Catholic

Catholic. The word, meaning ‘general’ or ‘universal’, has come to have various uses in Christian terminology: (1) Of the universal Church as distinct from local Christian communities. (2) In the sense of ‘orthodox’, as distinct from ‘heretical’ or ‘schismatical’. (3) Of the undivided Church before the schism between the E. and W., traditionally dated in 1054. Thereafter the W. Church referred to itself as ‘catholic’, the E. preferring to describe itself as ‘orthodox’. (4) Since the Reformation RCs have come to use it exclusively of themselves. Anglicans and Old Catholics have also adopted it to cover besides themselves and the RC Church also the E. Orthodox Church in the belief that these Communions together represent the undivided Church of earlier ages. (5) In general it is employed of those Christians who claim to possess a historical and continuous tradition of faith and practice, as opposed to Protestants who tend to find their ultimate standards in the Bible as interpreted on the principles of the 16th-cent. Reformation.