Why Catholic Church is better than the term Roman Catholic Church.

[Orionthehunter]

Teflon,

You’re just proving our point with your little flourish about naming Christ’s “Bride” correctly. The question at issue is whether the Bride of Christ subsists fully and uniquely among those particular churches in communion with the See of Rome. The word “Catholic” cannot be used without qualification in such a debate, because using it concedes the point from the beginning. It’s hard to suppress the suspicion that this is exactly what you and Manny want us to do–you are trying to win by a linguistic shortcut, and all your PC rhetoric and appeals to respect the Eastern Churches look like a smokescreen.

I routinely use the word “Catholic” for your Communion without qualification when the context will not cause confusion. And I avoid using “Roman Catholic” without scare quotes or some other qualification when speaking of your Communion as a whole. Manny took offense to a post in which I had used scare quotes and had explicitly acknowledged the limitations of the term. There is simply no pleasing you guys. You scent an easy rhetorical advantage and you won’t give it up. You can waste all our time with this if you want to, but you can’t ask us to respect you for it.

Edwin

Edwin, your points is well taken. There is a disagreement among the Christian faiths with regard to the theological place of the Catholic Church and whether the term catholic applies. But the essence of my argument is with regard to the name of our religion. All I’m saying is that we are the Catholic Church when speaking about us in total and our members are Catholics. The fact that we are all Christians makes us all catholic.

To be sure there is no confusion. The fact we get to use the capital letter is not an indication of superiority but only conventional grammar rules with regard to proper names.

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon,

You’re just proving our point with your little flourish about naming Christ’s “Bride” correctly. The question at issue is whether the Bride of Christ subsists fully and uniquely among those particular churches in communion with the See of Rome. The word “Catholic” cannot be used without qualification in such a debate, because using it concedes the point from the beginning. It’s hard to suppress the suspicion that this is exactly what you and Manny want us to do–you are trying to win by a linguistic shortcut, and all your PC rhetoric and appeals to respect the Eastern Churches look like a smokescreen.

I routinely use the word “Catholic” for your Communion without qualification when the context will not cause confusion. And I avoid using “Roman Catholic” without scare quotes or some other qualification when speaking of your Communion as a whole. Manny took offense to a post in which I had used scare quotes and had explicitly acknowledged the limitations of the term. There is simply no pleasing you guys. You scent an easy rhetorical advantage and you won’t give it up. You can waste all our time with this if you want to, but you can’t ask us to respect you for it.

Edwin

Your lack of charity rares its ugly head again, Edwin.

Why should I call you an Episcopalian when you don’t have valid bishops?

If I used your rationale, not only would I not call you an Episcopalian, but would need to come up with new names for Pentecostals (they were way late for Pentecost), Baptists (since they don’t baptize infants as the apostles did), Orthodox (since they’re in fact heterodox), etc.

The term for the group of those in communion with Pope Benedict XVI is Catholics. If more precision is required, reference the rite—Eastern Rite Catholics, Latin Rite Catholics, and so on. That happens to be perfectly pleasing to “us guys” because it’s accurate and not intended as a slur by people seeking to justify their denomination’s claims to be the Bride of Christ despite being over a millennium late to the wedding.

As for whom you respect or do not, frankly I couldn;t care less. I am a Catholic convert; I take no pride in recognizing the Truth, but some shame in refusing to recognize it for so long. The Truth is the Truth; it was there before us, and will be there long after we’re gone. Mere opinions, no matter how one may value one’s own, matters not at all. Truth is Truth.

 

[Michael_Francis]

Thanks to all who participated in this discussion.
This thread is now closed.