| 1. | a member of any of several European churches professing to be truly Catholic but rejecting certain modern Roman Catholic doctrines, dogmas, and practices, esp. the dogma of papal infallibility. |
| 2. | a member of any of several minor churches, esp. in the U.S., differing from the Roman Catholic Church chiefly in their rejection of the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. |
| Old Catholic n. A member of an independent religious organization formed by a group of German Roman Catholics who refused to accept the doctrine of papal infallibility proclaimed by the Vatican Council in 1870. |