The
word Catholic comes from the Greek katholikos, the combination of two Greek
words: kata, which means concerning, and holos,
which means whole – concerning
the whole; sometimes it is also translated to mean, universal.
The
word “catholic,” was first used in the earliest writings of Saint
Ignatius of Antioch in 107 AD,
only
a few decades after the Gospel of John was written in 90 AD. Saint Ignatius
was sentenced to death by lions in the Roman Coliseum. As he was being escorted
to Rome he wrote a famous series of letters to different Churches.
In his letter to the Church at Smyrna, ch. 8.2 he wrote;
“Let no man do anything connected with the
Church without the bishop. The celebration of the Eucharist is valid only if it
is administered by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Where the
bishop is, there let the people also be; just as where Jesus Christ is, there
is the Catholic Church.”
(The
Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their Writings, 2nd. ed., The Letters of Ignatius, To
the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 8.2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 189
& 191.
The fact that Saint
Ignatius uses the word “catholic” without explaining what he
meant has lead scholars to believe that the appellation, Catholic
Church, may have been in use as early as the second half of
the first century. Since
the time Saint Ignatius used the word “Catholic” and, most probably, well
before that, the term Catholic has been used to distinguish between the Church
that Jesus established – the universal Church – from the splinter groups
that have broken away. It
is true that we can read in the Acts of the Apostles that the early followers
of Christ at Antioch became known as "Christians"
(cf. Acts 11:26).However, in the New Testament, the name Christian was never
commonly applied to the Church herself, it is simply called "the Church." There was only
one Church. In that early time there were not yet any break-away bodies substantial enough to be rival claimants of the
name and from which the Church might ever have to distinguish itself. However,
during the early period in post-apostolic times, the Church did acquire a proper name-and
precisely in order to distinguish
itself from rival bodies which by then were already beginning to form. And
the name that the Church acquired when it became necessary for it to have a
proper name was the name by which she has been known ever since-the
Catholic Church.
Moreover,
mention of the name Catholic Church became more and more frequent in the
written record. It appears in the oldest written account we possess outside the
New Testament of the martyrdom of a Christian for his faith, the "Martyrdom
of Saint Polycarp," bishop of the same Church of Smyrna to which
St. Ignatius of Antioch had written. Saint Polycarp was martyred around 155 AD,
and the account of his sufferings dates back to that time. The narrator informs
us that in his final prayers before giving up his life for Jesus Christ, Saint
Polycarp "remembered all who had met with him at any time, both small and
great, both those with and those without renown, and the whole Catholic
Church throughout the world."
We know that Saint Polycarp, at the time of his death in 155 AD, had been a Christian for 86 years. He could
not, therefore, have been born much later than 69 or 70. Yet it appears
to have been a normal part of the vocabulary of a man of this era to be able to
speak of "the whole Catholic
Church throughout the world."
We
would like to reiterate that the term "catholic"
simply means "universal,"
and when employing it in those early days, Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint
Polycarp of Smyrna were referring to the Church that was already "everywhere,"
as distinguished from whatever sects, schisms or splinter groups might have
grown up here and there, in opposition to the Catholic Church. The term was
already understood even then to be an especially fitting name because the
Catholic Church was for everyone, not just for adepts, enthusiasts or the
specially initiated who might have been attracted to her. Again, it was already
understood that the Church was "catholic" because she
possessed the fullness of the means of salvation. She also was destined to be
"universal" in time as well as in space, and it was to her
that applied the promise of Christ to Peter and the other apostles that "the
powers of death shall not prevail" against her (Mt 16:18).
So
the name Catholic became attached to the Church for good. By the time of the
first ecumenical council of the Church, held at Nicaea in Asia Minor in
the year 325 A.D., the bishops of that council were legislating quite
naturally in the name of the universal body they called in the Council
of Nicaea's official documents "the Catholic Church." As most people know, it was that
same council which formulated the basic Creed in which the term "catholic"
was retained as one of the four marks of the true Church of Christ. And it is
the same name which is to be found in all 16 documents of the twenty-first
ecumenical council of the Church, Vatican Council II. In the Creed which we
recite on Sundays and holy days speaks of one, holy, catholic and apostolic
Church. As everybody knows, however, the Church referred to in this Creed is
more commonly called just the Catholic Church.
"The
Church is catholic because she proclaims the fullness of the faith. She bears
in herself and administers the totality of the means of salvation. She is sent
out to all peoples. She speaks to all men. She encompasses all times. She is
'missionary of her very nature." (“The Catechism of the Catholic Church”, no. 868).
