Are we Catholic or Roman Catholic?

The Creed which we recite on Sundays and holy days speaks of ‘…one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’ However, the Church referred to in this Creed is more commonly called just the Catholic Church. It is not, by the way, properly called the Roman Catholic Church, but simply the Catholic Church.

The term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself; it is a relatively modern term, it was promoted mostly by Anglicans, supporters of the “branch theory” of the Church, namely, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the creed was supposed to consist of three major branches, the Anglican, the Orthodox and the so-called Roman Catholic. Nowhere is the term Roman Catholic used in any of the First Vatican Council’s (1869-1870) official documents about the Church herself. Neither is it used in the 16 documents of the Vatican II. Pope Paul VI signed all the documents of Vatican II as “I, Paul. Bishop of the Catholic Church.” Simply that – Catholic Church.

Today, many Catholics have recently taken to using the term ‘Roman Catholic’ in order to affirm their unity with the Pope. However, caution is advised in using the term, not only because of its dubious origins in Anglican circles, intending to suggest that there just might be some other Catholic Church around somewhere besides the Roman one: but also, because it often still is used today to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church is something other and lesser than the Catholic Church of the creed. Some others also use the term who appear to be attempting to categorize the Roman Catholic Church as just another contemporary “Christian denomination”, not the body that is identical with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the creed.

The proper name that the Church adopted, dating from the late first century, and adopted precisely in order to distinguish herself from rival bodies, which by then were already beginning to form. The name by which she has been known ever since is the Catholic Church.

The name appears in Christian writing for the first time at the start of the second century, 107A.D., in a letter of St Ignatius of Antioch. By the time it was written down, it had certainly already been in use, for the indications are that everybody understood exactly what was meant by the name when it was written.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has concisely summed up all the reasons why the name of the Church of Christ has been the Catholic Church: “The Church is catholic,” the Catechism teaches, “[because] she proclaims the fullness of the faith. She bears in herself and administers the totality of the means of salvation. She is sent out to all peoples. She speaks to all men. She encompasses all times. She is ‘missionary of her very nature'” (CCC #868).

(Adapted from an original article by Kenneth D. Whitehead. First publish by Our Sunday Visitor in May/June 1996)

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