18th and 19th centuries
The official and popular uses of the term Roman Catholic in the English language grew in the 18th century. Up to the reign of George III, Catholics in Britain who recognized the Pope as head of the Church had generally been designated in official documents as "Papists". In 1792, however, this phraseology was changed and in the Speech from the Throne, the term "Roman Catholic" was used.[9]
By early 19th century, the term Roman Catholic had become well established in the English-speaking world. As the movement that led to Catholic Emancipation through the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 grew, many — though not all — Anglicans and Protestants generally began to accept that being a Roman Catholic was not synonymous with being disloyal to the British Crown. While believing that in the past the term Roman Catholic may have been synonymous with rebel, they held that it was by then as indicative of loyalty as membership of any other Christian denomination.[10] The situation had been very different two centuries before, when Pope Paul V forbade English members of his Church from taking an oath of allegiance to King James I, a prohibition that not all of them observed.[11]
Also in the 19th century, prominent Anglican theologians such as Palmer and Keble supported the Branch Theory, which viewed the universal Church as having three principal branches: Anglican, Roman and Eastern.[12] The 1824 issue of The Christian Observer defined the term Roman Catholic as a member of the Roman Branch of the Church.[13] By 1828, speeches in the English parliament routinely used the term Roman Catholic and referred to the "Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church".[14]
In the United States, the use of the term Roman Catholic and indeed the number of Roman Catholics began to grow only in the early 19th century, given that in 1790 there were only 100 Roman Catholics in New York and some 30,000 in the whole of the United States, with only 29 priests.[15] As the number of Roman Catholics in the United States grew rapidly from 150,000 to 1.7 million between 1815 and 1850 — mostly by way of immigration from Ireland and the German Confederation — many clergy followed to serve this population, and Roman Catholic parishes were established.[16] The terms "Roman Catholic" and "Holy Roman Catholic" thus gained widespread use in the United States in the 19th century, both in popular usage and within official documents.[17][18][19] In 1866 President Andrew Johnson attended a meeting of the Council of the Roman Catholic Church.[20]
Current usage
The term Roman Catholic is generally used on its own to refer to individuals, and in compound forms to refer to worship, parishes, festivals, etc. Its usage has varied, depending on circumstances.[26] It is sometimes also identified with one or other of the terms "Catholic", "Western Catholic" (equivalent to "Latin Catholic"), and "Roman-Rite Catholic".
"Roman Catholic" and "Catholic"
In popular usage, "Catholic" usually means "Roman Catholic",[27] a usage decried by some, including some Protestants.[28] "Catholic" usually refers to members of any of the 23 constituent Churches, the one Western and the 22 Eastern. The same meaning is attributed also to "Roman Catholic" in documents of the Holy See, talks by Popes and in newspapers.[29]
Although K.D. Whitehead has claimed that "the term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself" and that "the proper name of the Church, then, is 'the Catholic Church', never 'the Christian Church'",[30] official documents such as Divini Illius Magistri, Humani generis, a declaration of 23 November 2006 and another of 30 November 2006, while not calling the Church "the Christian Church", do use "Roman Catholic" to speak of it as a whole without distinguishing one part from the rest.
When used in a broader sense, the term "Catholic" is distinguished from "Roman Catholic", which has connotations of allegiance to the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope. When thus used, "Catholic" also refers to many other Christians, especially Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans, but also to others, including Old Catholics and various independent Catholic Churches, who consider themselves to be living within the "catholic" tradition.[31] They describe themselves as "Catholic", but not "Roman Catholic" and not under the authority of the Pope.
"Roman Catholic" and "Western or Latin Catholic"[edit] The Holy See uses the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to the entirety of the Church that is in full communion with it, encompassing both its Eastern and Western elements. For examples of statements by Popes that employ the term "Roman Catholic" in this way, see Papal references below. This is the only meaning given to the term "Roman Catholic" at that official level. However, some do use the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to Western (i.e. Latin) Catholics, excluding Eastern Catholics. An example is the statement in the book When other Christians become Catholic:
"...not all Catholics are Roman Catholics and there are other Catholic Churches",
using the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to Western Church members alone.[33] The same distinction is made by some writers belonging to Eastern Catholic Churches.[34][35][36] That this view is not the only one, not alone at the level of the Holy See and in reference books such as John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, but also at a popular level, is shown by the use of terms such as "Byzantine Roman Catholic" and "Maronite Roman Catholic" as self-identification by individuals or as the name of a church building.[37] Additionally, in other languages, the usage varies significantly.[38][39][40]
The terms "Catholic Church" and "Roman Catholic Church" are names for the entire church that describes itself as "governed by the successor of Saint Peter and by the bishops in communion with him". In its formal documents and pronouncements the church most often refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" or simply "the Church" (written in documents with a capital "C"). In its relations with other churches, it frequently uses the name "Roman Catholic Church", which it uses internally also, though less frequently. Some writers such as Kenneth Whitehead and Patrick Madrid argue that the only proper name for the church is "the Catholic Church".[53][54][55]
The name "Roman Catholic Church" is occasionally used by popes, bishops, other clergy and laity, who do not see it as opprobrious or having the suggested overtone.[56] The use of "Roman", "Holy" and "Apostolic" are accepted by the Church as descriptive names.[57][verification needed] At the time of the 16th-century Reformation, the Church itself "claimed the word catholic as its title over Protestant or Reformed churches".[58] It believes that it is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.[59]
Throughout the years, in various instances, official church documents have used both the terms "Catholic Church" and "Roman Catholic Church" to refer to the worldwide church as a whole, including Eastern Catholics, as when Pope Pius XII taught in Humani Generis that "the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing".[60] However, some Eastern Christians, though in communion with the Bishop of Rome, apply the adjective "Roman" to the Latin or Western Church alone. Representatives of the Catholic Church are at times required to use the term "Roman Catholic Church" in certain dialogues, especially in the ecumenical milieu, since some other Christians consider their own churches to also be authentically Catholic.[61]
In the 21st century, the three terms Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Catholic Church continue to appear in various books and publications, and scholarly debates on the proper form of reference to the Catholic Church within specific contexts continue. For instance, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not contain the term "Roman Catholic Church", referring to the Church only by names such as "Catholic Church" (as in its title),[62] while the Advanced Catechism Of Catholic Faith And Practice states that the term Roman is used within the name of the Church to emphasize that the center of unity of the Church is the Roman See.[63]
Papal references
Popes have on several occasions in different contexts during the 20th and 21st centuries used the term "Roman Catholic Church" to refer to the whole church in communion with the Holy See. Example encyclicals include Divini Illius Magistri of Pope Pius XI in 1929 and, Humani generis of Pope Pius XII in 1950.[76]
Pope Paul VI used the term "Roman Catholic Church" in the joint declarations he signed with Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in 1965 and 1967.[77] He also used that term in the declarations he signed with Patriarch Mar Ignatius Yacoub III of the Syrian Orthodox Church on 27 October 1971 and with Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan on 29 April 1977.
Pope John Paul II referred to himself as "the Head of the Roman Catholic Church" (29 September 1979). He called the Church "Roman Catholic" when speaking to the Jewish community in Mainz on 17 November 1980, in a message to those celebrating the 450th anniversary of the Confessio Augustana on 25 June 1980, when speaking to the people of Mechelen, Belgium on 18 May 1985, when talking to representatives of Christian confessions in Copenhagen, Denmark on 7 June 1989, when addressing a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on 29 June 1989, at a meeting of the Ukrainian Synod in Rome on 24 March 1980, at a prayer meeting in the Orthodox cathedral of Bialystok, Poland on 5 June 1991, when speaking to the Polish Ecumenical Council in Holy Trinity Church, Warsaw 9 June 1991, at an ecumenical meeting in the Aula Magna of the Colégio Catarinense, in Florianópolis, Brazil on 18 October 1991, and at the Angelus in São Salvador da Bahia, Brazil on 20 October 1991.
Pope Benedict XVI called the Church "the Roman Catholic Church" at a meeting in Warsaw on 25 May 2006 and in joint declarations that he signed with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on 23 November 2006 and with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on 30 November 2006.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
While the phrase "Roman Catholic Church" does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Advanced Catechism of Catholic Faith and Practice states that the term "Roman" is used within the name of the Church to emphasize that the centre of unity of the Church is the Roman See.[63] The Baltimore Catechism, an official catechism authorized by the Catholic bishops of the United States, states: "That is why we are called Roman Catholics; to show that we are united to the real successor of St. Peter" (Question 118), and refers to the Church as the "Roman Catholic Church" under Questions 114 and 131.[78] The Catechism of Pope Pius X calls the Church Roman.[79] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_(term)
See all those little "[#]" signs? Those are the references used in the Wiki article just in case you try to claim it also is a Protestant site. There are plenty of Roman Catholic church documents included. Satisfied?
As the OED proves, “Roman Catholic” is a term invented by English Protestants in the 16th/17th century.