Nordic Catholic Church
Roald Nikolai Flemestad
1999
Old Catholic Church in Italy (Nordic Catholic Church vicariate)[edit]
In 2011, a fraction of the Orthodox Church in Italy was organized as an association in memory of its deceased primate, Antonio De Rosso, under the name Association of Metropolitan Antonio (Italian: Associazione "Metropolita Antonio"). In 2013, the association was reorganized as the Old Catholic Church in Italy and in 2015 it became a vicariate of the Nordic Catholic Church.[7][8][9]
Ecumenical relationships[edit]
Dialogue with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, with the approval of the Holy See, led in 1996 to an arrangement that Laurence J. Orzell has called "limited inter-communion".[10] What this means is that the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of the sacraments of the Union of Scranton, and allows members of the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic Churches in particular exceptional circumstances, defined in canon 844 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church and the parallel canon 671 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, that are regulated by the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, to receive three sacraments from Union of Scranton ministers. Canon 844 allows those Catholics who can avoid error and indifferentism and are unable to approach a Catholic minister to receive, under certain conditions, the sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist, and Anointing of the Sick from "non-Catholic ministers, ministers in whose churches these sacraments are valid". This canon declares it licit for Catholic priests to administer the same three sacraments to members of churches which the Holy See judges to be in the same condition in regard to the sacraments as the Eastern churches, if they ask for the sacraments of their own accord and are properly disposed. Obstacles to full communion include different understandings about papal primacy, the level of involvement of the laity in church governance, and the Union of Scranton reception of some former Roman Catholic clergy, most of whom subsequently married.[11]
The Union of Scranton has been also in ecumenical dialogue since 2018 with numerous jurisdictions from the continuing Anglican movement: the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of America, and the Anglican Church in America—commonly referred to as the G-3. Progress has been steady, and the potential for full communion is on the horizon and nearing quickly. [12]
Since 2012, the Union of Scranton has been in dialogue with the Free Church of England.[13]