The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

"Roman Catholic" or just plain "Catholic" ?

November 24, 2006

The day after Thanksgiving and all across the United States, Americans, and even foreign nationals like myself, are "recovering" from the previous day's festivities. Yesterday evening a friend was speaking about the use of Latin in the Tridentine Mass and whether he would understand it or not. I remarked in humorous fashion that fortunately the Mass was in Latin yesterday morning since the epistle for the Mass of Pope St. Clement I (like the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost a week ago) said in part the following:

"For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things."

Yes the words of St. Paul to the infant church of Philippi centuries ago take on an added meaning for all of us today, laboring, as many of us are with much left-over turkey and trimmings from the revelries of yesterday.

In any case, while we were whooping it up over here, over in Rome Dr Rowan Williams of Canterbury was paying a visit to Pope Benedict XVI. It was interesting to compare the two speeches of both men to catch a subtle nuance that escapes most Catholics of the English-speaking world. Pope Benedict referenced the Anglicans as a "Communion" and contradistinguished it against the "Catholic Church":

Over the last three years you have spoken openly about the strains and difficulties besetting the Anglican Communion and consequently about the uncertainty of the future of the Communion itself. Recent developments, especially concerning the ordained ministry and certain moral teachings, have affected not only internal relations within the Anglican Communion but also relations between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

Dr. Williams responded in kind by referring to the "Roman Catholic Church":

As we meet on this occasion, we are also recalling and celebrating the visit forty years ago of my predecessor Archbishop Michael Ramsey to Pope Paul VI, when this encounter between the leaders of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches initiated a process of reconciliation and friendship which has continued to this day. The ring that I wear today is the episcopal ring which Pope Paul gave to Archbishop Michael, this cross the gift from Pope John Paul II, symbolic of our shared commitment to work together for the full visible unity of the Christian family.

What is the subtle nuance ? You would have to be English and a Catholic like myself to catch the point. The term "Roman Catholic" was invented by sneering Anglicans after they broke from the Church at the Reformation to refer to those people who refused to sever their ties to Rome. Anglicans (in England at least) maintain that they are "English Catholics" as opposed to those foolish "Roman Catholics" who maintain an allegiance to the "Bishop of Rome". Catholics in Britain have always refused the title "Roman Catholic" since they alone are Catholic and the Anglicans are Protestants. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as the Roman Catholic Church. There is the Catholic Church of which the Latin or Roman Rite is one of 22 rites within the Church. To identify the Catholic Church with the Roman Rite alone is to exclude all those Catholics who worship in the 21 other officially approved rites of the Catholic Church.

Given the passage of time it is not uncommon for Roman Rite Catholics to adopt the term Roman Catholic when speaking of the Church to which they belong. Such, of course, is a misnomer, and given the origin of the term (a disparaging reference to Catholics who remained faithful to their Faith and the Apostolic See) ought to be deeply reprobated by good Catholics everywhere. The Pope got it right, Dr. Williams was wrong. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains the matter as follows:

"Catholic, The word Catholic (katholikos from katholou -- throughout the whole, i.e., universal) occurs in the Greek classics, e.g., in Aristotle and Polybius, and was freely used by the earlier Christian writers in what we may call its primitive and non-ecclesiastical sense. (…) The combination "the Catholic Church" (he katholike ekklesia) is found for the first time in the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written about the year 110. The words run: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal [katholike] Church." (…) The reference (c. 155) to "the bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna" (Letter on the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, xvi), a phrase which necessarily presupposes a more technical use of the word, is due, some critics think, to interpolation. On the other hand this sense undoubtedly occurs more than once in the Muratorian Fragment (c. 180), where, for example, it is said of certain heretical writings that they "cannot be received in the Catholic Church". A little later, Clement of Alexandria speaks very clearly. "We say", he declares, "that both in substance and in seeming, both in origin and in development, the primitive and Catholic Church is the only one, agreeing as it does in the unity of one faith" (Stromata, VII, xvii; P. G., IX, 552). From this and other passages which might be quoted, the technical use seems to have been clearly established by the beginning of the third century.(…)

With regard to the modern use of the word, Roman Catholic is the designation employed in the legislative enactments of Protestant England, but Catholic is that in ordinary use on the Continent of Europe, especially in Latin countries. Indeed, historians of all schools, at least for brevity's sake, frequently contrast Catholic and Protestant, without any qualification. In England, since the middle of the sixteenth century, indignant protests have been constantly made against the "exclusive and arrogant usurpation" of the name Catholic by the Church of Rome. (…)According to some, such combinations as Roman Catholic, or Anglo-Catholic, involve a contradiction in terms. (...) From about the year 1580, besides the term papist, employed with opprobrious intent, the followers of the old religion were often called Romish or Roman Catholics.

The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 3 New York, 1913 pp 449ff

"Roman Catholic, A qualification of the name Catholic commonly used in English-speaking countries by those unwilling to recognize the claims of the One True Church. Out of condescension for these dissidents, the members of that Church are wont in official documents to be styled "Roman Catholics" as if the term Catholic represented a genus of which those who owned allegiance to the pope formed a particular species. (…) In the "Oxford English Dictionary", the highest existing authority upon questions of English philology, the following explanation is given under the heading "Roman Catholic". The use of this composite term in place of the simple Roman, Romanist, or Romish; which had acquired an invidious sense, appears to have arisen in the early years of the seventeenth century. (New Oxford Dict., VIII, 766) (…)

A study of (…) other early examples in their context shows plainly enough that the qualification "Romish Catholic" or "Roman Catholic" was introduced by Protestant divines who highly resented the Roman claim to any monopoly of the term Catholic. In Germany, Luther had omitted the word Catholic from the Creed, but this was not the case in England. (…) The term "Romish Catholic" or "Roman Catholic" undoubtedly originated with the Protestant divines who shared this feeling and who were unwilling to concede the name Catholic to their opponents without qualification. (…)

On the other hand the evidence seems to show that the Catholics of the reign of Elizabeth and James I were by no means willing to admit any other designation for themselves than the unqualified name Catholic. (…) (I)n Elizabeth's reign, while in Acts of Parliament, proclamations, etc., before the Spanish match, Catholics are simply described as Papists or Recusants, and their religion as popish, Romanish, or Romanist. Indeed long after this period, the use of the term Roman Catholic continued to be a mark of condescension, and language of much more uncomplimentary character was usually preferred. It was perhaps to encourage a friendlier attitude in the authorities that Catholics themselves henceforth began to adopt the qualified term in all official relations with the government. Thus the "Humble Remonstrance, Acknowledgment, Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland" in 1661, began "We, your Majesty's faithful subjects the Roman Catholick clergy of Ireland". The same Practice seems to have obtained in Maryland; see or example the Consultation entitled "Objections answered touching Maryland", drafted by Father R Blount, S.J., in 1632 (B. Johnston, "Foundation of Maryland , etc., 1883, 29), and wills proved 22 Sep., 1630, and 19 Dec., 1659, etc., (in Baldwin, "Maryland Cat. of Wills", 19 vols., vol. i. (…)

With the strong Catholic revival in the middle of the nineteenth century and the support derived from the uncompromising zeal of many earnest converts, such for example as Faber and Manning, an inflexible adherence to the name Catholic without qualification once more became the order of the day. The government, however, would not modify the official designation or suffer it to be set aside in addresses presented to the Sovereign on public occasions. In two particular instances during the archiepiscopate of Cardinal Vaughan this point was raised and became the subject of correspondence between the cardinal and the Home Secretary. (…)

It is noteworthy that the representative Anglican divine, Bishop Andrewes, in his "Tortura Torti" (1609) ridicules the phrase Ecclesia Catholica Romana as a contradiction in terms. "What," he asks, "is the object of adding ‘Roman’? The only purpose that such an adjunct can serve is to distinguish your Catholic Church from another Catholic Church which is not Roman" (p. 368). It is this very common line of argument which imposes upon Catholics the necessity of making no compromise in the matter of their own name. The loyal adherents of the Holy See did not begin in the sixteenth century to call themselves "Catholics" for controversial purposes. It is the traditional name handed down to us continuously from the time of St. Augustine."

The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 13 New York, 1913 pp 121 – 23

It might be legitimately argued that the previous two extracts represent a Preconciliar understanding of the nature of the Catholic Church since the date of publishing of the Catholic Enyclopedia was 1913. Happily, however, the same understanding of the Church being simply the "Catholic Church" and not the "Roman Catholic Church" continued after the Second Vatican Council. In his book The Church (1967) Father Hans Küng, by no means a traditional theologian, quotes from part of paragraph 13 of the Vatican II dogmatic constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium and comments upon that extract as follows:

"It follows that among all the nations of the earth there is but one People of God, which takes its citizens from every race, making them citizens of a kingdom which is of a heavenly and not an earthly nature. For all the faithful scattered throughout the world are in communion with each other in the Holy Spirit, so that "he who occupies the See of Rome knows the people of India are his members" (St John Chrysostom). Since the kingdom of God is not of this world (cf. Jn. 18:36), the Church or People of God takes nothing away from the temporal welfare of any people by establishing that kingdom. Rather does she foster and take to herself, insofar as they are good, the ability, resources and customs of each people. Taking them to herself she purifies, strengthens, and ennobles them. The Church in this is mindful that she must harvest with that King to whom the nations were given for an inheritance (cf. Ps. 2:8) and into whose city they bring gifts and presents.( cf. Ps. 71 (72):10; Is. 60:4-7; Rev. 21:24.) This characteristic of universality which adorns the People of God is a gift from the Lord Himself. By reason of it, the Catholic Church strives energetically and constantly to bring all humanity with all its riches back to Christ its Head in the unity of His Spirit. In virtue of this catholicity each individual part of the Church contributes through its special gifts to the good of the other parts and of the whole Church. Thus through the common sharing of gifts and through the common effort to attain fullness in unity, the whole and each of the parts receive increase. Not only, then, is the People of God made up of different peoples, but in its inner structure it is composed of various ranks." (CE 13: cf. Doe 14 & 16).

(c) But does not all this point quite clearly to that Church which is commonly referred to as "The Catholic Church"? Has it deserved that title? Does this one Church not come closest to the idea of universality? Is it not geographically the most widespread, numerically the largest, culturally and socially the most varied, in terms of age the most long-lived? And yet the other Churches would question the very fundament of the catholicity of the so-called "Catholic Church", by questioning whether it remained true to its original nature, whether it is still supported in its original calling. In reply to this, we may well ask whether such a total judgment is possible under contemporary conditions. Can we assert that the so-called "Catholic Church" is lacking in all those features we have noted as belonging to the essence of the Church, can we say it is more lacking in them than any other Church? We ought not to judge too hastily either one way or the other; we have already encountered difficulties of the problem in connection with the unity of the Church. But let us here consider the question of catholicity, in which, as we shall see, the problems about unity recur in clearer form.

We cannot simply ignore one curious fact, which needs explaining: the fact that one Church, from the time of Ignatius of Antioch down to the present day, has very consistently retained as part of its title that age-old attribute which we have seen to belong to the fundamental character of the Church (cf. "Christian is my name, Catholic my surname" – Pacian, Ep. Ad Sympron, 1, 4: PL 13, 1055). It is true that other Churches have not only wished to be catholic, but wished to be called catholic. But they have always found it necessary to add some further definition (Anglo-Catholic, Old Catholic etc.), precisely in order to avoid being confused with the one Church which has remained the "Catholic Church".

Some remarks of St Augustine have a peculiarly contemporary relevance: "We must remain true to the Christian faith and to the community of that Church which is catholic and which is called the Catholic Church as well by its opponents as by all the members of it. Whether they intend to or not, even heretics and schismatics, if they are talking not among themselves but to outsiders, can only refer to one Church as catholic, namely the Catholic Church. They can only make themselves clear by giving it that name by which it is known the world over." (Augustine, De vera religione, 7, 12; PL 34, 128.)

It is true that there were attempts to rename the "Catholic Church" the "Roman Church", quite simply, as though the "Roman" Church were quite simply the "Catholic" Church! By adding this word to the usual definition and speaking of the "Roman Catholic Church", it was hoped to dismiss the "Catholic Church" as an isolated particularist confessional Church, and at the time of the Counter-Reformation some Catholics were thoughtless enough to accept this label, which threatened the whole concept of catholicity by associating the Church with local limitations and making it seem a specific confessional group. There were even attempts, beginning at the time of the Reformation, to deny to the Church the title of "catholic" altogether. And yet none of these attempts altered the fact that today as always the simple name "Catholic Church" refers to the one "Catholic Church."

The Church, Hans Küng, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1967, pp 305 & 6

Hence it follows that there is no "Roman Catholic Church" but the one "Catholic Church" that consists of 22 rites, one of which is the Latin Rite which uses the liturgical texts of the Church of Rome. All 22 rites accept the Church of Rome as their common head and all are members of the same Catholic Church. Just call me "picky" that's all....

+TF