Catholicism

It is helpful to begin this discussion with some thoughts on the meaning of the term Catholicism. The word catholic comes from two Greek words, kath holou, which mean ‘of the whole’ (Cunningham, 2009, p. 3) or ‘general, total, complete and perfect’ (Dulles, 1985, p. 14). In the first century, the term ‘catholic’ referred to the community of the whole church rather than the individual house churches of the small communities which made up the Christian population. By the end of the second century it had taken on a further sense, that is to say, ‘catholic’ now referred to the whole church, but also by this time it had taken on the meaning of the church of the faith handed down by the apostles. It was a short step from this designation to the sense of the Church being the ‘true’ Church as opposed to those of heretical or schismatic groups (Cunningham, 2009, p. 5). By the time of the first ecumenical council in Nicaea in 325, the catholic faith had come to mean the ‘common faith as it was professed in its worship, creeds, and other articulations of the ancient tradition’ (Cunningham, 2009, p. 7). Nowadays, the Catholic Church is defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as consisting of three distinct elements: the full confession of faith in the tradition passed on from the first apostles; the sacramental life of the Church as expressed in worship and liturgy; and apostolic succession through the ministry of the bishops and the Catholicism: Incarnation and Remembrance of the Body 107 pope as successor of St Peter (see Catechism, 1994). Taken together, these tenets are the basis of what it is to be Catholic, to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church.