[trisham]

St. Patrick was Catholic. He was not “Roman Catholic” and neither am I. “Roman Catholic” is a pejorative invented by Protestants in the 16th century. Look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary.

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Unfortunately, I don't have the Oxford English Dictionary. I did my best to Google this, but couldn't find any real support for the above, although I do not doubt that it may well be so.

What I did find was that "Roman" and "Orthodox" were used when the east-west split occurred, and it is clear that "Roman Catholic" is intended by some even today to be an insult to Catholics. Do you have any more information on this?

Excellent post, btw.

[vladimir998]

The OED is partially quoted here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13121a.htm

And this expresses many sentiments that I have: http://jloughnan.tripod.com/rom_cath.htm