SAS catalogs are specific to the environment (32/64 bit, big-endian vs little-endian, maybe even encodings) and the SAS version. There is no CEDA (Cross Environment Data Access) for them, like there is for datasets.
To move them from one environment to another, they need to be migrated, most easily by using proc cport in the current environment and proc cimport in the new.
Since former SAS versions/environments may not be available, it is always mandatory to keep the sources (data, programs) used to create those catalogs.