lost his
religious footing in Wisconsin. The Roman Catholics despised him, the Old
Catholics in Europe had abandoned him, and Bishop Grafton had stolen many of
his missions.
Around this time, the Roman Catholic Bishop Messmer of Green Bay was
becoming increasingly disturbed that Vilatte was converting Roman Catholic
Belgians to Old Catholicism. To counteract Vilatte, Messmer asked the
Canons of Premontre from the Abbey of Berne in Holland to send over
French-speaking Norbertines. In 1893, Father Pennings and two other
Norbertines arrived in Wisconsin.[46] Using Vilatte’s
tactics of close communication with the Belgians, they nearly destroyed. These Norbertines
eventually created the first Premonstratensian abbot in the United
States.
This was soon to become today’s St. Norbert’s College in De Pere,
Wisconsin.
Stripped of money and congregations, soon left Green Bay around
1899. For
the next twenty-five years Vilatte’s activities and movements were so involved
they are difficult to untangle today. He spent time working with the Polish
immigrants in Wisconsin, returned to Canada for a while, there are rumors he
was in Chicago and Mexico.
He spent his last days in a Roman Catholic monastery the Cistercian
Abbey of Port-Colbert, France, having been reconciled with the Church—upon one
condition—that he be recognized as Bishop. Although the Holy See granted him a pension
of 22,000 francs annually in recognition of his Episcopal status, [47] the Roman bishop in the
Abbey saw him as competition. When the bishop failed to respect his
status, Vilatte retaliated and started consecrating Old Catholic bishops in
the Roman Catholic monastery. This would have created an enormous
controversy, but before the Roman Bishop could take action,[48] Joseph René Vilatte
died of heart failure on July 8, 1929. He was buried without his Episcopal
vestments in a cemetery in Versailles. Shortly after his death his private papers
vanished.[49]
The Legacy of Joseph
René Vilatte
Peter Anson writes that after Vilatte left Wisconsin,
some of his followers returned to the Roman Catholic Church, some joined
spiritist movements, and the rest remained under Bishop Grafton’s
jurisdiction.[50] According to
Bishop Weeks, this was not only the end of the Old Catholic Missions in
Wisconsin, but also the end of any real Old Catholic Church in the United
States that was associated with the Old Catholic bishops of Holland.[51]
But physical evidence of Vilatte’s presence in Northeast
Wisconsin still exists. As a 1960’s press Gazette article points
out, although there are no plaques to his memory on the St. Norbert College
campus, he certainly had a lot to do with the founding of the
institution.[52] Churches that
were, at one time or another, in the Old Catholic tradition are still
standing.
They include: the Church of the Precious Blood on County Road C in the
township of Gardner, WI which was founded by Vilatte in 1886; the Church of
the Blessed Sacrament on 825 N. Webster in Green Bay, WI; the Robinsonville
Presbyterian Church on Reiner Road in New Franken, WI. In Duvall, WI on
Duvall Rd, one can find an Old Catholic Cemetery,[53] informally known among
the local Belgians as the Vilatte Cemetery.
This is not to say that the Old Catholic or Christian
Catholic faith does not exist in North America. One can visit the Christian Catholic
Website, http://www.ccrcc.ca, and find the
movement is still alive. According to this website, the present
Christian Catholic Church Society was founded by Charles Chiniquy, as I
mentioned earlier.
This Society today consists of three other Boards and Societies:
1.
The Society of the Precious Blood, which was first
organized in Little Sturgeon, by Vilatte in 1886.
2.
The American Catholic (Community) Church, also founded by
Vilatte in Duvall, WI in 1889
3.
Quebec Religious Corporation & the Canadian Section
of the International Council of Community Churches, founded by Bishop Cote in
1980.
Conclusion
In many of the sources I
came across,
Vilatte is described as an egotist, an opportunist, and insincere, to
say the least.
It is clear that Joseph René Vilatte has been a controversial
figure. What
is also very clear to me is that Vilatte found himself in a three-way power
struggle.
While the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians had the money and
resources to attack him, the Old Catholics in Europe did not keep their
promises to Vilatte and abandoned him. Vilatte, having only a small band of
Belgian farmers on his side, was bound to lose this struggle.
[1] (Vilatte, A Sketch of the Belief of the Old Catholics, p.
7)
[2] Marx, Monsignor Joseph and Blied, rev Benjamin J. “The
Old Catholics in America, Joseph René Vilatte, Archbishop Vilatte, Vilatte and
the Catholic Church.” The Salesianum, vol. 36, no. 4 (October 1941), and
vol. 37, nos 1,2,3 (January, April and July 1942). p. 156
[3] Marx and Blied, p.
156
[4] Dominica, Sister M. The
Chapel: Out Lady of Good Help. The Sisters of St. Francis of Bay
Settlement. Green Bay. 1955. p. 25
[5] Greene, Stanley.
Belgian Tapes.
Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay. Interviewed by Leigh Krueger in
1976.
Greene was a radio
commentator for WDOR Radio Station in Sturgeon Bay and had a great interest in
Belgian religion.
[6] The Old Catholic Church
of America. 1977 p. 89
[7] Anson, Peter F. Bishops at
Large.
Faber and Faber. London p. 91
[8] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay.
[11] Marx and Blied, p. 1
[12] Vilatte, J. My Relations with the
Protestant Episcopal Church edited by Mar Georgius, Glastonbury, 1960, p.4
as cited in Anson, Peter F. Bishops at Large. Faber and Faber. London p. 92
Footnote in Anson p. 92
“This interesting autobiography covers Vilatte’s career as far as his
consecration as a bishop in 1892, and contains the full text of numerous
letters which are quoted in this chapter. It appears to have been written about 1910,
but remained unpublished until thirty years after his death.”
[13] Chiniquy is also famous
for his book Fifty
Years in the Church of Rome in which he explains how his Roman Catholic
superiors falsely accused him but Abraham Lincoln, a young lawyer from
Illinois defended him. Chiniquy argues that it was the Jesuits who
later killed Lincoln and explains why.
[14] Vilatte, My Relations with the
Protestant Episcopal Church p. 4 as cited in Anson., p 92-93
[17] The Premonstratensian
Fathers. The
Canons of
St. Norbert Abbey. West De Pere, Wisconsin. 1936
[19] Preuter, Karl and
Melton, J Gordon. The Old Catholic Sourcebook. Garland Publishing. New
York. 1983 p. 54
[20] Old Catholic Mission.
An Account of the
Old Catholic Work in the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Burleson Bros. Pewaukee.
1887
[21] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[22] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[23] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[24] Vilatte, Joseph René. My Relations with the
Protestant Episcopal Church. As cited in Anson, Peter F. Bishops at
Large.
Faber and Faber. London p. 92
[26] Old Catholic Mission.
An Account of the
Old Catholic Work in the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Burleson Bros. Pewaukee.
1887 p. 8
[27] Old Catholic Mission.,
p.8
[28] Old Catholic Mission.,
p.9
[29] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[30] Liturgie et Cantiques en usage dans l’Eglise Catholique
Chretienne de la Suisse. As cited in Anson, p. 97
[31] Old Catholic Mission.
An Account of the
Old Catholic Work in the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Burleson Bros. Pewaukee.
1887
[32] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[33] Old Catholic Mission.
An Account of the
Old Catholic Work in the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Burleson Bros. Pewaukee.
1887
[34] Old Catholic Mission.,
p. 13
[35] Old Catholic Mission.,
p. 14
[36] Anson, Peter F. Bishops at
Large.
Faber and Faber. London p. 98
[37] Most Reverend J. René
Vilatte (1854-1929)
http://ccrcc.ca/en/episcopal_committee/cccc/mem_jr_vilatte.html
[38] Anson, Peter F. Bishops at
Large.
Faber and Faber. London p. 98
[39] Marx, Joseph and Blied,
Benjamin. The Old Catholics In
America: Joseph René Vilatte, Archbishop Vilatte, Vilatte and the Catholic
Church.
The Salesianum, vol. 36, no. 4 (October 1941), and vol. 37, nos.
1,2,3 (January, April and July 1942)
[40] Holman, Bishop John
E. The Old
Catholic Church [n.p.] Old Catholic Church of America, 1977
[41] Vilatte, My Relations with
the Protestant Episcopal Church, p. 35 as cited in Anson, p. 100
[42] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[46] [No author cited]
History of the Order of Canons regular of Premontre, 1120-1936. West De Pere,
WI.” The Premonstratensian Fathers, 1936 p. 61
[48] Greene, Stanley. Interviewed by
Leigh Krueger.
Belgian Tapes. Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay
[52] Rudolph, Jack “The
Fascinating Joseph René Vilatte” Press Gazette [n.d]
