Here is a concise Q & A on your concern about Catholics referring to themselves as “Catholic” vs. “Christian”. In the earliest days of the Catholic Church (what Protestants call the “early Church”)
all Christians were Catholics.
**catholic /christian **
Question from mandy on 3/17/2005: ewtn.com/images/printer.gif
I was wondering why when speaking with catholics that they do not refer to themselves as christians but call them selves catholics instead, aren’t both one in the same?
Answer by Catholic Answers on 3/26/2005:
Dear Mandy, Catholics were the first Christians. For Catholics “Christian” has come to include all those who have been baptized, including many who do not accept all of the deposit of the faith. For us, to be a Catholic is to accept all of the teachings of the early Church. Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
If you do not believe that Luther created a new religion, the Ignatian letters are wonderful proof that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Christ:
(from New Advent)
Contents of the letters It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of the testimony which the Ignatian letters offer to the dogmatic character of Apostolic Christianity. The martyred Bishop of Antioch constitutes a most important link between the Apostles and the Fathers of the early Church. **Receiving from the Apostles themselves, whose auditor he was, not only the substance of revelation, but also their own inspired interpretation of it; dwelling, as it were, at the very fountain-head of Gospel truth, his testimony must necessarily carry with it the greatest weight and demand the most serious consideration. **Cardinal Newman did not exaggerate the matter when he said (“The Theology of the Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius”, in “Historical Sketches”, I, London, 1890) that “the whole system of Catholic doctrine may be discovered, at least in outline, not to say in parts filled up, in the course of his seven epistles”.
Which of the following elements of the early Church that were documented by St. Ignatius of Antioch that are still found in the Catholic Church are part of the faith system of different Protestant interpretations of Christianity?
Among the many Catholic doctrines to be found in the letters are the following:
the Church was Divinely established as a visible society, the salvation of souls is its end, and those who separate themselves from it cut themselves off from God(Philad., c. iii);
the hierarchy of the Church was instituted by Christ (lntrod. to Philad.; Ephes., c. vi);
the threefold character of the hierarchy (Magn., c. vi);
the order of the episcopacy superior by Divine authority to that of the priesthood (Magn., c. vi, c. xiii; Smyrn., c. viii;. Trall., .c. iii);
the unity of the Church (Trall., c. vi;Philad., c. iii; Magn., c. xiii);
the holiness of the Church (Smyrn., Ephes., Magn., Trall., and Rom.);
the catholicity of the Church (Smyrn., c. viii);
the infallibility of the Church(Philad., c. iii; Ephes., cc. xvi, xvii);
the doctrine of the Eucharist (Smyrn., c. viii), which word we find for the first time applied to the Blessed Sacrament, just as in Smyrn., viii,
we meet for the first time the phrase “Catholic Church”, used to designate all Christians**; the Incarnation** (Ephes., c. xviii);
the supernatural virtue of virginity, already much esteemed and made the subject of a vow (Polyc., c. v); the religious character of matrimony (Polyc., c. v); the value of united prayer (Ephes., c. xiii); **the primacy of the See of Rome **(Rom., introd.).
He, moreover,
denounces in principle the Protestant doctrine of private judgment in matters’ of religion (Philad. c. iii), The heresy against which he chiefly inveighs is Docetism. Neither do the Judaizing heresies escape his vigorous condemnation.
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