Ultrajectine - Origins

Origins

The Ultrajectines are descendants of the Jansenists who fled discrimination, and legal persecution imposed by Papal Bulls in France and the southern Spanish Netherlands, for refuge in the comparatively tolerant Republic of the Seven Provinces (The Netherlands), which was dominated by Calvinists and therefore theologically more sympathetic towards Jansenism and its salvation doctrine.

The Netherlands became a refuge for the Jansenists because local civil authorities in the Netherlands were in a state of war with the Papacy and its Roman sovereigns; they could not countenance Papal appointed vicars to enter their territory. Since the alternative Catholic theologians were practically the only leaders of the local Catholic congregations left, they quickly rose to prominence within the Catholic laity who required ordained minsters. In turn, perceived to be loyal subjects to local civil law they also quickly drew the favor of the Dutch Calvinist Protestants and the Dutch government. Thus, Jansenist theologians assumed dominant positions in the still more or less underground Catholic Church structure in the Netherlands. At first, the Papacy countenanced this development. However, as relations between the Dutch authorities and Catholic sovereigns relaxed to a more or less cold war state, the Papacy again attempted to impose its direct rule upon the local Catholic churches. However, by the early 18th century, the Papacy had ruled that Jansenists were considered to be heretics and demanded the removal of all such theologians in the local Catholic churches of the Netherlands. Refusing to submit to direct control of Rome, unwilling to lose control of church property, and tending to believe in the Jansenist doctrine, most Catholic churches encouraged their bishops to resist. This culminated in the formation of the Ultrajectine Communion (Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands) in 1723 which was Catholic in liturgy and belief but refused to submit to alleged Papal abuses.

This led to a theological, philosophical, and political control of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands. Jesuit priests and missionaries were smuggled into the Netherlands to gain control of those Catholic congregations which had followed the dissident Ultrajectine hierarchy. A vigorous campaign was launched to vindicate Papal authority and to exhort the Catholic laity to turn to Papal appointed ministers for church matters. Additionally, the Papacy negotiated with the new Dutch authorities to gain legitime status for their appointments. Upon gaining this approval from Dutch authorities to appoint Papally accepted ministers, the Jesuit position soon overcame the Jansenists. By the 19th century, the majority of the originally dissident Catholic laity had turned back to Papal authority; already in the 18th century the majority of Dutch Catholics had broken the association with the Ultrajectine ministry however.

The Jansenist lead during the early period was given by the Vicar Apostolic Neercassel who during his entire period of government, cultivated and sheltered Jansenists in the largely underground Catholic Church of the (northern and central parts) of the Netherlands. He was succeeded as Vicar Apostolic by the pro-Jansenist archbishop in partibus Petrus (Peter) Codde, who was excommunicated by the Papacy for his obduracy in 1704. After Codde, another bishop who played an important part was Dominique-Marie Varlet, who had been appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Babylon by the Pope after having been Vicar general to the Diocese of Quebec (Canada), but who instead chose to spend his time in the Netherlands succouring the Jansenists and making appeals to Rome in order that it should reconsider its disciplinary actions against him. When the Jansenists of the Netherlands, with the assistance of the Dutch Parliament, dominated by Protestants, the Staten-Generaal ("States-General"), Vicar Apostolic Gerard Potkamp who was appointed by Rome in 1704, the Jansenists constituted themselves into a Cathedral Chapter of Utrecht and proceeded to elect ministers. The Popes viewed this as ecclesiastically illegitimate and invalid, since the bishops were appointed without apostolic mandate from the Holy See. Bishop Varlet consecrated four of these men, and the last of these, Peter Jan Meindaerts, after the death of Varlet, consecrated bishops for the sees of Haarlem and Deventer (which had been defunct since 1580 and would be re-activated by the Papacy only as late as 1853) in order to prevent the loss of the historic episcopate (apostolic succession) among the Dutch Jansenists. Thus, according to the Roman Catholic point of view, the actions of Codde, Varlet, Steenhoven and Meindaerts finally consummated the Ultrajectine Schism (Schism of the Church of Utrecht) by not only illicitly ordaining bishops, but especially by usurping diocesan ordinary jurisdiction and thereby interfering into the sole domain of the Roman Pontiff. However, the Jansenists averred, referring to alleged long ecclesiastical precedence which (allegedly) allowed for ordination without Papal approval under particular circumstances. The Holy See would eventually convene the First Vatican Council (1870), which codified and remodelled ecclesiastical procedures in favor of the Roman Curia. With this council and the changed international legal standing for the Papacy with the Dutch authorities, the Popes proclaimed the Jansenists as schismatics and once again excommunicated them and their laities.

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 relates to this:

de Neercassel, titular Archbishop of Castoria (and Vicar Apostolic of the Dutch Republic), who governed the whole church in the Netherlands from 1663 to 1686, made no secret of his intimacy with the (Jansenist) party. Under him the country began to become the refuge of all whose obstinacy forced them to leave France and Belgium. Thither came such men as Antoine Arnauld, Du Vaucel, Gerberon, Quesnel, Nicole, Petitpied, as well as a number of priests, monks, and nuns who preferred exile to the acceptance of the pontifical Bulls . A large number of these deserters belonged to the Congregation of the Oratory, but other orders shared with it this unfortunate distinction. When the fever of the appeals was at its height, twenty-six Carthusians of the Paris house escaped from their cloister during the night and fled to Holland. Fifteen Benedictines from Orval Abbey, in the Diocese of Trier, gave the same scandal. Peter Codde, who succeeded Neercassel in 1686, and who bore the title of Archbishop of Sebaste, went further than his predecessor. He refused to sign the (anti-Jansenist) formulary and, when summoned to Rome, defended himself so poorly that he was first forbidden to exercise his functions, and then deposed by a decree of 1704. He died still obstinate in 1710. He had been replaced by Gerard Potkamp, but this appointment and those that followed were rejected by a section of the clergy, to whom the Dutch States-General lent their support. The conflict lasted a long time, during which the episcopal functions were not fulfilled . In 1723 a group of seven or eight priests assumed the name and quality of the Chapter of Utrecht "in order to put an end to a precarious and painful situation", elected, on its own authority, as archbishop of the same city, one of its members, Cornelius Steenhoven, who then held the office of vicar-general. This election was not canonical, and was not approved by the pope. Steenhoven nevertheless had the audacity to get himself consecrated by Dominique Marie Varlet, a former missionary bishop and coadjutor Bishop of Babylon, who was at that time suspended, interdicted and excommunicated (for confirming Jansenist children in Amsterdam). He thus consummated the schism, interdicted likewise and excommunicated, he died in 1725. Those who had elected him transferred their support to Barchman Wuitiers, who had recourse to the same consecrator. The unhappy Varlet lived long enough to administer the episcopal unction to two successors of Barchman, Van der Croon and Peter Jan Meindaerts. The sole survivor of this sorry line, Meindaerts, ran the risk of seeing his dignity become extinct with himself. To prevent this, the Dioceses of Haarlem (1742) and Deventer (1757) were created, and became suffragans of Utrecht. But Rome always refused to ratify these outrageously irregular acts, invariably replying to the notification of each election with a declaration of nullification and a sentence of excommunication against those elected and their adherents.