The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches, or Old Catholic movement, designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the undivided church but who separated from the see of Rome after the First Vatican council of 1869–70". The expression Old Catholic has been used from the 1850s by communions separated from the Roman Catholic Church over certain doctrines, primarily concerned with papal authority and infallibility. Some of these groups, especially in the Netherlands, had already existed long before the term. The Old Catholic Church is separate and distinct from Traditionalist Catholicism.
Old Catholic parish church in Gablonz an der Neiße, Austria-Hungary (now Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic). Some ethnic German Roman Catholics supported Döllinger in his rejection of the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility.
Western Christianity is one of two subdivisions of Christianity. Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic Church, Independent Catholicism and Restorationism.
Jesus represented as the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei), a common practice in Western Christianity
St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the largest church building in the world today
Title page of the Lutheran Swedish Gustav Vasa Bible, translated by the Petri brothers, along with Laurentius Andreae
Jesuit scholars in China. Top: Matteo Ricci, Adam Schaal and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–88); Bottom: Paul Siu (Xu Guangqi), Colao or Prime Minister of State, and his granddaughter Candide Hiu
