Many individual Christians and Christian denominations consider themselves "catholic" on the basis, in particular, of
apostolic succession. They may be described as falling into five groups: • The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, which sees
full communion with the
Bishop of Rome as an essential element of Catholicism. Its constituent
particular churches,
Latin Church and the
Eastern Catholic Churches, have distinct and separate jurisdictions, while still being "in union with Rome". • Those, like adherents of
Eastern Orthodox Church,
Oriental Orthodox Church and the
Church of the East, that claim unbroken apostolic succession from the early church and identify themselves as
the Catholic Church. • Those, such as the
Old Catholic,
Anglican and some
Lutheran and other denominations, that claim unbroken apostolic succession from the early church and see themselves as a constituent part of the church. • Those who claim to be spiritual descendants of the
Apostles but have no discernible institutional descent from the historic church and normally do not refer to themselves as catholic. • Those who have acknowledged a break in apostolic succession, but have restored it in order to be in
full communion with bodies that have maintained the practice. Examples in this category include the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. For some confessions listed under category 3, the self-affirmation refers to the belief in the ultimate unity of the universal church under one God and one
Savior, rather than in one visibly unified institution (as with category 1, above). In this usage, "catholic" is sometimes written with a lower-case "c". The Western
Apostles' Creed and the
Nicene Creed, stating "I believe in ... one holy catholic ... church", are recited in worship services. Among some denominations in category 3, "Christian" is substituted for "catholic" in order to denote the doctrine that the Christian Church is, at least ideally, undivided. Protestant churches each have their own distinctive theological and ecclesiological notions of catholicity.
Catholic Church In its
Letter on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion, the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stressed the belief that the idea of the universal church as a communion of churches must not be presented as meaning that "every
particular Church is a subject complete in itself, and that the universal church is the result of a
reciprocal recognition on the part of the particular Churches". It insisted that "the universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches". The Catholic Church considers only those in full communion with the Holy See in Rome as Catholics. While recognising the valid episcopates and Eucharist of the
Eastern Orthodox Church in most cases, it does not consider Protestant denominations such as Reformed ones to be genuine churches and so uses the term "ecclesial communities" to refer to them. Because the Catholic Church does not consider these denominations to have valid episcopal orders capable of celebrating a valid Eucharist, it does not classify them as churches "in the proper sense". The Catholic Church's doctrine of infallibility derives from the belief that the authority Jesus gave Peter as head of the church on earth has been passed on to his successors, the popes. Relevant Bible verses include; "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (
Slovakia) The
Latin and
Eastern Catholic Churches together form the "Catholic Church", often called the "Roman Catholic Church", the world's largest single religious body and the largest Christian denomination, as well as its largest Catholic church, comprising over half of all Christians (1.27 billion Christians of 2.1 billion) and nearly one-sixth of the world's population.
Richard McBrien would put the proportion even higher, extending it to those who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome only in "degrees". It comprises 24 component "
particular Churches" (also called "rites" in the
Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches and in the Code of Canon Law), all of which acknowledge a primacy of jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome and are in
full communion with the
Holy See and each other. These particular churches or component parts are the
Latin Church (which uses a number of different
liturgical rites, of which the
Roman Rite is by far prevalent) and the 23
Eastern Catholic Churches. Of the latter particular churches, 14 use the
Byzantine Rite for their liturgy. Within the universal Church, each "particular church", whether Eastern or Western, is of equal dignity. Finally, in its official documents, the Catholic Church, though made up of several particular churches, "continues to refer to itself as the 'Catholic Church or, less frequently but consistently, as the 'Roman Catholic Church', owing to its essential McBrien says that, on an official level, what he calls the "Communion of Catholic Churches" always refers to itself as "The Catholic Church". However, counter examples such as seen above of the term "Roman Catholic Church" being used by popes and departments of the Holy See exist. The Latin Archdiocese of Detroit, for example, lists eight Eastern Catholic churches, each with its own bishop, as having one or more parishes in what is also the territory of the Latin archdiocese, yet each is designated as being in "full communion with the Roman Church".
Eastern Orthodox Church The
Eastern Orthodox Church maintains the position that it is their communion which actually constitutes the
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Eastern Orthodox Christians consider themselves the heirs of the first-millennium
patriarchal structure that developed in the
Eastern Church into the model of the
pentarchy, recognized by
Ecumenical Councils, a theory that "continues to hold sway in official Greek circles to the present day". Since the theological disputes that occurred from the 9th to 11th centuries, culminating in the final split of 1054, the Eastern Orthodox churches have regarded Rome as a schismatic see that has violated the essential catholicity of the Christian faith by introducing innovations of doctrine (see
Filioque). On the other hand, the model of the
pentarchy was never fully applied in the
Western Church, which preferred the theory of the
Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, favoring
Ultramontanism over
Conciliarism. The title "
Patriarch of the West" was rarely used by the popes until the 16th and 17th centuries, and was included in the
Annuario Pontificio from 1863 to 2005, being dropped in the following year as never very clear, and having become over history "obsolete and practically unusable". along with its off-shot in turn the
Ancient Church of the East whose full official name is:
The Holy Apostolic Catholic Ancient Church of the East. These churches are using the term catholic in their names in the sense of traditional catholicity. They are not in communion with the Catholic Church.
Lutheranism is ordained as archbishop of the Church of Sweden, 1914. Although the Swedish Lutherans can boast of an unbroken line of ordinations going back prior to the Reformation, the
bishops of Rome today do not recognize such ordinations as a valid due to the fact they occurred without authorization from the Roman See. The
Augsburg Confession found within the
Book of Concord, a compendium of belief of the
Lutheran Churches, teaches that "the faith as confessed by Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches represent the true catholic or universal church". When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession to
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1530, they believe to have "showed that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils". The 20th century movement of
High Church Lutheranism championed
Evangelical Catholicity, restoring, in some cases,
apostolic succession, to Lutheran Churches in Germany where it was lacking.
Anglicanism Introductory works on
Anglicanism, such as
The Study of Anglicanism, typically refer to the character of the Anglican tradition as "Catholic and Reformed", which is in keeping with the understanding of Anglicanism articulated in the
Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 and in the works of the earliest standard Anglican divines such as
Richard Hooker and
Lancelot Andrewes. Yet different strains in Anglicanism, dating back to the
English Reformation, have emphasized either the Reformed, Catholic, or "Reformed Catholic" nature of the tradition. Anglican theology and ecclesiology has thus come to be typically expressed in three distinct, yet sometimes overlapping manifestations:
Anglo-Catholicism (often called "
high church"),
Evangelical Anglicanism (often called "
low church"), and
Latitudinarianism ("
broad church"), whose beliefs and practices fall somewhere between the two. Though all elements within the
Anglican Communion recite the same creeds, Evangelical Anglicans generally regard the word
catholic in the ideal sense given above. In contrast, Anglo-Catholics regard the communion as a component of the whole Catholic Church, in spiritual and historical union with the Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and several Eastern churches. Broad Church Anglicans tend to maintain a mediating view, or consider the matter one of
adiaphora. These Anglicans, for example, have agreed in the
Porvoo Agreement to interchangeable ministries and full eucharistic communion with Lutherans. The Catholic nature or strain of the Anglican tradition is expressed doctrinally, ecumenically (chiefly through organizations such as the
Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission), ecclesiologically (through its
episcopal governance and maintenance of the
historical episcopate), and in liturgy and piety. The
39 Articles hold that "there are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord", and that "those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel"; some Anglo-Catholics interpret this to mean that there are a total of
Seven Sacraments. Many Anglo-Catholics practice
Marian devotion, recite the
rosary and the
angelus, practice
eucharistic adoration, and seek the
intercession of saints. In terms of liturgy, most Anglicans use candles on the altar or communion table and many churches use incense and bells at the Eucharist, which is amongst the most pronounced Anglo-Catholics referred to by the Latin-derived word "Mass" used in the first prayer book and in the American Prayer Book of 1979. In numerous churches the Eucharist is celebrated facing the altar (often with a
tabernacle) by a priest assisted by a
deacon and
subdeacon. Anglicans believe in the
Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though Anglo-Catholics interpret this to mean a corporeal presence, rather than a pneumatic presence. Different Eucharistic rites or orders contain different, if not necessarily contradictory, understandings of salvation. For this reason, no single strain or manifestation of Anglicanism can speak for the whole, even in ecumenical statements (as issued, for example, by the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission). The growth of Anglo-Catholicism is strongly associated with the
Oxford Movement of the 19th century. Two of its leading lights,
John Henry Newman and
Henry Edward Manning, both priests, ended up joining the Roman Catholic Church, becoming
cardinals. Others, like
John Keble,
Edward Bouverie Pusey, and
Charles Gore became influential figures in Anglicanism. The previous
Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, is a patron of
Affirming Catholicism, a more liberal movement within Catholic Anglicanism. Conservative Catholic groups also exist within the tradition, such as
Forward in Faith. There are about 80 million Anglicans in the Anglican Communion, comprising 3.6% of global Christianity.
Methodism wearing a
cassock, vested with a
surplice and
stole, with
preaching bands attached to his
clerical collar The 1932 Deed of Union of the
Methodist Church of Great Britain teaches that: The theologian
Stanley Hauerwas wrote that Methodism "stands centrally in the Catholic tradition" and that "Methodists indeed are even more Catholic than the Anglicans who gave us birth, since Wesley, of blessed memory, held to the Eastern fathers in a more determinative way than did any of the Western churches—Protestant or Catholic."
Reformed Within
Reformed Christianity the word "catholic" is generally taken in the sense of "universal" and in this sense many leading Protestant denominations identify themselves as part of the catholic church. The puritan
Westminster Confession of Faith adopted in 1646 (which remains the Confession of the
Church of Scotland) states for example that: The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all. The
London Confession of the Reformed Baptists repeats this with the emendation "which (with respect to the internal work of the Spirit and truth of grace) may be called invisible". The Church of Scotland's
Articles Declaratory begin "The Church of Scotland is part of the Holy Catholic or Universal Church". In Reformed Churches there is a
Scoto-Catholic grouping within the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Such groups point to their churches' continuing adherence to the "Catholic" doctrine of the early Church Councils. The
Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland of 1921 defines that church legally as "part of the Holy Catholic or Universal Church".
Other views by individual scholars Richard McBrien considers that the term "Catholicism" refers exclusively and specifically to that "Communion of Catholic Churches" in communion with the Bishop of Rome. According to McBrien, Catholicism is distinguished from other forms of Christianity in its particular understanding and commitment to
tradition, the
sacraments, the mediation between God,
communion, and the
See of Rome. According to Bishop
Kallistos Ware, the
Orthodox Church has these things as well, though the
primacy of the See of Rome is only
honorific, showing non-jurisdictional respect for the
Bishop of Rome as the "
first among equals" and "
Patriarch of the West". Catholicism, according to McBrien's paradigm, includes a
monastic life,
religious institutes, a religious appreciation of the arts, a communal understanding of
sin and
redemption, and
missionary activity.
Henry Mills Alden, in ''
Harper's New Monthly Magazine'', writes that: As such, according to this viewpoint, "for those who 'belong to the Church', the term Methodist Catholic, or Presbyterian Catholic, or Baptist Catholic, is as proper as the term Roman Catholic." "It simply means that body of Christian believers over the world who agree in their religious views, and accept the same ecclesiastical forms." == See also ==