Liberal Catholicism

is a term applied by the Roman Catholic Church to a French Catholic movement advocating freedom of thoughts, freedom of dogma, and denouncing religious corruption. The first leaders were Father Felicité Robert de Lamennais and Count Charles de Montalembert. The movement was condemned by two Encyclical Letters from Pope Gregory XVI. It went underground for a time and reemerged with the name The Liberal Catholic Church under the leadership of Bishop James Ingall Wedgwood in 1916, after securing a valid Apostolic Succession from the Old-Catholic movement in Great Britain.

Liberalism
Today the Liberal Catholic Church is an independent movement and self-governing body; neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, but Catholic. It aims to combine the traditional sacrament of worship with a stately ritual, its own mysticism, and an abiding witness to sacramental grace with the widest measure of intellectual liberty and respect for individual conscience. It therefore permits to its members freedom of interpretation of the scriptures, creeds, and liturgy. Regarding the mind as one of the greatest avenues to spiritual apprehension, it encourages its adherents free play in scientific and philosophical thought.

The church welcomes to its altars all who reverently and sincerely approach them, erecting no barriers in the nature or standards of belief. It has no wish to proselytize, in an aggressive sense, toward the adherents of any other churches and religions. It claims to welcome people to attend regular participation in its services without request or expectation that any leave their original church.