Old Catholic Church of The Netherlands - Reformation and Jansenism

Reformation and Jansenism

Forced into hiding during the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands continued to thrive, even eventually obtaining a comfortable enough status with the local authorities so as to allow it to practice Catholicism as long as this did not take place in public or semi-public buildings and areas. The popes appointed Apostolic Vicars to Utrecht, while the other sees remained vacant since the dissolution of diocesan structures due to the reformation. Strangely, despite the Debitum Pastoralis and the waivers it provided, in 1692 the Dutch ancient Church came under persecution from counter-reformist Jesuits, who, despite opposition to this from Rome, accused Petrus Codde, Apostolic Vicar of Utrecht and the Dutch Republic, of favouring the Jansenist heresy. Pope Innocent XII appointed a commission of cardinals who started an investigation of Archbishop Codde, ending in exoneration. In 1700 Archbishop Codde was summoned to Rome and brought before a second commission appointed by Pope Clement XI. After another acquittal, Clement XI suspended Codde in 1701 and appointed a successor, Gerard Potcamp, to the See of Utrecht.

This was not a popular decision in Holland, culminating in a demand by the Dutch for the return of Codde, and the refusal to accept his successor by a large part of the clergy. Codde returned to Utrecht in June 1703 and formally resigned — protesting the circumstance — in a pastoral letter of March 19, 1704. He died on December 18, 1710.

Shortly before the controversy concerning Codde, the Netherlands and its Catholic clergy had become a refuge for a number of well-known dissenting priests from France and Belgium, who were persecuted due to accusations of Jansenism and because of their anti-Roman views on jurisdiction.

Lacking an archbishop in partibus infidelium, the Dutch Church was able to arrange for an Irish bishop, Luke Fagan, Bishop of Meath (later Archbishop of Dublin), to ordain priests for the see of Utrecht. The canonical matters arising from the supposed Roman violations of Debitum Pastoralis led to the case being brought before the Pontifical Roman Catholic University of Leuven (Southern Brabant) in May 1717, which found in favour of Utrecht, but was unable to resolve the matter with Rome; this led to a de facto autonomous Catholic church in the Netherlands. Finally in 1723 dissatisfied Dutch clergy elected Cornelius van Steenoven as Archbishop of Utrecht. He was consecrated (without a papal mandate) by Dominique Marie Varlet, who had been consecrated by the pope as Coadjutor Bishop of Babylon, (a titular see i.e. a diocese in name only), who was visiting the Netherlands. Varlet also agreed to confirm children and to support the Dutch clergy, as he was sympathetic to their position. Both consecrator and consecrated incurred the penalty of suspension and excommunication for illicit episcopal consecration (only punished by a suspension at the time and until 1950), and because of illegitimately claiming a diocesan see of jurisdiction without the permission of the Roman Pontiff (punished by excommunication). Bishop Varlet was later reconciled to Rome, even though he subsequently consecrated four bishops for the Independent Ultrajectine Church, which would become known as 'Old Catholic' after 1853. Van Steenoven after his consecration autonomously, and from the Roman view point illegitimately, appointed bishops to the vacant Dutch sees of Deventer, Haarlem and Groningen.

Most Dutch Catholics nevertheless continued to follow the pope and accepted his newly appointed Apostolic Vicars at Utrecht as well as the later official Roman Catholic hierarchy established in 1853, when Catholicism was allowed in the public sphere again after two and a half centuries of secret and private religious worship.