In United Methodist worship, I encountered things I was not accustomed to, including preacher's wearing robes, and the sudden, unison standing of the entire congregation in singing "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," or "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," or the saying of the Lord's Prayer. No one seemed to reading from anything--they just knew it.
Even more surprising was the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. I recall feeling lost as all those around me declared from memory, "I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord." But what shocked me the most was toward the end of the creed, when everyone said, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church...."
Catholic church? Isn't this a Methodist church? Thirty-something years later I still remember asking the question, first interiorly, and then later out loud. I can't recall whom I asked about it later that day, whether my mother or my sister, but I remember being told, "We don't mean 'The Catholic Church;' the word 'catholic' just means universal; we believe in the universal church."
Not long after that, I checked the creed in the back of the Methodist hymnal, and sure enough, next to the word "Catholic" was an asterisk, pointing to a footnote that said "*universal."
My father wasn't buying it. Even though he joined this Methodist Church, I'm not sure he ever spoke the creed's phrase "holy catholic church" audibly. Raised by Baptist parents who were raised in the anti-Catholic soil of Appalachia, he just couldn't do it. He would even occasionally insert the word "Methodist" in place of "catholic" in the creed, his own stubborn protest to what rankled his religious sensibilities.
Now, as a Roman Catholic, I'm much more sympathetic to his point of view. In fact, I think my dad was on to something; you can't change the meaning of Catholic simply by dropping the capital.
This is not immediately obvious to some Protestant Christians, and especially evangelicals. Living their faith in world saturated with many denominations, they've learned to separate their faith in Christ from their "denominational label." They consider those labels to be secondary to their Christian identity, believing by and large that denominational differences touch upon non-essential beliefs upon which Christians are free to disagree.
Included in their grouping of "denominational labels" is the label "Roman Catholic." Thus, to these Protestants, to be Roman Catholic is to be simply another flavor of Christianity, along with Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Lutherans, Disciples of Christ, etc.
When my family and I became Catholic in 2005, a good friend (and member of the Methodist Church I had pastored) said, "The way I see it, some people like mayonnaise on their burger, some like mustard, and some like ketchup. But it's all hamburger." In other words, becoming Catholic is really not much different than a fitness enthusiast switching health clubs.
In this view, to be "catholic" is to see a basic form of Christianity (mere Christianity, as C. S. Lewis would call it) that transcends denominational labels and differences in non-essentials and spiritually unites all true believers in Jesus around the essentials of the Christian faith.
The only problem with this view is that no one is ever really clear on the specifics of these Christian essentials. The best approximation offered is that it centers around the Apostles' Creed. But even that requires some interpretation. After all, the Apostles' Creed does not explicitly express the belief in God as Trinity, three persons in one God, as Jesus is not affirmed as being co-eternal or consubstantial with the Father. And yet, I daresay not many evangelicals would see belief in a Trinitarian God as "non-essential" to being Christian.
According to historians, the oldest surviving recorded instance of the word "catholic" being applied to Church came from St. Ignatius of Antioch (a disciple of the apostle John) in 107 A.D., in his farewell letter before his martyrdom, in which he writes,"Where the bishop is present, there is the catholic Church."
Now what did St. Ignatius mean by "catholic?" He did not intend it to be part of the "official name" of a denominational body, but clearly meant it to distinguish the Church founded by Christ, extending throughout the world and with the fullness of apostolic authority and of the means of salvation, from the already-present rival and splinter sects that claimed to the Church. To St. Ignatius, Christ founded only one Church, thus "catholic" was not a denominational label but was instead an adjective to describe the one Church Christ founded.
The question is, which Church can rightly claim historical continuity with that Church of which St. Ignatius wrote? Surely the rival and splinter sects in St. Ignatius' day would have claimed the name of Christian, and likely shared many common beliefs and confessions, such as "Jesus Christ is Lord." And yet, to Ignatius, the Church was authentically present not in a vague, invisible union of people with a largely like--minded belief and love for Jesus, but rather in the authoritative person of the bishop, successor to the apostles.
And so, to this day, the term "catholic" points to that Church which is confessionally, hierachically, and sacramentally united to the successors to the apostles, those who can trace their teaching authority throughout the ages via the laying on of hands. Catholic, thus, is more adjective than title, a little "c" with big "C" implications, for it is an adjective that is necessary, as in St. Ignatius' day, to distinguish that Church that extends visibly throughout the world with the fullness of apostolic authority and of the means of salvation, from rival and splinter-sects that share many like-minded beliefs but nonetheless have separated themselves in some degree from the Church Christ founded.
well said, Mike!
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