Catholic — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Of the Western Christian church, as differentiated from e.g. the Orthodox church.

   Broader terms

   Christian

   Examples

   Christmas is celebrated at different dates in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars.

   More examples (1)

   Who or what is a Catholic? This Greek word has become one of the chief battlegrounds in western Latin Christianity, for it is used in different ways which outside observers of Christian foibles find thoroughly confusing. The word ‘Catholic’ is the linguistic equivalent of a Russian doll. It may describe the whole Christian Church founded two thousand years ago in Palestine, or the western half of the Church which split from mainstream eastern Christianity a thousand years ago, or that part of the western half which remained loyal to the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) after the sixteenth century, or a Protestant European Christian who thought that the Bishop of Rome was Antichrist, or a modern ‘Anglo-Catholic’ faction within the Anglican Communion. How can the word describe all of these things and still have any meaning? I have written this book about the sixteenth-century Reformation in part to answer that question. The Reformation introduced many more complications to the word; in fact there were very many different Reformations, nearly all of which would have said that they were simply aimed at recreating authentic Catholic Christianity. For simplicity’s sake I will take for granted that this book examines multiple Reformations, some of which were directed by the Pope. From now on I will continue to use the shorthand term ‘Reformation’, but readers should therefore note that this is often intended to embrace both Protestantism and the religious movements commonly known as Tridentine Catholicism, the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation: the revitalized part of the old Church which remained loyal to the Pope. ’Catholic’ is clearly a word which a lot of people want to possess. By contrast, it is remarkable how many religious labels started life as a sneer: the Reformation was full of angry words.

2. Of the Western Christian church, as differentiated from e.g. the Orthodox church. Of the Roman Catholic church in particular.

   Examples

   The Church of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic one.

   Catholic churches are adorned differently from Protestant ones.

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   A 2017 yearbook photograph obtained by CNN shows Robert Westman, later known as Robin Westman, then a student at Annunciation Catholic grade school in Minneapolis.

Noun

1. A member of a Catholic (western Christian) church.

   Broader terms

   Christianreligionistperson

2. A member of a Catholic (western Christian) church. A member of the Roman Catholic Church (which is also elliptically called the Catholic Church).

   Usage

   • ellipsis
   • often

   Synonyms

   Roman Catholic

   Examples

   The wife of the Prime Minister is a Catholic.

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   The consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any certain rule of faith.

Proper noun

1. A surname.

Adjective

1. of or relating to or supporting Catholicism

   Examples

   the Catholic Church

Noun

1. a member of a Catholic church

   Broader terms

   Christian