Roman Catholic Church

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Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church refers to the worldwide assembly of Christians who are in full communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, who is regarded as the sign and instrument of Catholic unity among bishops and faithful alike. Statistically, Roman Catholics form the largest single Christian body, with close to 1.1 billion members worldwide. The rise of Christian culture in western Europe is virtually synonymous with the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Although other Christians sometimes refer to themselves as catholic (from the Greek word meaning universal or complete), Roman Catholics believe communion with the See of Rome is required for full membership in the Catholic Church. In addition to the Western or Latin Rite Catholics, there are some 20 million Eastern Christians in full communion with Rome (better identified as Eastern Catholics than Roman Catholics).

Roman Catholics believe the pope is the successor of Peter, appointed by Jesus Christ as the chief apostle and head of the Church. By the late second century, Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon (c.130–200), saw agreement with the Church of Rome as necessary for all Christian churches.

Following persecutions by various Roman emperors, the Church received legal recognition from Constantine in 313. The move of the imperial capital from Rome to Byzantium (Constantinople) in 330 set the stage for the later split (schism) of the Byzantine Church from the Church of Rome in 1054.

The monasteries of the Church preserved learning after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The rise of Islam in the seventh century and the Muslim invasions of Spain and Gaul prompted the pope to form an alliance with Charlemagne and the Franks. The Crusades (1095–1291) failed to maintain Christian control over Jerusalem and stem the eventual spread of Muslim power into Asia Minor (Turkey).

During the Middle Ages (c. 800–1400), the Church inspired cultural achievements in art (e.g., Gothic architecture), poetry (e.g., Dante), philosophy (e.g., Thomas Aquinas), and learning (e.g., the universities of Oxford, Paris, Salamanca, and Bologna). During the Renaissance (c.1400–1550), the Church continued its patronage of the arts, but many areas of Europe (e.g., England, Holland, northern Germany, and Scandinavia) broke with papal authority in the sixteenth century following the Protestant Reformation. In the 1500s and 1600s, missionaries and colonial rulers spread Roman Catholicism into the Americas and Asia.

Although the Roman Catholic Church contributed much to the cultural achievements of the medieval and Renaissance eras, religious minorities, such as the Jews, often suffered persecutions in countries under Roman Catholic control. Theological ideas were enforced by various inquisitions (Church tribunals) that conducted trials for those accused of heresies (false teachings). Technically, the inquisition only had jurisdiction over the baptized, but after the Jews and Muslims were expelled from Iberia in 1492, the Spanish Inquisition would often target Los Conversos, the Jews and Muslims who had accepted baptism rather than leave the country of their birth.

In the 1700s and 1800s, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church over European culture began to fade. The French Revolution (1789–1799) placed the Church in France under virtual state control. In 1870, the Papal States of central Italy were seized from the Church, leaving control only over Vatican City State (according to the Lateran Agreement of 1929).

Deprived of secular power, the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century tried to exert moral authority. Pope Pius XI (1857–1939), who was pope from 1922 to his death, issued encyclical letters protesting Italian Fascism (1931), German Nazism (1937), and atheistic Communism (1937). His successor, Pius XII (pope from 1939–1958), led the Church through the difficult years of World War II (1939–1945). His policies during this time—especially with regard to helping the Jews— have been praised by some and criticized by others.

The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) urged dialogue with other Christians and non-Christians (most notably Jews and Muslims). In his 1994 apostolic letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, John Paul II (pope from 1978–2005) called Catholics to a “spirit of repentance” for practices of past centuries that involved “intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth.” Pope Benedict XVI, who succeeded John Paul in 2005, has continued this spirit into the early-twenty-first century, while at the same time condemning secularization and moral relativism.

SEE ALSO Christianity; Church, The; Enlightenment; French Revolution; Greek Orthodox Church; Islam, Shia and Sunni; Jesus Christ; Missionaries; Protestantism; Religion; Rituals; Secular, Secularism, Secularization; Vatican, The