Roman Catholic Church

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Roman Catholic Church

General Information

The Roman Catholic church, the largest of the Christian churches, although present in all parts of the world, is identified as Roman because of its historical roots in Rome and because of the importance it attaches to the worldwide ministry of the bishop of Rome, the pope. Several Eastern Rite Churches, whose roots are in regional churches of the Eastern Mediterranean, are in full communion with the Roman Catholic church.

In 1980 there were some 783 million Roman Catholics, approximately 18% of the world's population. The 51 million Roman Catholics in the United States (1982) constitute 22% of that country's population. These statistics are based on baptisms, usually conferred on infants, and do not necessarily imply active participation in the church's life nor full assent to its beliefs.

A growing estrangement between the Catholic church in the West and the Orthodox church of the East in the first millennium led to a break between them in the 11th century, and the two regions diverged in matters of theology, liturgy, and disciplinary practices. Within Western Christianity beginning with the 16th - century Reformation, the Roman Catholic church came to be identified by its differences with the Protestant churches.

Roman Catholic Beliefs

The basic religious beliefs of Roman Catholics are those shared by other Christians as derived from the New Testament and formulated in the ancient Creeds of the early ecumenical councils, such as Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). The central belief is that God entered the world through the Incarnation of his Son, the Christ or Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. The founding of the church is traced to the life and teachings of Jesus, whose death is followed by resurrection from the dead after which he sends the Holy Spirit to assist believers. This triple mission within the Godhead is described doctrinally as the divine Trinity, God one in nature but consisting in three divine persons.

Roman Catholics attach special significance to the rites of Baptism and Eucharist. Baptism is sacramental entry into Christian life, and the Eucharist is a memorial of Christ's death and resurrection in which he is believed to be sacramentally present. The Eucharist is celebrated daily in the Roman Catholic church. Catholics also regard as Sacraments the forgiveness of sins in reconciliation with the church (Confession), ordination to ministry (Holy Orders), marriage of Christians, postbaptismal anointing (Confirmation), and the Anointing of the Sick.

Catholic ethical doctrines are based ultimately on the New Testament teachings but also on the conclusions reached by the church, especially by the popes and other teachers. In recent times the pope and bishops have formulated guidelines regarding social justice, racial equality, disarmament, human rights, contraception, and abortion. The official opposition to artificial contraception is not accepted by a large number of practicing Catholics. The Roman Catholic church's prohibition of remarriage after divorce is the strictest of the Christian churches, although the church does admit the possibility of annulments for marriages judged to be invalid.

The Worship of the Church

The public worship of the Roman Catholic church is its liturgy, principally the Eucharist, which is also called the Mass. After the recitation of prayers and readings from the Bible, the presiding priest invites the faithful to receive communion, understood as sharing in the sacramental presence of Christ. At the Sunday liturgy the priest preaches a sermon or homily, applying the day's biblical texts to the present lives of believers. The church observes a liturgical calendar similar to that of other Christians, following a cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. It also follows a distinctive cycle of commemoration of the saints. The worship of the church is expressed as well in rites of baptism, confirmation, weddings, ordinations, penitential rites, burial rites or funerals, and the singing of the Divine Office. A distinguishing mark of Catholic worship is prayer for the dead.

The Roman Catholic church also fosters devotional practices, both public and private, including Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (a ceremony of homage to Christ in the Eucharist), the Rosary, novenas (nine days of prayer for some special intention), pilgrimages to shrines, and veneration of saints' relics or statues. The devotional importance attached to the Saints (especially the Virgin Mary) distinguishes Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy from the churches of the Reformation. In the last two centuries the Roman Catholic church has taught as official doctrine that Mary from her conception was kept free of original sin (the Immaculate Conception) and that at the completion of her life was taken up body and soul into heaven (the Assumption). Catholics are also encouraged to practice private prayer through meditation, contemplation, or spiritual reading. Such prayer is sometimes done in a retreat house with the assistance of a director.

The Organization of the Church

The Roman Catholic church is structured locally into neighborhood parishes and regional dioceses administered by bishops. In recent times national episcopal conferences of bishops have assumed some importance. Catholic church policy is characterized, however, by a centralized government under the pope, who is regarded as the successor to the apostle Peter, entrusted with a ministry of unity and encouragement. The First Vatican Council (1869 - 70) further enhanced the role of the papacy by declaring that the church's Infallibility (or inability to err on central issues of the Christian faith) can be exercised personally by the pope in extraordinary circumstances. This teaching of the pope's primacy and infallibility is a major stumbling block to the unification of the Christian churches.

The pope is elected for life by the College of Cardinals (about 130). He is assisted in the governance of the church by the bishops, especially through the World Synod of Bishops that meets every three years. More immediately in the Vatican City, the papal city - state within Rome, the pope is aided by the cardinals and a bureaucracy known as the Roman Curia. The Vatican is represented in many countries by a papal nuncio or apostolic delegate and at the United Nations by a permanent observer.

By tradition the all - male ordained clergy (bishops, priests, and deacons) are distinguished from the laity, who assist in the ministry of the church. In the Western (Latin) rite of the Catholic church, bishops and priests are ordinarily celibate. In many of the Eastern Rite churches, priests are allowed to marry. Some Catholics live together in Religious Orders, serving the church and the world under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Members of these orders of congregations include sisters (or Nuns), brothers, and priests. Priests who belong to religious orders are sometimes called regular clergy, because they live according to a rule (Latin regula). Most priests, however, are ordained for ministry in a diocese under a bishop and are called diocesan or secular priests.

Church discipline is regulated by a code of Canon Law. A revised code for the Latin rite went into effect in 1983. A code for the Eastern Rite churches is in preparation.

The Church in A Time of Change

To initiate renewal in the Roman Catholic church, the late Pope John XXIII convoked a general council, the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 65). This meeting of bishops and their advisors from around the world was also attended by Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant observers. The council initiated changes that are still being carried out in the postconciliar era. The chief reforms in church practices were: changes in liturgical language (from Latin to the vernacular) and reformulation of sacramental rituals; a new ecumenical openness toward other Christian churches; increased stress on the collective responsibility of bishops in the church's mission (collegiality); more acute concern for political and social issues, especially where moral questions are involved; attempts to adapt the Gospel to diverse cultural traditions; reform of priestly education; and partial acceptance of diversity in theology and local practices.

These changes led to uneasiness and concern in some who felt that innovation had gone too far. For others the changes were seen as insufficient and painfully slow. Church leaders now recognize that implementation of the conciliar program will involve a long process of ongoing renewal.

Michael A Fahey

Bibliography
W Buhlmann, The Coming of the Third Church (1977); A Dulles, Models of the Church (1974); G Gallup and J Castelli, The American Catholic People: Their Beliefs, Practices, and Values (1987); E O Hanson, The Catholic Church in World Politics (1987); R Haughton, The Catholic Thing (1979); P Hebblethwaite, The Runaway Church (1978); H Kung, On Being a Christian (1976); R McBrien, Catholicism (1980); G Noel, The Anatomy of the Catholic Church (1980); K Rahner, The Shape of the Church to Come (1974)

Roman Catholicism

Advanced Information

The term has been in general use since the Reformation to identify the faith and practice of Christians in communion with the pope.

Although it has a reputation for conservatism and reaction, Roman Catholicism is a genuinely evolving religious system, valuing the deepening and development of its understanding of the Christian faith. The Ignatian principles of accommodation and J H Newman's theory of development have been two expressions of this process. This development sometimes goes beyond biblical data, but Catholic scholars contend that the church's doctrines, e.g., on the sacraments, the blessed Virgin Mary, and the papacy, are suggested by a "trajectory of images" in the NT; postbiblical developments are said to be consistent with the "thrust" of the NT.

At other times this evolution has involved the rediscovery of truths that the church once possessed but which it subsequently lost in the course of its long history. The church has even at times recognized as error what it had earlier decreed authoritatively. Vatican Council II's Declaration on Religious Freedom is seen by reputable Catholic scholars to be in conflict with the condemnations of religious freedom in Gregory XVI's encyclical Mirari vos of 1832. The conflict was recognized by members of the council, but they supported the declaration on the principle of doctrinal development. Protestants hostile to Catholicism should be wary of attacking allegedly unalterable Catholic positions: the Catholic Church has reversed its position on basic issues.

If, then, Roman Catholicism cannot be fixed within a single monolithic theological system, it is nevertheless helpful to distinguish between two tradition within Catholicism.

The mainstream tradition has stressed the transcendence of God and the church as a divinely commissioned institution (the "vertical church"). This authoritarian, centralizing tradition has been variously labeled, mainly by its critics as "medievalism," "Romanism," "Vaticanism," "papalism," "Ultramontanism," "Jesuitism," "Integralism," and "neoscholasticism."

A minority reformist tradition has stressed the immanence of God and the church as community (the "horizontal church"). Reform Catholicism has nourished such movements as Gallicanism, Jansenism, liberal Catholicism, and modernism.

The two traditions coalesced at Vatican II, facilitated by John XXIII's dictum, "The substance of the ancient doctrine is one thing... and the way in which it is presented is another." An understanding, then, of modern - day Roman Catholicism requires a description of the characteristics of conservative Catholicism which dominated the church especially from the Council of Trent (1545 - 63) until Vatican II, plus an outline of the changes in emphasis inaugurated at Vatican II.

The Church

The most distinctive characteristic of Roman Catholicism has always been its theology of the church (its ecclesiology). The church's role in mediating salvation has been emphasized more than in other Christian traditions. Supernatural life is mediated to Christians through the sacraments administered by the hierarchy to whom obedience is due. The church is monarchical as well as hierarchical since Christ conferred the primacy on Peter, whose successors are the popes. Pre - Vatican II theology taught that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of Christ, since it alone has a permanent hierarchy (which is apostolic) and primacy (which is Petrine) to ensure the permanence of the church as Christ instituted it. All other churches are false churches insofar as they lack one of the four properties possessed by the Roman Catholic Church: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

The most important document of Vatican II, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, transformed rather than revolutionized the church's ecclesiology. The traditional emphasis on the church as means of salvation was supplanted by an understanding of the church as a mystery or sacrament, "a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God" (Paul VI). The conception of the church as a hierarchical institution was replaced by a view of the church as the whole people of God. To the traditional understanding of the church's mission as involving (1) the proclamation of the gospel and (2) the celebration of the sacraments, the council added (3) witnessing to the gospel and (4) service to all in need. The Tridentine emphasis on the church universal was supplemented by an understanding of the fullness of the church in each local congregation.

In the Decree on Ecumenism the council recognized that both sides were at fault in the rupture of the church at the Reformation, and it sought the restoration of Christian unity rather than a return of non - Catholics to "the true Church." For the church is greater than the Roman Catholic Church: other churches are valid Christian communities since they share the same Scriptures, life of grace, faith, hope, charity, gifts of the Spirit, and baptism.

Further, the traditional identification of the kingdom of God with the church, into which everyone must therefore be brought or salvation will elude them, is replaced by an understanding of the church as the sign and instrument by which God calls and moves the world toward his kingdom.

The Pope

The dogmas of papal primacy and infallibility were promulgated as recently as Vatican I (1869 - 70), but they have a long history which Roman Catholics trace ultimately to the will of Christ (Matt. 16:18 - 19; Luke 22:32; John 21:15 - 17) and the roles exercised by the apostle Peter (fisherman, shepherd, elder, rock, etc.) in the NT church. In succeeding centuries the prestige of the church of Rome increased since it was located at the Imperial capital and because of its association with the apostles Peter and Paul. It was increasingly looked to as the arbiter of orthodoxy. Pope Leo I maintained that Peter continues to speak to the whole church through the bishop of Rome, the first known such claim. The rise of the pope's temporal power, which for over a millennium buttressed his claims to supremacy, is commonly traced to the middle of the eighth century, when a vacuum in civil leadership was created by the collapse of the Western Empire.

In 1234 Gregory IX combined and codified all previous papal decisions into the Five Books of Decretals. By now the church was understood primarily as a visible hierarchical organization with supreme power vested in the pope. Bishops were required to take an oath of obedience to the pope similar to the feudal oath binding a vassal to his lord. The supreme pontiff was no longer only consecrated; he was also crowned with the triple tiara used originally by the deified rulers of Persia. The coronation rite was continued until 1978, when John Paul I refused the crown, a symbolic action repeated by his successor, John Paul II. The height of papal pretensions was reached in 1302 with Boniface VIII's bull, Unam Sanctam, which decreed that the temporal power was subject to the spiritual, and that submission to the Roman pontiff "is absolutely necessary to salvation."

These papal claims were resisted not only by national rulers but by some scholars, notably William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua, and by conciliarism, a movement in the church to subject the pope to the judgment and legislation of general councils. Its greatest triumph was the Council of Constance (1414 - 15) with its law Haec Sancta, decreeing the supremacy of a general council and the collegiality of bishops. Conciliarism was condemned by succeeding popes until Vatican I declared that the pope's authoritative teachings are not subject to the consent of the entire church. The pope was declared to be infallible (immune from error) when he speaks ex cathedra (from the chair) on matters of faith and morals with the intention of binding the whole church.

Vatican II stressed the role of the pope as "perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of the bishops and of the multitude of the faithful," a role received sympathetically by some Protestant churches since the council (see, e.g., R E Brown et al., Peter in the New Testament, sponsored by the United States Lutheran - Roman Catholic Dialogue). Vatican II also revived the collegiality of bishops, thus modifying the monarchical governance of the church: "Together with its head, the Roman Pontiff, and never without its head, the episcopal order is the subject of supreme and full power over the universal church."

The Sacraments

The sacramental principle is another characteristic tenet of Roman Catholicism. The sacramental system worked out especially in the Middle Ages by the schoolmen and subsequently at the Council of Trent envisaged sacraments primarily as causes of grace that could be received independent of the merit of the recipient. Recent Catholic sacramental theology emphasizes their function as signs of faith. Sacraments are said to cause grace insofar as they are intelligible signs of it, and that the fruitfulness, as distinct from the validity, of the sacrament is dependent on the faith and devotion of the recipient. Sacramental rites are now administered in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, to increase the intelligibility of the signs.

Conservative Catholicism connected sacramental theology to Christology, stressing Christ's institution of the sacraments and the power of the sacraments to infuse the grace of Christ, earned on Calvary, to the recipient. The newer emphasis connects the sacraments to ecclesiology. We do not encounter Christ directly, but in the church, which is his body. The church mediates the presence and action of Christ.

The number of sacraments was finally fixed at seven during the medieval period (at the councils of Lyons 1274, Florence 1439, and Trent 1547). In addition Roman Catholicism has innumerable sacramentals, e.g., baptismal water, holy oil, blessed ashes, candles, palms, crucifixes, and statues. Sacramentals are said to cause grace not ex opere operanto like the sacraments, but ex opere operantis, through the faith and devotion of those using them.

Three of the sacraments,
baptism, confirmation, Eucharist,
are concerned with Christian initiation

Baptism

The sacrament is understood to remit original sin and all personal sin of which the recipient sincerely repents. All must be baptized or they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. But not all baptism is sacramental baptism by water. There is also "baptism of blood," which is received by dying for Christ (e.g., the "holy innocents," Matt. 2:16 - 18), and "baptism of desire," which is received by those who, implicitly or explicitly, desire baptism but are prevented from receiving it sacramentally. "Even those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ and his church may be counted as anonymous Christians if their striving to lead a good life is in fact a response to his grace, which is given in sufficient measure to all."

Confirmation

A theology of confirmation was not developed until the Middle Ages. Confirmation was said to be the gift of the Spirit for strengthening (ad robur) while baptismal grace is for forgiveness (ad remissionem). This distinction has no basis in the Scriptures or the fathers, but has been retained to the present following ratification by the Council of Trent. Today, however, the rite is sometimes administered at the same time as baptism and by the priest, not the bishop, to emphasize that both are really aspects of the one sacrament of initiation.

Eucharist

Distinctively Catholic doctrines on the Eucharist include the sacrificial nature of the Mass and transubstantiation. Both were defined at Trent and neither was modified at Vatican II. The unbloody sacrifice of the Mass is identified with the bloody sacrifice of the cross, in that both are offered for the sins of the living and the dead. Hence Christ is the same victim and priest in the Eucharist as he was on the cross. Transubstantiation, the belief that the substance of bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, was first spoken of at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The Eucharist is also known as Holy Communion.

Two sacraments,
penance and anointing the sick,
are concerned with healing

Penance

By the Middle Ages the sacrament of penance had four components which were confirmed by the Council of Trent: satisfaction (the doing of an act of penance), confession, contrition, and absolution by a priest. All grave sins had to be confessed to a priest who acted as judge. Since Vatican II the role of the priest in penance is understood as healer, and the purpose of the sacrament is reconciliation with the church rather than the restoration of friendship with God. Through contrition the sinner's union with God is restored, but he is still required to seek forgiveness in the sacrament of penance because his sin compromises the mission of the church to be a holy people.

Anointing the Sick

During the Middle Ages the rite of anointing the sick was reserved increasingly for the dying, hence the description of Peter Lombard: extreme unctio (last anointing). Vatican II relabeled the sacrament "anointing of the sick," stating explicitly that it "is not a sacrament reserved for those who are at the point of death." The last sacrament is now known as viaticum, received during Mass if possible. Earlier, this was called Extreme Unction.

There are two sacraments
of vocation and commitment:
marriage and orders

Marriage

The sacramentality of marriage was affirmed by the councils of Florence and Trent. Marriage is understood to be indissoluble, although dispensations, chiefly in the form of annulment (a declaration that a valid marriage never existed), are permitted. The grounds of nullity so carefully delimited in the 1918 Code of Canon Law have now been broadened to embrace many deficiencies of character.

Orders

Vatican II recognized that all the baptized participate in some way in the priesthood of Christ, but confirmed Catholic tradition on the clerical hierarchy by decreeing that there is a distinction between the priesthood conferred by baptism and that conferred by ordination.

The ordained priesthood has three orders: bishops, priests, and deacons. The first and third are offices of the NT church. The office of priest emerged when it was no longer practical to continue recognizing the Jewish priesthood (owing to the destruction of the temple and the great influx of Gentiles into the church) and with the development of a sacrificial understanding of the Lord's Supper.

Canon Law

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries a new branch of theological studies, canon law, emerged as an adjunct of papal supremacy. Legal decrees rather than the gospel became the basis for moral judgments. The church was understood primarily as an institution in its juridical aspect. The legal aspects of the sacraments and matrimony were paramount. Until the post - Vatican II period a knowledge of canon law was the chief prerequisite for ecclesiastical advancement.

The Cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary

At the Council of Ephesus (431) Mary was declared to be the Mother of God (Theotokos) and not only the mother of Christ (Christotokos). This gave an impetus to Marian devotion and by the seventh century four Marian feasts were being observed in Rome: the annunciation, the purification, the assumption, and the nativity of Mary. To these feasts the Eastern churches added the feast of the conception of Mary at the end of the same century. Bernard of Clairvaux influenced Mariology decisively by arguing that while Christ is our mediator he is also our judge, and that therefore we need a mediator with the mediator, so that in popular devotion the merciful Mary was contrasted with the fierce Christ. Marian devotion blossomed between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. The rosary (three groups of fifty Hail Marys counted on beads) was in popular use by the twelfth century and the angelus also appeared (the recitation of prayers to Mary, morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of a bell).

In 1854, following another revival of Marian spirituality, Pius IX promulgated the dogma of the immaculate conception, that Mary was free from original sin from the moment of her conception. In 1950 Pius XII defined the dogma of bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary, that on her death she was preserved from "the corruption of the tomb" and was "raised body and soul to the glory of heaven, to shine refulgent as Queen at the right hand of her Son."

Since Vatican II Catholic scholars have questioned if denial of these two Marian dogmas means exclusion from the Catholic Church, since that denial must be "culpable, obstinate, and externally manifested." Vatican II also tended to disassociate Mariology from Christology, thus removing an emphasis on her involvement in our redemption and attaching her to ecclesiology, so that Mary is seen rather as the type, model, mother, and preeminent member of the church.

Revelation

The Council of Trent declared tradition to be equally authoritative with Scripture and the definitive interpretation of both to be the preserve of the church. In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Vatican II sought to remove the sharp distinction perceived by Protestants between Scripture and tradition by defining tradition as the successive interpretations of the Scriptures given by the church throughout the ages. That the church somehow stood above both sources of revelation was specifically denied: "This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it... It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the Church... are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others."

The failure of post - Vatican II Catholicism to give a clear preeminence to the Bible leaves some Protestants dissatisfied, but there is no doubt that the scholarly and popular study of the Bible by Roman Catholics has increased markedly since 1965. Roman Catholicism is no longer simply reacting and polemical, devoted to defending truth through the condemnation of error. It is now an innovative and irenical movement, more devoted to illustrating the Christian faith than defining it.

F S Piggin

(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
W M Abbott and J Gallagher, eds., the Documents of Vatican II; L Boettner, Roman Catholicism; A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults; G Daly, Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism; J Delumeau, Catholicism Between Luther and Voltaire; J P Dolan, Catholicism: An Historical Survey; J D Holmes, The Triumph of the Holy See; P Hughes, A Short History of the Catholic Church; B Kloppenberg, The Eclesiology of Vatican II; R Lawler, D W Wuerl, and T C Lawler, eds., The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults; R P McBrien, Catholicism.

Also, see:
Sacraments
Popes
Papacy

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